March 27, 2016
Ever wonder what it’s like to be trapped into something you cannot get out of? Sylvia Plath was trapped in a bell jar before she breathed carbon monoxide with her head shoved inside an oven. Ernest Hemingway was once an old man trapped in the middle of the sea before he shot himself. Kurt Cobain was trapped outside of his Nirvana before he shot himself. David Foster Wallace was trapped being the pale king before he hanged himself. As for me, I am nothing but a fossil–an amber fossil.
Everyone in this whole fucking world has someone to be there for them. My Little Pony’s Twilight Sparkle has her five best friends: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie and even her little dragon protege Spike. Sonic the Hedgehog has his girlfriend Amy Rose and his two friends Miles Tails Prower and Knuckles the Echidna in his SEGA game series. Even Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear–from We Bare Bears–have only each other despite they’re just three different adopted brothers who are trying to fit in with others. What does this have to do with being trapped inside a fossil? While everyone has friends, close siblings and romantic partners in their lives, I have no one. I’ve been living in a life where I am trapped in isolation and I can’t seem to get out of it.
I did try to make friends before. It turns out that they were not my friends at all. I have been stepping into their shadows every time we–I mean, they–socialize during school days. I try my best to fit in but all they do is ignore me and treat me as if I’m nothing but the air. What’s the point of having “friends” if all they do is ignore you and treat you like shit? The minute you make acquaintance with them and soon you are nothing but fucking air to them. That has happened to me every day all the way from elementary school to high school. What I was trying to say is I never had any friends growing up. It turned out they never liked–they hated–me all this time. For many years, I’ve been putting myself into deep loneliness and isolation from the society.
My glass heart becomes shattered into many shards when I found out that everyone hates me. All of my classmates hate me, all of my “friends” hate me, several of my teachers hate me, and even my ex-best friend from my childhood. Not only they hate me, they were abusive towards me. I remember when in elementary school, I had almost the entire classroom abusing the shit out of me for no reason. Was it because I was a selective mute? Was it because I was a little Chinese girl who had a hard time speaking up for herself with what she has gone through back at home? Nobody knows. Even my teachers were abusive towards me. One first grade teacher yelled and called me “bitch” at me just for trying my hardest; she screamed and called me “retarded” right in front of my classmates; and she even physically harmed me somewhere on my head and arms. I’ve had “other teachers” who were so emotionally abusive towards me, that I developed a fear of coming to school. I couldn’t speak up and I couldn’t report them. Can you imagine one teacher throwing my notebook and papers off my desk in rage over one fucking wrong answer?
As for the abusive peers, I was bullied by the majority of my classmates inside of class and outside of class. I remember how much shit they put me through. They vandalized my assignments, they push me down the stairs, they even dump cafeteria food on me in lunchtime, and they even went too far into discriminating me for being Asian. To make matters worse: none of my teachers were there to save me! Every time I fell on the floor, no one wanted to help me up. Every time I try to find a seat in the lunchroom, they would either get up or kick me out. Every time I want to join a certain recess or gym activity, they would kick me out. I wasn’t audacious enough to retaliate or stand up for myself. Instead, I would hide in the girls’ bathrooms to escape from all of my bullies–despite someone wrote “Nicole is a Bitch” in permanent marker on one of the toilet stalls. Most of the time, I have a feeling that the peers who hate me are forcing others to not be friends with me at all. I get the sense that they’re intentionally making me feel alone.
I want to talk about my childhood best friend Stephanie who suddenly became abusive towards me in high school. Growing up since the fourth grade, we had a great bonding with one another. We were two peas in a pod all the way from elementary school until high school and our link has never broken apart. Sadly I ended our friendship as soon as we reached to our graduating year in high school. Throughout our high school years, she became so manipulative, stubborn, impatient and even hanged out with the wrong type of people. She was so verbally and emotionally abusive towards me from yelling at me over small things to treating me like I’m dumb even though she’s the dumb one. That stupid fucking bitch Stephanie would yell at me as she forces me to walk to school with her despite I don’t even have the same time schedule as her. She even made several threats against me, such as pushing me down the train tracks and stabbing me in the eye with her pens for no reason at all. She would even talk shit about me behind my back with other of her friends… despite we were standing right next to each other; I tried walking away from that though she kept standing next to me with her friends just to hurt me. Stephanie was also very betrayal when we go to school in the mornings; can you imagine her leaving me out alone from the crowded bus in the heavy rain and hanging out with her other friends that I have no idea why she dragged me there for if I never knew them? She just simply abandoned me in the dirt. After several years together, I realized how very bullshit my relationship with Stephanie has become; in addition to her hanging out with the wrong type of people that can get her into trouble and then becoming a terrible influence against her parents’ wishes. My realization made me come into conclusion that it’s best if I don’t speak to her ever again. Ever since I enrolled to St. Francis College, I lost contact with her. Not to mention, she’s a complete idiot who went into a two-year community college which I don’t approve of at all.
