When I was fourteen years old I went through a very rough time in my life, I was just starting high school in a new town. I didn’t know a soul and over the summer I had gained about thirty pounds from my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, so I was extremely uncomfortable with my body, and in turn my self-confidence had plummeted.

The year started out fine, with me being selected for the show choir. I was making friends, going to parties and having sleepovers. Then half way through the year though all hell broke loose. I learned that people who I thought were my friends had actually been spreading malicious rumors about me and were also making fun of me behind my back. Then a week after winter break, I was locked into a bathroom stall with four girls who took turns repeatedly punching me in the stomach and chest making sure not to hit me where my bruises would be visible to the naked eye. It was Friday, so I guess you could say I had the entire weekend to lick my wounds, I had already decided to hide it from my parents as I could not find the words to describe what had happened and I was also utterly humiliated, so instead I suffered in silence.

When Sunday night rolled around and I knew I would have to face school the next day; my fear, humiliation, and lack of reason clouded my judgment and my need for it all to end so I tried to kill myself by overdosing on Tylenol. When I woke up the next day, I realized nothing had changed and I hadn’t succeeded. I was forced to go to school despite my protests. From school I called my parents and told them what I had done and when my pleas to be picked up were ignored, I took matters into my own hands, and walked the four miles alongside the highway back to our condo on the beach.

My mother had gone to the school and I could not be found so she rushed home and found we cowered in the bathtub. She was going on a business trip that day and had to catch an airplane so she drove me to the school where my father worked screaming at me the whole way. At one point she said, “If you want to die – I will take us both out right now and slammed her foot on the accelerator.” She dropped me off at my fathers work and he preceded to take me to the emergency room were I was checked out, told I was fine, and then committed into a psychiatric hospital for the next three days.

This was one of the scariest times of my life I had never felt more alone, I threw up my first night there and cried myself to sleep. When I was released I began seeing a therapist who recommended homebound schooling for the time being. This year taught me so much about myself and it helped shape me into the person I am today. I am no longer that scared little girl who thought she was all-alone in life. Today I know how strong I am because I survived that horrible ordeal and there must be a reason I did, so I try to make every day count knowing I’m on this earth for a reason.