The Worst Thing I Have EVER Done

To other people that is.  I have done many horrible things to myself.

Not including girlfriends that I have dumped, some were horrible but that is so standard an ill that it does not bare mentioning.  No this is not your standard bad thing, but it is not rape.  I abhor rape.  I mean if there is a cute waitress at the local high class or low class restaurant I will not ask her for her phone number because I would not want to make her feel uncomfortable and awkward as she says no or thinks up a good 555 number to give me.  I won't hit on customers at work, I won't hit on strangers I think are cute.  There is a reason why I am still single.  Rape.  I will never rape anyone no matter how desperate I get, and I have been and I am very desperate.  But, I heard that the statistic on rape is very troubling.  Two thirds of all women have been sexually assaulted.  That is a very impressive number, scary.  I could not believe it so I started asking my friends and I asked people for only a little while and then I stopped.  I really did not want to know anymore.  As it stands the stat has been independently verified and I WILL never add to this number.

I did hit a woman once.  I was very very angry and I realized what I was doing as I started to do it, but I was very angry.  As soon as I realized that I was going to hit her I tried to stop; I failed, but I did manage to slow to the point that it was a very light slap.  But that is not the point, violence is not about the damage you cause but fear that it generates; when I am angry I am scary as only a big muscular three hundred pound person can be.  That was not the worst thing I have ever done.  That was an example of the damage that I cause to myself.  

I was arrested once.  I was charged with mischief.  Sounds mild, but it isn't.  Mischief is a criminal offense.  What did I do, I got angry of course.  Earlier I had told a co-worker that I loved her.  She was single I was single, we were great friends.  We talked on the phone for at least there hours a night, I was her girlfriend and she did not want that to change.  So I was frustrated I got off the bus and waited for the light to change and walked with the signal and after I had crossed half way, a car speeds to a stop so that if I had been a bit faster, it would have landed on his windshield.  Angry, because this was not the first near hit at this intersection, I tell the driver to move back, as his vehicle was covering the crosswalk.  He gives me the finger and his friends laugh, so I walk across his car.  I got charged.  His friends told the police that he stopped well behind the line and I stomped on their car.  Three against one, and there were foot prints half a dozen days in court before I can face my accuser, who actually did not show, I offer to pay the damages $1300, of which I am sure none were done, and the judge dismisses the case.  I was at the time doing an average of a thousand hours of volunteer work a year at the time.  Again I hurt myself there.

Suicide, again myself, I did not succeed.

The most terrible thing that I have done is care too much.  Hahaha that is silly.  Let me explain.  Caring is very dangerous.  Caring can make you do things that you would not have done otherwise.  Caring can lead you down the road of best intentions, it can lead you to Hell.  

I am an expert in many things, I am an expert for many reasons, mostly books and listening to the radio and other people.  I am an expert on depression because I have been depressed most of my life.  I am right now as depressed as I have ever been depressed and that is why I am willing to parade my faults out for all to see.  I worked in the school system, kids are kids and teachers and adults think the lives of children to be worry and depression free.  I remember my childhood, so I know the truth, my curse is that I cannot edit my memory of all the bad and just keep the good; I remember the mediocre too.  

There are warning signs that children are depressed, pay attention to the depressed children starting as soon as you see them particularly grade seven and older; they are the ones that kill themselves.  Here are the warning signs: drinking alcohol, sex, multiple body modifications, non cultural piercings and tattoos and lastly hair colour changes.  These are called collectively dangerous behaviors.  In themselves none of them are scary, really, but before age 13?  If you detect one, the others are more likely to be present.  And if more than one is present, depression is likely.  Depression is not something they talk about in the schools, it is not something that teachers know a lot about, but there are simple stages that can be taught that WILL save lives.  

I met this girl when she was twelve, she was not often associating with people her own age and she was spending her lunches alone.  She had dyed her hair black and I just said to myself, watch her.  I watched her.  This is good, it means that you can identify problems before they can become problems and head them off.  It is important that you tell someone too, so that you can have more objective people watching them too.  I told her homeroom teacher my suspicions.  He thought I was going to talk to him about her low cut shirts that she was always wearing, I had not noticed, half the teachers did the same and many of the students and all their role models in society, so who cares right.  So I told him that I thought she was depressed.  He likely dismissed my concerns.

I had previously been in contact with a former student from a different school  who had contacted me and was suicidal, I contacted her former teacher, my friend and I was told to maintain contact while they moved through the system to try to find her help. The success that I had, made me think that I could do the same here.  So I tried again.  We became school friends, age difference apparent, but nothing bad.  Smiles, pleasantries, polite conversation nothing deep.  A year and a half later I had learned a lot about her, she was fourteen now and it was the last day of school and she was headed to another school, high school and she realized that she was never going to see me again.  I had learned a lot about her, dyed hair, sneaking alcohol and on that last week she revealed the tongue piercing she had just got.  There was a chance meeting on the streets where she hugged me, I did not hug back, she had surprised me, but I would not have hugged her in any case.  And on this last day she asked for my email address.  I declined.  You don't do that sort of thing.  She persisted telling me that her other teachers had written their addresses on the board.  I wanted to keep her safe too. And so goes the slow decent into Hell.

Two people with few friends start talking, albeit on MSN three hours a day in a very boring summer can become quite close, especially when there is no reminder of how old people are.  And I perpetually fall for my friends.  It should. Be noted that the laws at this time were quite clear.  Having sex with a fourteen year old was okay.  Unless you had power over her, like a teacher or a police officer, I was not a teacher then.  I was never her teacher in any case.  If I had wanted to, I could have.  She was very willing and I loved her.  I told myself that she was too young and that if she still wanted me when she was older I would.  I wanted her, but I wanted to be loved too and did not think it was right.  I knew that when she was older she would not love me, that she would love other people instead.

And it happened, she will never love me again, and I still love her.  I will always love her.  But what i did was the worst thing I have ever done to someone.  I told her that I thought she was depressed.  It had never occurred to her.  Did she become depressed because I suggested it to her, or was she depressed to begin with, did she become self destructive because I pointed it out or because she was.  Did she love me because I loved her or because she would have anyways.  In many ways I messed up her life.  It was with the intention of making her life better.  A former girlfriend called the police on me, and they dragged her into the police station and interrogated her.  And she would not go near me again for fear that I would go to jail.  I was the worst thing in her life.  I am sure that at one point she was suicidal, I am sure I talked her down.  I told her the secret of suicide, the one they should teach in schools and i am sure that helped her.  But I still feel that I was an evil person and I hate myself for it.

The difference between a pedophile and a regular person is that a pedophile can not stop themselves.  I did stop myself.  So I am not one of those, but I wish I were because then I would know for sure I was a bad person.  And now I just think I am.  As I say there is no white in this world, there is no black; everything is gray.  

I want to die.  I want to die more than a want to live.