Jamie's Diary

By Jamie's Diary

This is for every teenager, parent and teacher.
It is Jamie's story - A captivating collection of diary entries leading to an almost inevitable and catastrophic outcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie's Diary
• Release date: Aug 8, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452339382

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Jamie’s Diary

S.Dawson

Published by S.Dawson at Smashwords

Copyright 2009 S.Dawson

JAMIE’S DIARY.

SOME OF THE NAMES, DATES AND DETAILS HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE IDENTITY OF THOSE INVOLVED.

Week One.

So I suppose I should write some kind of introduction. I’m 13 years old and live in Dublin. People who meet me in school or around town probably think I’m a fairly normal teenager – a bit small for my age maybe, but overall I wouldn’t stand out in any way. If anything, I’m really quite lucky. I go to a good school, live in a nice house in a nice area, get on well with everyone and am pretty good at most things. I find schoolwork pretty interesting and do ok in tests and exams (without having to put in too much work). I’m also fairly good at most sports and have won a few cups and medals and stuff. I’ve been on loads of holidays, have plenty of nice clothes and am never really stuck for money. My family presumably like me and I’m not in trouble that much. I’m healthy, bright, popular and have achieved loads.

But recently I’ve started thinking about killing myself.

I’m really not sure how this has come about and maybe that’s why I’m starting this diary. I find it really hard to put into words exactly why I feel this way and it’s not like its even one big reason. I thought that if I tried to keep a diary and that if things didn’t get better and I decided to actually do it, at least people who know me might get a chance to find some explanation for what I’ve done. Maybe I can look back over the stuff I’ve written every so often and it might help me to feel better.

I know that some people will immediately think that there’s some really obvious reason why I might be planning this, but I promise that it’s just not that simple. I’ve read stories about young men who kill themselves in the newspapers and there’s normally some mention of things like bullying or coming from an unhappy home or major problems in their life. For me though, I can’t believe that it’s ever so straightforward. I’m not being bullied, no-one is picking on me or hurting me, my parents don’t abuse me, I’m not fat, lanky, stupid or gay. I don’t speak with a stammer, I don’t get called ugly by girls and I’m not a loser in school. I’m just really unhappy and can’t work out why.

I can’t even remember when this started. I think I’ve felt like this since I was very small. And the weird thing is that I don’t feel crap all of the time. In fact I think it would be fair to say that most of the time I actually feel really good. When I’m in school I laugh all the time. Our class is full of fun, crazy people and there’s some brilliant stuff that happens pretty much every day. Even after school when we’re doing rugby training I might be sore and tired, but it’s still good to be out with the lads. But when I get home and finish my homework, or when I’m lying in bed, or on a Sunday afternoon when there’s nothing to do, it sometimes happens. It’s like someone just turning a light off. I start to get the feeling that everything isn’t really ok. It’s in those times that I think about things in a different way and I realise that I’m actually not happy at all.

When I’m in these bad moods I wonder whether there’s any point in me being here. I wonder if anyone really cares or if there’s any benefit to anyone of me being around. If I wasn’t here school would carry on just fine (and our class would still be the same as ever), the rugby team wouldn’t miss me a bit (and would probably be better without me), and I’m not sure anyone would be hugely disappointed. When I think about things that way, I also realise that I don’t actually have any proper friends. There’re loads of people I get on really well with, I stay over in people’s houses and we all have a laugh together, but I don’t think I could actually name someone as being my best friend. Everyone else has a reason for being needed – maybe they’re the star player on the team or the class clown, or are very close to the other people in their family. But I’m just plodding along with no real purpose. I don’t help anyone. No-one is relying on me. There’s not a single important reason why I’m needed by anyone. I’m irrelevant and useless.

