I don't speak for myself when I say a lot of people out there feel lost, and hopeless. So many
young adults feel like there is no one to turn to, no one that cares. They feel disconnected from
everyone else and they feel they don't have a voice. Depression can be a deadly thing and I want to tell
my story about how it changed my life for the worst but I overcame it with a lot of fear.

People believe depression is a joke, they laugh play it off, while someone is dying on the inside
crying for love and affection. I remember I would just lay there crying for days and days. I would be
looking at something and feeling nothing. I would see a colorful wall, and all I would feel was its
nakedness swallowing me. Just like most cases I was smiling on the outside but brutally dying on the
inside. Depression often leads to suicide, I overcame that too, which is not easy.

I was always such a happy kid my parents never had trouble with me. I was kind, sociable, and
respectful. Then I turned eleven in which reality caught up to me and hit me with a sack of bricks. My
reality just became real, nothing was a joke anymore, it was almost like my life was turned up side
down. From then on, I wasn't the kid I used to be. I was distant, I became ignorant and apathetic. But
even then I don't think I was depressed, I believe I was starving for love, but felt deceived and alone. I
was known as the miserable kid, who barely passed her classes, who didn't care at all.

As the years gone by my disgust and hatred to others and myself only got worse. Seventh and
eighth grade were definitely the worst. Back then I didn't care if I died, in all honesty I wanted to. I
wanted it to be over. I didn't want to hide anymore, I wanted to disappear and leave it all behind.
Everything in my life, little or small lost color, every challenge lost hope, everything I wanted to be
didn't matter because I knew what was going to become of me. My life was as empty as an abyss, my
life meant nothing. I felt lost, I only wanted to be found, my friends and family knew nothing, and I
was nothing. I always felt humiliated, I was this hideous creature, that was dead inside, and trying to
break away from everything and everyone.

Every day I felt the pain growing, each day I wanted to disappear more and more. Eighth grade
was horrifying, terrifying, and overwhelming. I had no escape but the razor blade, which only lasted
for awhile. People knew I cut, the teachers at my school, my parents, and definitely my friends. A lot
of people thought I was suicidal, and I was. I didn't want to live anymore, I was tired of being the
outcast. I felt like I had a boulder the size of Texas on my shoulder, and one thousand eyes looking at
me all the time. I felt hopeless, weak, judged, and broken.

I've attempted suicide, and I used to cut for years. I had no outlet for my anger, I felt like the
world was crashing down and suffocating me with its hatred towards me. I believed that the only voice
I truly had was when I would slice open my skin, and my blood would pour from my body. Back then I
never believed in myself, nothing was easy to me, everything I once loved, was gone, I felt nothing, I
was nothing.

Ninth grade didn't get any better, and I didn't really expect it to. I was in high school where I
was really alone. At first I liked my school, then I grew to hate it just like everything else. Early in
October I was in a relationship, which was surprising to me that someone could actually like, someone
who knew about my past, and my issues, someone who truly accepted me for me. For the first time in
awhile part of me felt okay, seemed okay, but I wasn't okay, I was far from it.

In the middle of tenth grade got really bad, and reality was more real than it ever was. By this
time I was in counseling, and I was admitted into a Behavioral Crisis center for planning suicide, and
almost following through. I told the person I was dating and the school found out. I never thought it
would have ended up this way, never thought my parents would look at me the way that they did. By
the end of tenth grade it changed, I broke up with the one I loved, I switched schools, and I was happy.
I always thought that when I broke up with them my life would be over and I would want to die, but I
didn't, it was the complete opposite. I was so tired of the fighting and the stress it needed to end, and it
was finished.

Each and every day was a battle. One of my biggest battle was to stay out of the spot light,
because I knew the most famous question of all, from everyone. I'd walk in to my school and the first
words I would hear were “Lift up your sleeves!” “Did you cut?” I'd always give my vague pierced
response “no, leave me alone” and lower my head just so no one could see my tear filled eyes. I felt
like such a target, even my science teacher in grade school made me show my cuts a few times. I'll
never forget the day she asked me to stay after class. After class I stayed she pulled me over to her
desk asked me in a very stern but gentle voice “can I see your cuts?” right there I wanted to lose it,
wanted to burst into tears, wanted a friend. I lifted up my sleeves and said “here” the only words she
could say was “okay” I didn't know what she thought of me. Desperate? Helpless? Attention Seeking?
At that very moment, I left, and didn't look back. A seventh grader, alone, and scared, at least that is
what it seemed from my eyes.

I'm in eleventh grade now, and it is all different. I'm happy, the two words I would of never said
only a few short years ago. I realize now that everything happens for a reason, and that everything that
happened I am thankful for. Now in my life, I am trying to encourage others to stay strong, and keep
moving on. So many people believe that there is no hope, and they're worthless like I once did, and
now I want to prove them wrong, and show them that they hold a purpose and that they are not alone. I
don't hurt myself anymore, and now I know that it did absolutely nothing for me, I plan to change the
world, one person at a time.