Hi, i'm Kevin and i'm 20 years old.

I've never really shared me most inner feelings with anyone before, but its starting to get a little too much for me to take!

My story might sound a little unworthy of support, but here goes nothing. A few years back when i started high school i started asking more questions about the way i felt and why it was that way, i spent days on my own, just me and my music. I never quite fit in with the "cool' people even though i called them "friends', i was the loner listening to his music in the corner and minding his own business. I never understood why people couldn't just leave me alone like i wanted them to, the would walk by and shove me and pull out my earphones calling me devil worshiper(cause i listen to metal) and calling me gay since i was(and still am) the only virgin in my friend group. i would ignore them and just carry on, never showing my sadness cause i thought i was pathetic for feeling the way i do about something stupid like bullying. This went on, people making me punching bags, literally and emotionally even more. I've been struggling with depression for years at that point and kept thinking there had to be something that triggered it when i was younger, but i could not remember anything that happened in my life before the seventh grade. only in my final year of high school, in a car ride back from my therapist i asked my mom why it was that i can't remember anything from my younger years. i soon as the question left my lips tears ran down my mothers face like i have never seen before, and she answered slowly that as a young child i was very energetic and could never sit still, and my dad hated it. She kept pausing as if she tried to cut the memories out as well, she went on to say the my dad was a very aggressive man(which was why she divorced him when i was in the second grade, so this thing with my dad all happened before the age of eight). She told me about how he abused me physically, threw me across the room cause all i wanted to do was play and he didn't want to, but then the tears got worse and she said "you took the physical stuff, you were a strong kid! the all the emotional abuse he did was with you all the years and i still see it today", so by the time we reached home and we both were in tears i finally knew what had started this low self image i have of myself. Sorry i'm just going to go back a couple of years before this episode with my mom(i get emotional and confused, i apologise). So my mom and dad were divorced most of my life and we saw him only once every two months and my relationship with him was never the best, in tenth grade my dad and i finally grew closer and for a few months we had he best relationship ever. In august of 2010 i got a message from my dad saying he went for tests and he has cancer, and then i started drinking heavily even though only my so called friends knew about it. The 4th of September, seven o'clock in the morning, me hungover at a friends house my mom phones and tells me to come home right away. so i assumed she heard we were drinking, but if it was only that, she took me to the bedroom and told me my dad had passed away, i've never been so broken in my life! Young kids back then proved mr wrong, i was now not just the "gay satanist' as the called me now i was fatherless too! after watching the moving "bully" recently i released that what the kids made me feel, how they made me feel worthless and afraid that i would grow up lonely and withdrawn from the world, was not something only i was feeling or going through! Today i'm a second year Graphic Design student, doing something that makes me happy(to a certain point) and proud to say the cutting has stopped, and i'm controlling my depression better than ever!

My story might be more about a tragic event more than just bullying, but i just wanted to share it and let people know that it is possible to make it through no matter what it is! i have realised there will always be petty people along your life path trying to break you down and stop you from becoming who God made you to be! Do not allow someone else to take the wheel, cause your'e the one who is in control of your future! 

Oh and last thing if you guys have not heard the song by "Our Last Night" called "sunrise" do yourself a favour and check it out, as well as Of Mice & Men's newest album "restoring force" might be a little heavy but the lyrical content has made everyday a tiny bit easier!!

much love and thanks for listening, a weight lifted off my heart.

Kevin Bruwer, South Africa