So here’s the problem. Do I just keep going with this pointless life hoping that things will magically get better or do I do something about it? And that’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of years. I’ve gone over it again and again in my head and have reached breaking point. It’s starting to get out of control and beginning to worry me. While on the one hand I’m enjoying school and my friends, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that I’m completely irrelevant. If I could see an end to it, I’d probably be fine. I’d just put up with the bad moods for the next year or two and look back and laugh about it in a few years. But there doesn’t seem to be an end to it and if anything, the bad moods are getting worse. I’m starting to think that people are just being nice because they feel sorry for me. I can’t understand why people would want to be around me. They laugh at my jokes and invite me to their houses but I don’t believe that they really like me. I know that everyone feels bad from time to time, but surely it’s not the same for them.

OK I could go and talk to someone or ask for help, but who would I go to? What would I tell them? I’m certainly not going to phone some helpline and tell them that I’m miserable. Surely they have enough to deal with when people who are actually miserable ring up. It must be a nightmare listening to other people’s problems all day, to talk about violence and poverty and to have to try and give some hope to people who probably realise that there just isn’t any hope. I’m not interested in hearing that things will get better or talk it over with your family. These things are of no interest to me. If I thought that things were going to get better or if I could talk to my family, I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. So I’m sorting this out on my own one way or the other. I’m going to make a real effort for the next year. I’m going to be positive and have a definite go at finding out exactly what it is that’s making me unhappy.

But I’m also promising myself right now that I’m not going to go on forever feeling like this. If I get to the end of the year and haven’t been able to change things, I’m going to kill myself. I know that sounds really crazy and even looking back over those words makes me feel like I’m a complete basket case, but at the same time it makes perfect sense to me. If life is going to be a miserable experience for me and everyone around me, there’s no point putting up with it. Anyway, hopefully that will all be irrelevant because this time next year if everything goes well, I’ll be much happier. I’ll be looking back over this and laughing at what a loser I was.

So I’m sitting here burning a bit of time over the school holidays and getting ready to go back to class tomorrow. The combination of my new plan and the crapness of the holidays both mean that I’m actually looking forward to going back to school. I’ve just started a file on the new family computer and had to spend about an hour working out how to put a password on it – I reckon my mum would have a breakdown if she found this stuff! I don’t think I’ll be able to do it every day so I’m aiming to do a weekly update of the diary.

As I write this, my mum is downstairs watching television. She’s into cooking programmes and even buys cookery books and magazines and stuff. The up-side of this is that she obviously makes some pretty good food for dinner. Unfortunately it also means that she tries to be really impressive and often ends up with unbelievably fancy looking stuff that tastes awful. I have to have the door of the room open (because she doesn’t trust me on the computer on my own) and have a rugby web-page ready to click on if I hear her coming up the stairs. My dad is out at something in the golf club. He’s not the president or anything but he seems to go to every half-assed event they hold up there. In fairness, everyone seems to think he’s quite good and some of my friend’s parents have said that he does a great job running competitions and events. Anyway, he won’t be home till late so I don’t have to worry about him disturbing me. Other than that, it’s just my younger brother Sam and his friend. They’re both 11 so they’re currently in his bedroom beating the crap out of each other. I’m predicting that any minute there’ll be a scream of Jamie as he expects me to come and check out some ridiculous injury one of them has just received.

So it’s all been a completely normal and depressing day waiting for the holidays to end. No-one has called all day, my family are all busy doing their own things and have absolutely no idea what I’m up to. More importantly, since they’re all caught up in their own activities, they couldn’t care less what I’m doing. They probably think I’m happily messing around on the computer and presumably wouldn’t even guess that I could be completely miserable and in the middle of writing the mother of all suicide letters. But to be fair to them, it’s probably not their fault. Obviously if I actually had any real interests or real friends or anything worthwhile to do, it wouldn’t matter what my family did or thought. It’s not their lack of interest that’s the problem – it’s the fact that I’m a sad loser with nothing for them to be interested in.

So I think I should stop with the moaning and rap up my first entry in this new diary. I’m going to make a note in my journal for next weekend to remember to sit down and update things then. It’s taken an hour or so to do this one and I’ve written about 2000 words, so I’m going to aim to do at least the same each week. Anyway, it’s off to school tomorrow with a positive attitude and a big plan to either tackle all my issues within the next year or have the balls to admit defeat and put an end to the hassle. If you’re reading this it either means that things have ended badly or that for some crazy reason I’ve let you read about all my weirdness – I’m not sure which is worse.

