† † I don't know if anyone wants to hear my story, but I'm going to share it anyway. I want to share it because maybe I can help someone else who is going through the same thing. I might not be able to, but that's the chance I'm willing to take.
† † Everyone thought I was the "normal" teenager. †What normal really is, I have yet to find out. But to my parents and teachers and even friends, "normal" meant, that I seemed happy, did okay in my classes, spent time with friends, and still complained like a typical teenager when I didn't get my way. They had no idea about the personal hell I was living each day.
† † My childhood wasn't bad. I wasn't abused, neglected, raped, or anything like that. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but nothing is every perfect. When I turned 13, my life slowly started to fall apart, before my very own eyes. I felt depressed. I didn't tell anyone, because I thought every teenager feels depressed now and then. I kept it to myself, and began pretending I was happy. A few months later, I began cutting myself, also known as, Self Injury. No one had told me to cut, I didn't see it on TV or in a movie, but some how, I picked it up. They began little scrates on my arm with a knife. Nothing deep or serious. I used the old excuse, "My cat did it." No one questioned me. But I made the mistake one day, of cutting up my entire arm with these scrathes. Then, someone noticed.
† †It was the scariest thing, I had encountered, in that point of my life. The guidence counselor, from school, was on the phone with my father, saying that I cut myself. I thought my parents were going to flip out when they found out, but they didn't. I came home from school that day, and instead of them being concerned, and angry, they were just annoyed. They told me it was a game I was playing for attention. They didn't think to realize that I was depressed, but only thought it was a game. Did that stop me from cutting? No.
† †I kept cutting after that. My wrists, my legs, even my stomach. They weren't "baby" scrates anymore. These were deep, wide, cuts. Sure, people noticed. Did I care? No. All the people I had once called friends, weren't my friends anymore. I was too depressing to be around. I couldn't help it. My thoughts were depressing, my clothes were depressing, my actions were depressing. But since my parents didn't care at the time, I thought that once again, I was just being a normal teenager.
† †Over the years, I became in love with the thought of death. I wasn't attempting suicide, but my thoughts were always on it. I felt dead inside, there for, I just wanted to die. I would picture myself dying, think of ways that I would die, I even wrote out my will one day. Soon cutting became an escape for me. Everytime I would cut myself, it would feel like I was killing myself, bit by bit, cut by cut.
† † Then when I was 15, more people noticed how depressed I become. I was no longer thought of as "normal." Now, I was thought of as "crazy." †My parents now were fearful, because they thought I was going to commit suicide. They put me on medications, they put in the hospital, they put me on more medications. Did it help? No.
† †The medications didn't help. The hospital didn't help. †I had to help myself. †Finding people, as friends, who cared about me, and had been going through the same things I had, saved my life. When you have friends like that, it makes you feel loved. When someone calls you in the middle of the night, because they know you are sad, and talk to you for hours, makes you feel special. Having people cry because they don't want †you to hurt yourself, makes you feel needed and wanted.
† †I am now 16, and am currenly trying to stop cutting. †My life isn't fine and dandy, and some people still give me weird looks, but I learned that when someone loves you so much, that they'd do almost anything to stop you from cutting or thinking of death, you feel differetly about life. You know, someone somewhere, is thinking about you. And you know that someone somewhere, would be hurt if you cut. And you know, they'd be hurt if you died.
† That's what changed everything. Just having someone tell me, "I care."