Aside with being abused and victimized by classmates, peers, teachers and ex-best friend, I also suffered through victimization by family members at home. My cousins were the most abusive towards me. Back then they have assaulted me both physically and emotionally. They have put me through a lot of hell whenever they come over to visit when I was a child. I get hit in the head, I get screamed and cursed at, one of them pulled me down the stairs and I nearly broke my leg or maybe my arm, and I was once locked inside the closet as I screamed, cried and banged on the door to get out up to no avail. There are a couple of cousins who are still abusive towards me today and I’m currently estranging myself from them to avoid their horrid mess. Both verbally abuse me all the time; they yell at me for no reason and whenever that happens, I cry. One–her name is Lauren–steals from me and she screams and harms me multiple times whenever she visits my home on family gatherings (I really abhor Lauren and I wish her parents would disown her. I also hope that she becomes homeless out on the streets with nothing in her hands). I didn’t have the audacity to admit this to my parents until I finally came clean about it to my mother. It’s personally best if I estrange from certain relatives whom I find really abusive towards me.
Every time I think about these horrid incidents, I feel as if they are fossilized and there is no way for me to escape from the solid stone amber. All of the abuse I went through led to my depression. It’s not just the abuse, it was also the lack of love I suffer through every day. With no friends at all, I suffer from the lack of being in a relationship (I BETTER NOT HEAR ANYONE WHO HAS ANY BOYFRIENDS OR GIRLFRIENDS!). I was in a relationship once; his name is Andres and we met in our sophomore year in St. Francis College in our history class. We were only dating for about half a year and I thought he was meant for me. By the time of our breakup, Andres told me that he’s dating someone else via text. He left me for somebody without even telling me at first. When I heard this… I immediately became suicidal. I was so deeply heartbroken, I wanted to kill myself.
That wasn’t the first time though. For many years, I have been feeling suicidal because I feel as if no one in this world likes me and they all hate me. I feel as if I’m some sort of mistake when being born. Most of the time, I wish that I was never even born. During my suicidal ideations, I have performed self-injury since I was in high school. It started off with paperclips, then shaving razors and now nail scissors. It was hard for me to hide the scars on my cut wrists. I wore numerous fingerless gloves to school and wearing long sleeves and jackets to hide them every day and still, my scars and cuts were still perceivable to my classmates. Last semester and the semester before, I secretly brought razors and a pair of nail scissors with me in case I needed them. Every time I see something that reminds me of NOT being in a romantic relationship (yes, I despise being single), NOT having any friends at all, and whenever someone yells at me over something that it wasn’t even my fault… I would hide myself–and you know the rest. At this time, I may have stopped cutting myself and all of my sharp objects are gone. Still, whenever I stare at my marks from my previous self-mutilation, I would cry and think about what my parents would think. I wouldn’t want my loved ones to think that I’m suicidal and I really don’t want to go back “there” (despite my suicidal ideations and tendencies). I went too far into abusing myself into alcohol and aspirin pills at my late teens. Whenever I feel depressed and didn’t want to cut, I would drink many glasses of wine to get rid of it all. I admit it; I was an underage alcoholic. In addition, I used to intentionally starve myself because I was so insecure about my body and I had a deep abhorrence for food.
Getting back, ever since Andres broke up with me in a horrid way, I still have a hard time finding my Prince Charming. I feel entirely hopeless and I feel I won’t find someone who will return our mutual feelings before the last leaf falls. The more I think about this–AND THE MORE I SEE COUPLES DOING PDA–I get suicidal and depressed. I feel really invisible every day and I do know that nobody in this fucking world would want to date or hang out with an Asian girl who has nothing but distress and agony in her dark brown eyes.
Depression is really not easy to overcome, especially when I get all of these suicidal thoughts along with being in deep isolation, cutting myself, drinking alcohol, abusing aspirins and starving myself to stay thin. As I become an amber fossil, I feel I am trapped within all of the most distressing events I’ve gone through and I couldn’t find any escape at all. I feel as if my haunted past will remain permanent and always an unwanted artifact to my mind. Whenever I see a fossil in a tree, I think of myself. I’m frozen albeit at the same time broken.
“I cannot move; I cannot escape. An eternity of suffering fate. The past is haunting me. Imprisoned within the Devil’s tree. Forever frozen in a stone. Already broken; I’m all alone. I can see the large cracks. It came from my previous attacks. I was attacked by my predators. All were intruding, unwanted visitors. I am weak and vulnerable. They are angrily uncontrollable. They locked me inside the knothole. My punishment with no control. Screaming for help yet there’s no one. No one to save me from what’s done. All my predators are full of harm. They devour me out of the alarm. Blood escapes from my body. So much blood as I’m disembodied. I am unable to fight back. Too weak and injured to attack. Always running away with no trace. Isolating with blood and tears on my face. Lost and forever into the abyss. I am concealing within the mist. The hollow is my only sanctuary. In the tree in the middle of the cemetery. This is my new home now. All by myself; nobody’s allowed. Though the past remains haunted. Bleeding memories are unwanted. The carmine tree sap reveals. Then dries up as it heals. Haunted memories lost my mind. Unwanted past and voices combine. Forever staying all alone. Until I turn into solid stone. I might be found someday. But I’ll still be lost and decayed. I may become a precious jewel. But deep inside, I’ll be cruel. The memories are permanent. Eternally trapped; it’s not evanescent. Keep haunting me until I die. There’s no way memories can say goodbye. The predators will stay in my vision. Me, the prey in a fallen position. There is no escape for me. Forced to stay in melancholy. The cracks on my stone will haunt me. Until I die, the abuse will want me. I have no guardian angels. Just let Death take me away; it’s painful. Forever trapped within the stone. For eternity, I am all alone. I am a hopeless prey. A prey in many colors of gray. How will I leave this agony? Nothing; I’m frozen in my own tragedy. Forever paralyzed. Forever traumatized.”
-Written by Nicole Cheng