Week Two.

Right I’m back again and things are definitely looking up. I had an absolutely savage week. First of all, school went fine and I managed to avoid getting in any trouble. I suppose because it was the first week back after the holidays we didn’t get that much homework and there were no tests or anything. I just kept the head down in class and got on with it. Most of the teachers seemed to be in all-right form, so I suppose the holidays are a good idea for them as well. Rugby training also went really well. It’s actually great when we don’t have any matches coz there’s no hassle about being picked on a crap team or ending up as a sub. Normally if there’s a match coming up we all get split up into the different teams and train separately but since there was no match this week we all got to stay and train together. That meant that it was a good laugh because we basically played a big match and everyone got involved.

The best thing about the week though was Friday night. The story was that during the week, Conor’s mum was bringing us home from school and asked me if I’d like to go with them to a concert in the Point Theatre on Friday. The family were going but Conor’s sister wasn’t able to make it for some reason, so there was a spare ticket. Obviously I really wanted to go but knew that my mum would probably say no. When I told Mrs.O’Reilly she said that she’d ring my mum later and ask if I could come with them. Amazingly it worked brilliantly and probably because my mum knew that Conor’s parents were both going to the concert themselves, she said I could go.

So on Friday after school, I headed off on the DART back to Conor’s house. It’s actually weird how different his family is to mine, mainly because they all get on so well. The first thing we did for example was sit down at his kitchen table and do our homework. His parent’s rule is that you aren’t allowed start enjoying the weekend until your homework is done. It actually wasn’t even that bad doing it coz we were all sitting together (Conor, me and his sister) so it didn’t seem like such a pain in the ass doing it. We were also chatting at the same time and his mum kept asking if there was anything she could help anyone with. I’m not sure how she knows so much, but at one time she was helping Conor’s sister with some mad French stuff and then just after that showed me how to do a Maths thing that’s been annoying me for ages.

Once we had our homework done we headed upstairs and got changed. By the time we were back down, the kitchen table had loads of food all over it – chips, corn on the cob, pieces of chicken, baked potatoes. Normally it’s a nightmare going to other people’s houses to eat because you end up with a plate of mush that you don’t like and have to force it into yourself anyway. So it was excellent that Conor’s mum made such a deadly choice of things (without loads of sauces and crap all over it).

We were meeting his dad outside the concert so we got a taxi from the house and ended up arriving at around the same time as him. It was only as we were going in that I started thinking how impressive it was that the family were all going together to this concert. I don’t think my parents would be able to agree on a concert to go to together, that’s before even thinking about bringing us kids along with them. There’s definitely a different situation in Conor’s family. Everyone just seems to get on.

The concert was really good and I’m definitely going to come to more in future. First of all, I’d never been in the middle of a crowd like that before. Conor’s parents sat in the seated area at the back but we headed off into the crowd and tried to see how close we could get to the stage. It was pretty terrifying at first but I couldn’t believe how friendly everyone was and even though there were loads of weird looking people, no-one was causing any hassle. It was kind of tough to see the stage (not surprising since I’m 13 and small!) but the best bit was when Conor grabbed some mad biker-looking guy and asked him could I get up on his shoulders. It was so embarrassing and I felt like a complete twat, until the man said no problem and literally threw me up on top of himself. It was absolutely legendary – I could see everything and I just went mental shouting at the stage and clapping and stuff. After a few minutes I started feeling sorry for the guy and got down, but that was only the start of it. Conor and myself kept pushing our way through the crowd and every so often just asked complete strangers to let us up on their shoulders. There were loads of times where we both ended up on top of complete strangers, looking over at each other above everyone else and laughing our heads off. It was unbelievable being part of such a big mosh of people who were all in a great mood and who didn’t give a crap who you were. Even though it was scary being in the middle of such a big crowd, the feeling of acting nuts was totally brilliant.

