Notes

I just want to say: I've been Hannah Baker. Or, as the most positive part of me would say: I was Hannah Baker. And thanks God or whoever I should be thankful to right now, now I'm just me and I'm alive. I'm breathing. I grew up, watched years pass by as if they were days, met people and left some of them behind, listened to new songs, graduated from high school, travelled and fell in love with new places. But I was her. I was her in my lonely, depressing nights where the only thing I could do was listening to some depressing music. But most of the time I didn't even want to do thag, because that was complicated too, because that would have meant I was doing something and I just wanted too feel like I wasn't living at all. I was so lonely I couldn't stand my house walls but I didn't want to leave them either, and some afternoons I just took some stupid pills who would help me sleep and hope they would've killed me. But they never did, of course. And maybe I wasn't really hoping for that. But I swallowed those pills anyway. And sometimes I swear I really wanted to die or felt dead on the inside, which is pretty much the same thing or maybe worse. I still don't know what it felt like to walk through those highschool hallways. Highschool is not something I want to blame. Highschool made me feel protected sometimes: it became an habit, it made me feel comfortable and it gave me the only thing I was good at: getting great marks and pretending to be smart. But I've never really been smart. Just first of the class but that doesn't mean I was smart. I don't even know what being smart meant. Only thing I knew at that time was self-hate. Self-pity too, maybe. The will to mean something to people: and since I couldn't be pretty or nice, I was just trying to act smart. To have something to hold on to in my life. Since i lived in a house in which I didn't feel good. In a house where I've always been feeling wrong, even If I knew I was loved. I still am, I'm pretty sure about it. But you can't change the way you feel, you just can hide it from yourself for a while. But you have to be careful you just don't suddenly explode. I did some other things to hurt myself, but I think lots of us tried them and felt this awful feeling to punish yourself sometimes for the mere reason to be alive. They are not really relevant, or maybe they are and I don't know. I just think the worst thing I have ever done to myself was starving so I could look better. Which again I'm pretty sure somebody else already did. No surprise!!! It's called eating disorder and it does exist! Funny thing: no one had noticed. They did not only miss what I spent my nights like, sometimes hoping I'd never wake up again, or how I hurt myself sometimes. They did not even notice the obvious: I was disappearing under their nose and all I could be told was only a 'I'm proud of you, keep on doing it!'. You just encouraged a sick girl to be sicker. And I can't even blame you for that: because how could you know? Yes. I'm justifying you. Surprised? It doesn't look like something I would do, right? Well, maybe because you never really gave me the chance to be known by you. Or maybe because I really acted like a bitch sometimes and I regret it. But I swear, I can't blame people for not noticing I was killing myself just more slowly and differently. But maybe I want to blame them for being part of the reasons why I thought about killing myself in different ways. It was because of your nasty words, because you stabbed my back several times, because you'd just pretend I was okay when I was around and then say the worst things at my back (Yes my back got really hurt). I felt betrayed. I felt wrong. I felt as if I wasn't enough and those afternoons I spent hoping my bedroom would be the last thing I'd see I really wished I had somebody beside me. Just somebody. Anybody. But I didn't. I had no one. I had no friend. You wanted me to be alone.And maybe I deserved it back then, maybe you think I did too and I can't really blame you for feeling like that but when I think about that little girl lying on her bed I can see no evil. I see loneliness. I see people calling her names. I see sexual harassment in middle schools and I see people laughing and jokes and glances and betrayal. I see betrayal. I felt betrayed and I wasn't even 17. I felt lonely and no one should feel lonely: not only when they are as young as I was but they should never feel abandoned and misunderstood, as wrong as I felt while realising I was the only person feeling like that in those school walls. In my house walls. In the streets I walked on when I came back home. In my bed sheets. On the days I didn't know whom to blow my candles with when it was my birthday and I didn't even have candles. I felt misunderstood and I felt lonely or even better, I was alone. That's something I've always loved about english: the difference between those two words. Well I swear I was both: lonely and alone. And I was sad. I was depressed maybe. Or just tired of everything people where throwing on me with no reason. Because there was no reason. I was just weak and that is something people do not like. I was already weak but you made me feel weaker, you just took advantage of me because I hated myself and destroyed every little piece of my soul when I dared to think that maybe I could make things work and make use of my right to live.
I don't know what helped me through it. I know that little by little I became so empty I probably just stopped caring about people and what they used to think or say. I was so empty I didn't even care about dying or telling people they should've noticed me. That wasn't the right way too, but I got through it anyway. I got through everything and now I'm here, some years later, and yes I still allow myself to be weak and sad, and yes I still wish I could come back and tell that little girl she's not alone. I wish things had been easier. But I'm glad I'm here, I'm glad I make it through. I still don't know how I managed to do that but I know what mattered the most was that I was not lonely. Having people holding my back. Having friends.They didn't heal me, but it helped me. It still does. And maybe they still do not know anything about my later past or my "dark years", maybe they do not know everything about me, but they mean something to me and a very small part of me would like them to know about this. But my purpose isn't really to talk about the importance of having friends or avoiding suicide. I'm here to tell people that now I'm sure I wasn't the only one to feel like that. I wasn't the only wasted, empty person on earth. I wasn't the only lonely and willing to hurt myself person in that highschool neither. And I want everyone who feels even just a little as I felt to know that there are some people who would listen to you, who would help you. Give them a chance. I haven't been through hell but I surely have been through some shit and I know how hard it is for you to talk about it. But just give it a try. Just give me a try. I'm scared sometimes I wouldn't be able to understand, I'm sorry about that. I hope you don't blame me. I hope you give me a second chance. But speak. It might help you even if it's not likely to solve things all of a sudden.
And most of all, what I wanted to talk about is: the importance to weigh your words. Weigh your opinion and your actions. Before you hurt somebody just for fun. Before you hurt somebody back because you're angry. Before you call a girl 'whore' with no reason at all or because she did something that YOU consider a mistake. Before you say somebody is a dick but you don't know them at all. Before you talk behind somebody's back: if you don't feel like being sincere, don't speak at all. Before you leave people aside with no reason and before you judge people by their appearance or tastes. Before you make fun of something or even worse, you totally bully someone (I've been through this too and that's not fun and i'm pretty sure you know it). Before you call people names because​ you believe they owe you something or you're just envious or jealous. Allow yourself to feel like this: envious or jealous. Allow yourself to fail and be messed up, but do not allow yourself to hurt others because of this. You can't always be perfect, you are human. But you can surely learn to be nicer and kind to others: not because you want them to believe you're a good person, but because most of the times there is no reason for not doing it. Listen to them. Listen to anyone who just wants to talk or seeks help. Don't be too hard, don't rush into judging people or hurting them on purpose. And when you do, say you're sorry. Honestly I think we should always say how you feel, but I understand it's hard. I just ask to you, but also to myself, to be kinder. To be careful. To pay attention. To be honest. To face the consequences of your actions.

And last, since all of this started from this tv series, I want to ask you -and me- to stop blaming the victims. Don't blame it on them. Don't blame it on the suicidal girl, on the rape victim, on the depressed or sick boy. Don't blame it on the ones you don't understand. Stick with them: as if I wish somebody had just told Hannah they loved her and not only that she was a 'drama queen' and a 'liar'. I wish somebody had helped those girls from being assaulted and that they could've actually talked to somebody without being scared of being misunderstood. Don't blame it on the person whose nudes have been stolen and sent to anybody in your school. Don't blame it on anybody who looks 'weak' or not smart enough to you. That's surely not what 'being nicer' looks like. But being nicer well that, that would totally help you. And people around you. That would've helped me.
With love,
just another Hannah.