I carved the word “LOVE” in to my arm because I felt like I did not get any. I was 11.

Summer

Graduated from middle school, the summer of freshmen year came. I was taking C++ computer programming following my aunt’s advice. Two programs a day, over 10 hours in front of the computer had pushed me further than before, tired me out till I had nothing left. I decided to chat with a new friend I met on Facebook. His name was Benton, sensitive, full of emotions, gay. I was hoping to vent and just have someone listen to my problems. I felt connected to him, seemed to understand his feeling of being “emo,” depressed all the time. What I didn’t expect was that he was having a rough time as well, much worse than what I was going through.

“I’m getting sent back to the mental institution.”

“What happened?”

“I tried committing suicide again.”

I cried so hard that night, my whole body went numb and cold. I couldn’t breath, as if I was suffocating from an invisible claw that clenched my lungs. I spaced out for the few following days. The sadness grabbed me, pulled me out of reality, and slowly into the black hole of nothingness. The pain that was buried inside me flooded out. I finally realized that I was depressed, torn apart, and lost. I looked back into by childhood. I had not been happy for years. Everything I remembered was negative. Memories of my sister and I being beat up by my father, yelled at for no particular reason. His voice saying how he would beat us to death if we didn’t do as told.

It was then that I started to cut habitually, attempted to release the pain on the inside by feeling the pain on my wrist. Sharp and clean, deeper and deeper. Countless red lines, parallel or perpendicular, invaded my once flawless arm.

December

By the time the trees had lost all their leaves, I had lost my soul. I still participated in class, still maintained the great letters on those report cards. I made myself a mask and wore it during class. The Sarah outside of classrooms was just a shell that got thinner and more transparent.

No one noticed, no one cared. Not my mother, my sister, my friends at school, or any teacher I had at the time. They assumed that I was just too busy with school work. They didn’t know that the lines under my colorful wristbands were multiplying day by day. They didn’t know that I cried every single night. They didn’t know that the girl who appeared to be asleep in her chair was in fact wide awake, but too depressed to pick up the pencil in front of her and do work.

I was just another stranger that you would never notice. You, those who supposed to be there for me as a friend, as a family member. It would not make any difference to you whether I was alive or not. I was turning 15, but it meant nothing to you. You didn’t acknowledge my existence, not to mention remember my birthday. For me, 15 was enough, I have had enough of life’s miseries. I didn’t choose to be born and suffer, so let me have the choice to end my own suffering.

A hot shower with blood dripped down form my wrist that tinted the water down into the drain. A whole bottle of my aunt’s peach colored pills that labeled “TAKE ONE TABLET BY MOUTH BEFORE SLEEP.” A cup of water out of that blue plastic cup. I felt calm; satisfied by the fact that everything would finally be over. I went to bed with a note left inside a folder on my desk. I looked at my sister for the last time and closed my eyes. With me gone, she would have all the attention from my mom that she missed at a child.

It was around 11 P.M., Christmas Eve of 2008. I was 15 years and 4 days old.

Aftermath

For a few minutes, I didn’t know that the sun had risen on peaceful Christmas like it always did. My brain was empty, a vacuum, I didn’t know what was happening. Where am I? I wondered. Reality snapped back as my sister’s voice slowly made its way into my head, trying to wake me up. Eyes opened, I looked up to the ceiling, it spun and made me dizzy. I couldn’t make my eyes to focus on the objects in front of me. I shut them as I began to realize that I was still alive and life had to continue. I couldn’t feel the rest of my body, it had fallen asleep. I mumbled to my sister that I would get up in just a few seconds; I didn’t want her to worry. I felt like my body was glued to the bed and my heart would gave out with any movement. Finally, I gained back some control over my body and managed to get off the bed. I fell to the ground the second I tried to stand up and walk to the bathroom. The muscles in my legs had no use. I breathed a few more times and tried again. I stumbled into the bathroom, balancing myself between the two sticks that barely supported my body.

I fumbled around my necklace with hands that shook uncontrollably. I must have taken ten minutes to undo the clasp that took me one second the day before. I decided to wake myself up with a hot shower and then talk to my mom. Mom was cooking in the kitchen when I tapped her on the shoulder and told her what happened. She turned off the fire and sat me down. She asked me why but I didn’t tell her. Where do I even start? She wouldn’t understand me. I wanted her to do something, but she didn’t know what to do. She made me drink cups and cups of warm water to get rid of the ugly toxin in my body. I ended up falling asleep on the toilet.

The next few days she carried me around with her to keep an eye on me. She tried to keep me awake during the hours that I should be. My eyes were open, my mouth was moving but I had no memories of anything I said. It all felt like a dream, a blur.

I wanted everything to start anew, and I wanted things to work out for me this time. I wanted to stay strong and fight because I was given a second chance. I didn’t know who to go to or what to do. I didn’t know how to fight or how long I would be in this battle, but I wanted to fight.

Valentine (italics are the thoughts I put down in my journal at the moment)

I hope I have a Valentine, but I don’t. Me liking someone...it just doesn’t work. How can I expect someone to love me when I don’t even love myself? I’m not joking, a healthy 15-year-old teen won’t do what I did to myself. One simple word: suicide. That’s what I tried to do.

Yes, I want to get better. I need to get better, I don’t want to be in my sick mind.


I thought things were going uphill now that mother was aware of my condition. I joined the track team wishing that exercise would lift my spirit. I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t talk to anyone. I felt lonely and alone even when I was around a team of a hundred people. I sank slowly back into the black hole as the faction passed the Sarah apparition, relapsed.

Day Zero

“Why did he do that?” they asked. That is not the question. For us, the real question is “Why not?”

Day Three


A few more days passed with rose petals on the Quad, chalk writings on the ground. Teachers and people around the campus told us that there is help. Help. You make it sound so easy. You don’t know me, how am I supposed to tell you what I am going through? Would you understand me? How can you help me? What are you going to do to me? Even with all these questions, a part of me knows that if I remain silent, no one would know my feelings. I could be the next person to stand in front a full speed train. All it took me was a simple sentence to my math teacher, “Where do I go if I want to talk to someone?” It was a statement, not a question. A statement I have wanted to make for a long time; I was tired of being depressed.