z

Young Writers Society


12+ Mature Content

Chapter 1-Cry Baby

by graphiteshimmer


“Yeah, I’m okay.”

People ask me all the time, and I always say I’m okay, when really I just want to keep people off my case. It doesn’t make me feel any better. It doesn’t change anything. Every time someone says “What’s wrong?” I just feel worse and worse. Their poking and prodding just has an opposite effect. It’s a vicious cycle, one that doesn’t seem to end.

They call me crybaby, but I don’t even care. I’ve gotten used to being called emotional. Eventually they’ll say I’m overreacting. They’ll call me dramatic. Attention whore. As if they know my life. They will never know what’s behind my skull.* They don’t know what’s going on at home. I’m sick of people assuming things about me.

It seems like no matter what I go through, I’m still sensitive. An outsider looking in would say I’ve never been through anything. I suppose they’d be right. There are kids that go through more than I could imagine. Kids who are dying of cancer, or put in foster care. My life could be so much worse. I just don’t look at it that way. You can call me ungrateful, but other people’s struggles don’t lessen the intensity of mine. It’s all just perspective. I’d be a ghost in the hallways at school, silently wandering past people unnoticed. Sometimes they would say things like “Why are you depressed all the time?” The truth is, I don’t know. You don’t ever hear them say “Why do you have cancer?” to someone in the hospital, or “Why do you have a cold? You’ve no reason to have one.” Do I really need a reason? Do I have to justify my every feeling?

People tell me to suck it up, that my heart’s too big for my body. I care too much. I wish I didn’t care all the time.** Believe me, I wish. I’d kill to wake up with no emotions. To just shrug it off and quit letting every little thing fill my mind with negative thoughts. People can watch children die without shedding a tear, while it takes the most insignificant thing to set me off.

Everyone is set on curing me. Everyone just wants to make it all better. They’ll take the blades, they’ll do body checks, they’ll check the journals, they’ll supervise my every move. They’ll force me to go to therapy, as if talking about my problems with a random stranger will make them go away. They’ll prescribe every drug in the book. There’s still something missing. I can feel it. My parents aren’t solving the problem, they’re doing what everyone else does about depression. Keep them safe. That’s all that matters. Right?

I really hate being safe.*** It feels like I’m being watched all the time, concerned citizens who want to make sure I survive. I’m sick of surviving. I just want to live. I want people to stop seeing me as the basket case on the verge of suicide and start treating me like a person. It just gets worse and worse, a downward spiral that only affects me. Watch them all the time. Make sure they never feel normal. Don’t bother respecting privacy. If parents checked rooms regularly, school shootings would never happen, right? Privacy is nowhere near as important as safety. As long as she’s safe, we’re being good parents. I feel so cut off from everyone else. There’s the normal kids, and there’s me.

When my parents decided to take all of these “safety precautions,” I started rebelling. Psycho or not, I should still have rights. Right? So I spend a lot of time home alone due to their work schedules. So I go into their room and “check” everything they own. If I can’t have privacy, why should they? I’d went through my dad’s phone at one point and found some questionable people in his contacts at one point. He might be able to send me away, he can ruin my life, but I can ruin his marriage. They’re trying to control me, so I’m controlling them. That’s just what they deserve. I don’t care that they’re the adults and I should be submissive. They shouldn’t be meddling in my life. What goes around comes around, right?

One day I had gotten in trouble for something and my father had said, “I just don’t know what we’re going to do with you! I swear, this family would be so much better off if it wasn’t for all your drama. One more thing, and you’re going to a mental institution. I’m not putting up with any more.”

I was ready to pack my bags and go to that mental institution, until I started wondering why. What’s the point of going on if everything just keeps getting worse? There’s no point in looking forward to the future. It’s not like I’ll ever be a songwriter. If my only dream is impossible, and going on is oppressive, I should just end it. I’m done. No more tears.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while, but tonight I’m finally certain this is what I want. This is what I need. I need a way out, and this seems to be the only way.

