Reset Button

Do you ever wish there was a reset button? You know when you’re playing a hard game, but you mess something up so you either restart the level or you return to an earlier save? I wish that was how it worked in real life.

See, it’s not that I have regrets – everything is a learning experience in one way or another. But I don’t like the way that my life has turned out at this current moment. I don’t know what exactly has led me to this conclusion at the moment (maybe it’s my anxiety or depression or some other mental illness that I’m bound to have) but all I know is that I want to go back in time, to the start of the year.

I wish I hadn’t have been so stubborn. I wish I hadn’t made a name for myself around here. I wish I was just some average university girl who studied and made friends, instead of got drunk and made enemies. Ironic, come to think of it. I spent my entire high school career going unnoticed, and now at university, it seems like far too many people know me.

Rest assured, there has been some good to come out that. Though because of my stubbornness, I did lose my two best friends (one is my sister now), and caused a lot of drama with several people I know… It has gotten to the point where the residential services have become involved.

Despite not having baseball in Australia, we use a three-strike system. After your third strike, you get kicked off university residence and even the likelihood of being accepted again after one strike is slim. I have two. One I had because I drank too much once and ended up passing out in a playground (though it was not a big deal because some girls from my building found me and took me home (and anyway, who hasn’t had something similar happen to them at uni? Especially an Australian uni!)). The second was because I tried to kill myself. Quite funny that I would be punished for trying to end my life because of a mental illness… Just punish a poor girl and make her feel worse about waking up the next morning, it sounds like a fantastic idea.

Everyone in my building of 80 people know me as some ‘drunken slut’ and that is their words, not mine. What, because I have a healthy sex drive and no shame means I am a ‘slut’ now? Because I do not have a boyfriend and prefer one night stands over repetitive sex with one person? Or spinsterhood?

The drunk I can understand, to be honest. But I do not drink like everyone else. I do not drink to get drunk. I drink to forget my sexual assault. I drink to hide the nightmares and monsters that come out when I am alone and sober. I drink because nothing seems to matter when I am drunk. I do not think about the 7+ men who made a circle around me and thrust their hands into my pants and made it impossible to escape. I do not think about the terror. I do not have to experience the PTSD and abandonment issues I have.

I am a fucked-up person, I know that for a fact. I have been through a lot. I have been through more than most nineteen year olds should have to. Admittedly, yes, I did have quite the sheltered childhood. I had an emotionally abusive father and a mother that spent most of her time either at work or taking care of one of my other four siblings. I was never the centre of attention.

I remember standing in my new room after my mum had first left me completely on my own for the first time on February 6th. I remember thinking, hey, I can reinvent myself here. I can be someone amazing. I can’t wait to see how this year is going to turn out! Now it is almost September and I do not want anything other than to go back home and never come back to university. I want the past six months to have never happened and to still be in high school without people being ‘concerned for [my] safety’ or calling me names behind my back or starting rumors about me.

I want to be the invisible girl again.

The smart thing would be to acknowledge that, yes, I can change. I can go back to being the invisible girl if I wanted to. I could straighten myself out and focus on not drinking and overcoming my mental issues and not get laid by another stranger every week.

But, in reality, I do not think that is possible anymore. I do not think I can be that invisible girl anymore. I have changed too much in the past six months, I think I may have some form of whiplash that will last me a lifetime. People know me, and not in a good way.

I need to get out of here. I need to start afresh. Maybe something like that can be my reset button? Maybe I can restart in a new place with new people where no one knows who I am and my story. Maybe my life will continue to be built on lies and self-hatred and hiding from the past. Maybe that is the only way I can deal with screwing up and feeling like I ruin everything.

Maybe I will be the invisible girl again, just not quite in the way I had hoped.

Perhaps this invisible girl will only be invisible because no one will be able to find her. After she leaves, she will become someone else, take on a new identity and reinvent herself again until she runs out of places or she finally becomes someone she likes and people like.