In the taxi on the way back to the house we had a great chat with Conor’s parents about the best part of the concert, our favourite songs and the fact that we had jumped on top of so many random people. It was after midnight by the time we got back to their house and myself and Conor headed up to his room. We took ages getting ready for bed and after having showers and spending about 15 minutes moving the two beds around his room, we decided to go down to the kitchen to get some drinks. Now again, this was where I got really jealous and saw the huge difference between Conor’s family and mine. In my house if you’re out late anywhere, the first thing my parents say when you come back in is ok it’s very late, head up to bed now. It was so legendary in Conor’s kitchen though. First of all it was after 1am in the morning and we were both in there sitting on the counter having a drink and his dad called us in to the TV room. I was sure he was going to tell us to go to bed but when we went in, Conor’s mum and dad were looking up some listing in a magazine about concerts over the next few months and wanted to ask us about some of the bands. We ended up sitting down with them for almost another hour, talking about music that we were into and about the bands that they listened to when they were growing up. Conor’s dad told us a brilliant story about a crap band he was in when he was in school and his mum showed us the funniest picture ever (of the two of them at a concert before they were married). They were both so sound and it’s so brilliant for Conor that his parents are actually interested in stuff that he’s into too.

I was thinking about it later and reckon that it was probably the first proper conversation I’ve ever had with any adults. When I think about it, anytime I’m talking with my parents it’s because they’re telling me what to do or asking where I’m going and stuff. In school as well, teachers normally only talk to you to test you or check homework or tell you what to do. But when I was with Conor talking to his parents, we were actually having a conversation. I was telling them what I thought about things, they threw in their opinion, we agreed, we disagreed and basically learned loads about each other’s interests and views. I said it to Conor afterwards how good it must be to have parents like that and the weird thing was that he didn’t actually understand. He seemed to think that everyone’s parents spoke to them like that, that everyone’s parents were interested in their kid’s opinions and were happy to spend ages listening to their stories.

Just after we headed up to bed, Conor’s sister came back in from her night out and she came into Conor’s room to ask us all about the concert. She was sitting at the end of the bed laughing away at the whole story and telling us about everything she got up to. Apparently they hadn’t even gotten into the disco they were meant to be going to, so they spent the night in someone’s house messing around on the internet and phoning random guys they knew.

It finished off the view I have of their family to know that Conor and his sister get on so well. I reckon if I even went into my brother’s room at night he’d start screaming at me to get out. Thinking about it now, I can’t work out how it is that families end up so different. Is it anyone’s fault when it’s like mine, with everyone just doing their own things and not really taking any interest in anyone else? Or when I think about Conor’s family I wonder how it is that they all seem so happy, how they seem more like friends than family and how there’s no hassle or tension. I know for sure though that the way Conor’s family get on is a much better situation that mine. I’d love to be able to have a proper conversation with my parents about things that go on in school or about music or sports. I’d also love to talk to my dad about what he actually does in work (it’s mad that I don’t really know what his job is) or to find out how the golf club is going. But we all seem stuck at a place where conversations can’t happen. I know I’m guilty cause I just mumble and grunt when my parents try to talk to me (or interrogate me as a like to call it), but in fairness they’re not much better anytime I ask them anything. You wouldn’t understand, Don’t ask me that now, I’m busy, What do you want to know that for? I’m not sure how anyone is meant to be happy in a family that can’t even speak to each other.

Anyway, at least I had a good week and things are definitely looking up. I’m going to get into music a bit more and start checking out new bands and stuff. The concert has definitely opened my eyes to something I could get really into. I might even start trying to learn an instrument although I’d probably be crap at it. I think I’ll try and talk to someone in school who plays guitar or something, to see how hard it would be. Hopefully if I can have another good week next week, I’ll start feeling better overall and at least if it turns out that my family are the only crap thing in my life, I can just keep busy doing other things and get by without them.

Time to call it a day. Just realised that the password thing I tried to put on this file last week didn’t work – that could have been a complete nightmare if anyone had opened it since I wrote the first entry last Sunday. Anyway, I’ve sorted it now and I’m pretty happy overall with how the diary thing is going so I’m definitely going to give it a go next week again.

Week Three.