I didn’t ask for depression, but now I’m asking for death.

I walked in the kitchen and got a two-liter of Sprite from the fridge. It was dead silent, forcing me to think. I don’t want to think. I can’t rethink this decision. There’s no hope. No reason to hesitate. I turned my focus towards the medicine cabinet, grabbing every bottle I could reach. Surely eight would be enough. I don’t want to feel my death. I turned on my favorite album, turned all the lights off except my bedside lamp, and settled into bed. With the Sprite in one hand and a random bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet in the other, I took my first pill. After that, I felt so powerful. Like, I could die right now, and I have control over that. It’s nice to have control over me for once. No one is telling me to do this. No one is here to stop me.

I took pill after pill, sipping Sprite in between. I mixed and matched, taking a few from different bottles. This was like a game. I dumped them all out, and observed the pile of different-colored capsules next to me. I let them run through my fingers. It felt so satisfying. I kept playing with them as if they were only marbles or beads. This was strangely fun. Completely psychotic fun, but fun, nonetheless.

Listening to the music and playing with the pills, I started feeling dizzy. My head started hurting like crazy. I laughed and told myself that meant it was working. I just swallowed more, then I realized how many people would miss me in the morning. How many people would pretend to miss me. All the people that wouldn’t care.

I’m laughing, I’m crying. It feels like I’m dying.****

I cried bitter tears, knowing they would be my last. I felt them roll down my cheeks as I took more pills. I wonder what would happen. How many people would miraculously appear at my funeral, despite not showing any interest in me while I was living.

I calmed down for a bit, thinking about what’ll happen from here. Would I go to heaven? Hell? Do they even exist? What if I regret this decision? Should I just call my mom and ask her to take me to the emergency room? No, it’s too late to do that. She’s at work

Soon my head hurt so much, I had to lie back on my pillow. I started shaking and knew this was it. The poison’s taking over. There’s no turning back. I’ll finally escape. I dropped the pills from my shaky hands and kept crying and wishing it could be over already.

Then, I blacked out.

*quote taken from Twenty One Pilots song "Anathema"

**quote taken from Melanie Martinez song "Play Date"

***quote taken from Melanie Martinez song "Mad Hatter"

****quote taken from Melanie Martinez song "Pity Party"


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Thu Sep 07, 2017 11:06 am
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PastelSlushie wrote a review...



Hello, graphiteshimmer, PastelSlushie here for review number 10 for #RevMo ! Let's get right into it!

The first thing I feel needs to be addressed is the lack of warning. There is no 18/16+ or a trigger warning. I would suggest to add one or the other, beside something as triggering as this without a warning could lead to something serious, such as a relapse or something of that sort.

On to the story itself, I feel this handles depression a bit well. It has the "why are you sad?"!and the "you have everything going for you." people here, which is actually common in my life., and many others as well. Is how's some actual symptoms that can be found from depression, it really shows how someone with depression feels. Good job.

The last thing I would like to point out is your use of bold and asterisks. While one on side it has a nice touch to the story and represents how the main character feels, on the other side it's very distracting from the rest of the piece and that was the first thing that my eye caught and I immediately went there, which isn't a good thing because I drifted off and started to read from there, and not from the beginning.

And a little note at the end, I will say I kind of knew what was going to happen. While this is an emotional and deep story, the plot you chose is a bit overused. I've read story after story about stuff like this, and I've become quite instant to sort of know what will happen. My suggestion would to maybe have a little twist on it, maybe have one of her parents come home?

Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions or disagree with anything in my review. Best of luck in your future pieces,

Pastel




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Sat Sep 02, 2017 11:12 pm
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erilea wrote a review...



Hey, graphiteshimmer! Lupa here for a RevMo review. :) Let's get to it.

