(Content warning: Contains references to suicide, self harm, depression, eating disorders, and child abuse. Please always take care of yourself.)

The first time I tried to die, I was 14. A child. I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know how to cope with all the things I was feeling. At the time, I wanted everything to just stop. I wanted to stop feeling guilty for being alive, I wanted to stop feeling lonely, wanted to stop the bullying, wanted to stop the pain.

I was a freshman in high school, a nobody in the middle of a new school, a new school district. I knew no one. I had no friends, not that making friends was easy. I knew better than to let my parents know what was happening, knew better than to let them see the hurt I was feeling. After all, the reaction to my self-harm was… well, let’s just say it was memorable. (Not really, all I really remember was the shame, the guilt, and sobbing in a councilor’s office while they told my parents and put me on a list).

It’s the aftermath that was most memorable. The loss of any privacy, the mandated therapy sessions, the ostracizing, the looks. It was a stain on the last year of middle school, something that changed me fundamentally.

But honestly, we have to go back even further than freshman year and 8th grade. Before we got to suicide and self-harm. Because that doesn’t come from no where. It grows and festers and twists your mind. Depression is like that, it hides and hides until suddenly it doesn’t.

I found one of my old diaries, back from when I was 10 or 11. Even then, I was suicidal. I wrote it out, plain as day, “I want to die.” And by God, I meant it.

You see, as much as I love my parents, they were abusive. My dad was neglectful mostly, he worked most of the time, and when he came home, it was for dinner and bed. We only ever really talked about his work, or his problems. But it was whatever, at least he didn’t hurt us. My mother… that’s a complicated story. She never hit me, but I was terrified of her. She yelled a lot, had strict rules and stricter punishments. I don’t doubt that she loved us, in whatever way she was able to. But the mental and emotional abuse was, in some ways, worse. A bruise heals. Constant fear and guilt and shame literally change your brain.

Growing up, it was just my nuclear family, and my mother’s mother. My mom, dad, older sister, and older brother. That was it. I didn’t have cousins, I didn’t have aunts and uncles, I didn’t have doting grandparents. And my parents mostly hated each other (at least, that’s what it seemed like to child-me).

My siblings, bless them, have their own issues, their own struggles. I don’t presume to know exactly what they went through or what they’re going through and their healing journey. There’s complicated feelings all around, some good, some bad.

Support was not something I had. Not safe support, anyways. My mother was not a good choice, my father was mostly absent, my siblings were dealing with their own shit, and I didn’t really have any true friends. So no one to lean on, no one to trust. And so, to gain control over my life, to give myself some semblance of structure, I started to restrict my food intake. My parents couldn’t force me to eat (even if they tried), and it was something small that I could do to rebel without fear of punishment.

Disordered eating turned to self harm, a way to physically manifest how I was feeling inside. It was small at first, a few cuts here and there. And then it got worse, until one day a classmate saw them and told the teachers, who then told admin and then…. well, things happened.

And then high school. A place full of hormonal idiots who have no idea how to treat others. Some days were easier than others, my food intake was still terrible, but I was (maybe) starting to make friends. But I wasn’t handling things well. I just wanted things to be over. I wanted freedom. I wanted a very permanent solution to a (relatively) temporary problem.

High school was awful. A lot of shit happened, far too much for a single blog post. I did make some friends that I’m still close with, but I lost myself along the way. I was convinced that I wouldn’t be alive to graduate, to turn 18. My mind was a very dark place, and even though there were a lot of smiles, inside was a writing mass of dysregulated feelings and altered brain chemistry.

It’s something I will struggle with for the rest of my life. A battle I will always be fighting against myself. Over a decade of therapy later, and I’m barely scratching the surface of my past trauma. But, I’m alive, and I will keep fighting. Because I matter, and I am allowed to take up space. I am allowed to be loved.