I think I’ve reached a kind of important stage in this whole diary experiment. See up to this I’ve just been waffling slightly and not saying anything too mad (other than the killing myself idea). But as I’m starting to write about stuff that happened this week, I reckon I’m going to have to put some bad language in. I know it’s unbelievably gay that I’m actually even worried about doing it cause I’ll either end up deleting this whole diary at some stage, or even if anyone does get to read it I’ll be dead anyway. But either way, it’s still a bit embarrassing typing in words that I know will freak out my parents. And it’s not like I’m going to do it for no reason. It’s just that sometimes I get really frustrated about things and if I can’t write them down the way I’m actually thinking about them, then this whole diary will be a waste of time. So because what happened at yesterday’s match was so annoying, I’m going to have to do it.

You see first off, I was picked on the B team for the rugby match. That’s actually not a problem cause I’m really not that into it, so even though I’d say I’m better than some of the people on the A’s, I’m pretty happy just taking it easy on the B’s. I really enjoy being out training and playing matches but for some reason it doesn’t bother me whether we win or not. It’s like at the start of matches when the coach is shouting something ridiculous like ARE WE GONNA WIN? I always feel like shouting I DON’T CARE. That would probably get a laugh from the lads but I’d also end up playing on the C’s for the rest of the year.

Anyway, our B’s match went well and we won by about 25 points. As usual there was no-one watching our match. The team is completely used to this and realised a long time ago that we’re irrelevant compared to the A’s. Even our coach wasn’t really helping because he had to ref the match. This is also always the way at B’s matches. We only get one coach, so he has to organise subs, tell us who’s playing and then ref the match himself as well. Up at the A’s game there’s a backs coach, a forwards coach and a different guy acting as ref.

The coach looking after us yesterday wasn’t a teacher or anything. He’s a college student who left our school a couple of years ago and is back in school with about twenty others, coaching loads of the rugby teams. Some of these lads are really sound, but the guy we had yesterday couldn’t give a crap. He’s totally here to just earn some money and doesn’t put any effort in at all. It’s weird that he gets away with it. Yesterday he looked like he rolled out of bed twenty minutes before the match and he smelt like a wino. How the hell you’re meant to be motivated when the coach is such a waster I don’t know.

I actually felt a bit sorry for our opposition because they should really have been playing our C’s. That’s not being cocky or anything, it’s just that we have loads of people playing in our school so we’re bound to have better teams. They only have about half as many guys as us in each year so it’s not fair that they have to come out and get their ass kicked every time we play them. Also, Daniel was playing for the B’s today and scored three tries. He’s obviously good enough to be playing on the A’s but the coach won’t pick him. Everyone thinks this is because Daniel’s dad complained to the Principal about our A’s coach (who is a complete nob) and that the coach now picks on Daniel. The crazy thing is that Daniel doesn’t seem to be annoyed about this (even though he’s really into rugby) and just gets on with things whatever team he’s picked on. It’s funny seeing Daniel’s dad and our teacher acting like kids and the actual kid is able to behave better than either of them.

So our B’s game went fine, but the big issue was that when our game ended we all went up to watch the end of the A’s match. They had started a bit later than us so there was still about ten minutes to go when we got to the side of the pitch. It was pretty much all-square and the crowd were going fairly mental. As usual there were loads of parents acting like total losers on the sideline. Most of them were obviously dads who seem to think that the players want to hear their advice. First of all, most of these guys haven’t played rugby in about twenty years and secondly, even when they did, they were useless. Its absolutely head-wrecking listening to the garbage they come out with and most of all I get really pissed off when they shout at the ref. I know sometimes the ref can be awful but it’s not the shagging world cup. I can totally understand people at professional matches giving out when the ref makes a mistake. I think it’s fair if there’s a big important game that the ref should be good. But when you go to a match with 13 year olds playing, what the hell do you expect? Giving out about some college student who’s come in to earn drinking money for that night is hardly going to make him a better ref! I reckon some of these dads just think that rugby matches are a good chance to shout at people who can’t really argue back and they probably even look forward to the chance to act like a tosser.

So the big news was that with about five minutes left in the match, I got called on as a sub. It was kind of scary because we were winning by