Keep Fighting

• Emily Dawson, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2015

Thick air surrounded me, fog so heavy that I couldn’t see. It’s like that every day for me, so much hatred that I feel like I am drowning in it. My parents have made me see many doctors, but none of them help. The school counsellor gave up on me, as I was too difficult a patient. It is not my fault I am like this, I was not born with it, and I did not catch it from somebody. It is just what it is.
People used to joke around with their friends and say I was contagious, eventually people started to believe them and everybody ran as far away as they could from me. Teachers had to start telling students what I had and what was wrong with me. They had to explain that I wasn’t contagious and that I am perfectly normal. But why would they believe them? The bullying got worse and more and more rumours spread.
My head kept telling me I was fat and ugly, and that I didn’t fit in this world. My parents grew more concerned by the day and I could feel my life slipping through my fingers. I had moved schools and it ended up worse off for me; bullies far worse than the originals started to attack me. I was shutting down, I couldn’t handle it, and I couldn’t handle myself.
I had stopped attending school and never left my room. Bullying online continued, I read every message they sent, even though I wasn’t at the school anymore. I had stopped eating and was diagnosed with anorexia, and I cut myself with anything pointy. I hate myself, I hate my life and I hate everything and everyone.
More and more doctors’ appointments came. They treated me as if I was sick, like I had caught the flu. No one understood me. I was travelling to different states and my parents were even considering taking me overseas to get help. Wherever they took me, it was the same; the same diagnoses, the same treatment and the same old, “You’ll be better before you know it.”
I had almost given up on my life. I was preparing to end my life and that’s when my mum drove me to a school. I walked in there; it seemed like an average school, with average students. A lady took us to a room and in that room was a group of teenagers the same age as me sitting in a circle. My mum and the lady left and I was stuck in a room with them. I sat down and everyone was talking. I eventually joined in the conversation and I soon realised that the teenagers in this room were all either dealing with depression, or that they once had it. I started to attend that school and before I knew it, I began to like myself. There is always hope, so just hold on and keep fighting, it’s worth it.