1) This is a pretty powerful message, but it's been done plenty of times. There's actually a lot of works about depression/suicidal tendencies, and in order to make this stand out, a special detail would have to be added. For example, maybe the narrator can't keep up in school and her teachers and parents make her feel stupid. Maybe her "friend" is spreading rumors about her, but she can't do anything about it. We're given this depressed character and how she decided to kill herself, but no reason behind it.

2) I'm going to assume that the narrator died from overdose at the end of the chapter. It's basically impossible to survive if you take that many pills. If so, I'm not sure how you're going to continue the story, as the main character is dead by now. What's going to happen after this? Is there going to be a different narrator in chapter 2? It's jarring to switch perspectives, especially in first person. Instead of making the main character die, maybe have a parent/sibling stop them from taking so many pills. If you have the narrator die, the story won't be able to be continued as effectively.

Well, there you have it! I really did enjoy reading this story, and I think the song quotes were a nice touch. (If you're going to do that for the rest of the chapters, that's impressive. :D) I hope to see more from you. Keep writing!

XOX,
Lupa22






I'm about to post the second chapter. The main character didn't die, she went into a coma.



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Sat Sep 02, 2017 3:16 pm
LaceeMorg4 says...



It's very interesting but I think it needs more detail, more describing to bring to a more understanding eye, other than that it is very well written!




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Sat Sep 02, 2017 2:41 pm
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Atticus wrote a review...



Hey there! MJ stopping by for a short review, courtesy of RevMo!

Their poking and prodding just has an opposite effect.
While I can take a good educated guess at what you mean here, you didn't really state directly what their effect was intended to be, so saying 'opposite effect' doesn't really have anything to compare to.

I feel so cut off from everyone else. There’s the normal kids, and there’s me.
This didn't really fit in with the theme of the rest of the paragraph, and it even contrasted a little bit. You talked about how that was an epidemic that seized the nation, but then the MC laments, in a way, about how she's different from the others. It seems like she's complaining that her parents care about her and everyone else is free, when she just made the entire previous paragraph speaking about how the majority of parents did that.

I also had some mixed feeling about your usage of the quotes and the asterisks. On one hand, it was a nice touch to incorporate some song lyrics to express how she feels, but on the other hand, it interrupted the plot a little bit and I didn't like the asterisks at the bottom.

I would also recommend putting a trigger warning at the top of this for mentions of suicide, suicidal thoughts, and depression, just so that people are aware that this talks about some sensitive content. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it's always better to include it and then let people decide for themselves if they're prepared to view it.

I can't really critique this, since this was a very powerful, sad, and emotional piece, but my biggest piece of advice is to change up the style if you wanted this to be a novel or novella, or even a short story. It was more of a monologue, and there was no dialogue-- the only place where people talked was when the MC talked about how they had talked, if that makes sense. I liked the narrative style of this, but it wasn't really a chapter, more like an article, essay, or a monologue.

Overall, I thought this was a really touching and seroius piece. I would recommend putting up some sort of warning, either by rating it 16 or 18+, or putting an Author's Note that this mentions suicide and depression. it was a really heartbreaking story, and I think that it was a great way to give us a glimpse into the thoughts of someone who struggles with depression. A lot of people say things like "Why are you depressed" or "you have so much to live for", and this is a great way to show them how somebody feels and how you can really help them. If you have any questions or just need to talk, I'm always available, so you can message me or just reply to this review/post something on my wall, and I'll do my best to help out! Thanks for sharing!
Best wishes,
MJ




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Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:47 pm
fukase says...



Don't bold them, italicized is better or don't quote at all (let the readers notice by themselves) or whatever you prefer. Good storytelling by the way.






Aww, thanks.
I would've used italics if I didn't also use them for her thoughts and another character that's being introduced in chapter 8. I still feel like it's good to give people credit



fukase says...


No problem. But I may give you a proper review later, just so lazy now. XD




Defeat has its lessons as well as victory.
— Pat Buchanan