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Post right after the jump

(t/w: suicide)

Once upon a time, in a distant era...I was a naïve teenager who believed that the power of friendship would trump every hardship in the world. 

This was my motto for the past few years, until that date happened....

I just offered my friends a ride back to school after a long day of being delegates for mock United Nations, but one word screwed everything up.

And what turned out to be a pretty average day became one of the worst days in my life.

I was suddenly shunned by the people whom I thought were friends, and it didn't help that I was assigned to a delegation where I barely knew anyone and was isolated for a week.

As the center of my life (read: my friends) crumbled away, so did my will to live. Out of despair, I cried in algebra class, hoping that my tears would move them to become my friends again.

That was a terrible mistake.

Now my friends think I'm a manipulative drama queen but I was unaware that , since I always believed that my friends would comfort me when I cry, but that wasn't the case for this one. It didn't help that they also posted a letter to me on our private FB group, telling me to act my age and grow up. But the worst one was when they asked me to be more like my older sister, as I was already insecure growing up with her, fearing that she would steal my friends away, this phrase drove me away from her.

Even if things got better between me and my sister as of this writing, this post was not just a stab in the heart-but a full assault on who I was.

And there, I realized that I couldn't catch up. I felt like a little kid, trapped in a teenage body who was suddenly dumped into a jungle where the rule is "eat or be eaten"

I really wished my high school friends would come and save me, but they couldn't. All of them were busy navigating their own jungle, leaving me all alone and confused.

After that spectacle, I lost my will to live as my friends continued to give me the cold shoulder and felt that life was no longer worth living. It was an ironic echo from my high school yearbook motto which was "A life without friends is worthless"

Worthless...

That was what I felt with life after that mess, and I really wanted to die if given the chance, but God had other plans.

As I was talking to my Gaia online clan mates in Skype, she noticed that I was suicidal and pm-ed me. This clannie then gave me a reason to continue living, even if things were painful. 

As things fell back into place once again, since Christmas was fast approaching. My friends and I eventually got together once again and things were okay again, but I didn't know that this will be a hollow victory as old lessons haunted me and my terrible social skills would once again rear its' ugly head between me and these friends of mine.

Although I brushed these criticisms aside, it was only later that I realized that I was stuck in the wrong crowd for the past three years and I just put up with it, because I couldn't get out.

But the problems don't end there, as the shadow of this incident continued to haunt all my subsequent relationships, I started to chase people who didn't want me, I wanted to fit in and be included, I forced myself to be "mature" but I lost myself in the process and started to put up walls just so no one can criticize me or tell me to grow up or something like that, because it would just remind me of how much I hate myself.

The worst part, the memories of November 9 continue to haunt me, it was only with God that I was finally set free from it all and realized that I was so far away from that harrowing experience. Although the wounds have healed, and I have distanced myself from the memories that were long gone, the scars still remain.

But instead of feeling ashamed, I realize now that they are a reminder that if I were gone, I could not imagine the pain that could have happened for those who I have left behind or for the people who I have yet to meet in the future.

Again, there is a reason why we live. 

We may feel that our existence is futile or that there is nothing to live for...

But we are not alone, for as long as we live, there is someone rooting for you.

There are people who want you to live, because they can see your worth-even if you do not know it. 

Maybe, you are that person who will light somebody else's life.

After all, you are worth it.