Walking into the bathroom I shut the door and locked it behind me. I reached into the medicine cabinet, shook the bottle and gave myself a shot of Tylenol PM's. I took nearly the whole bottle. I looked in to the mirror, with a silent river of tears streaming down my face.

"Open the door" my dad called to me, clueless of what's happening on the other side of the door. 

"Okay I'll be out in a minute" I replied, reaching for a bag of razors. I busted the bag open and snuck two fresh sharp razors out the bag.

I wrapped them in toilet paper and stuffed them in my shirt. I walked directly into my room and sat at the foot of my bed. Praying to god to forgive me for everything I'm about to do and reminding myself of everything that I've been through these past couple months, to give me more strength. I've been through a lot, I've been mean to everyone. I've felt like everything was trapped inside me and I didn’t know how to respond to it. So, I took my anger out on everybody and that wasn’t the right thing to do, eventually I figured out that it was time to blame myself. It was time to take action.

I tore the toilet paper from around the razors and wedged a pencil between the blades and popped them up. Separating each blade I get little slits in my fingertips. As I write the last letter I thought I would ever write, I began to cry, and explain why I'm doing this to myself. I folded the letter up and stuffed it underneath my pillow. Rubbing my fingertips across the side of each blade, I examine them and figure out which one was going to be the death of me. 

I wiped my arm with an alcohol pad, took the blade and punctured it into my flesh, dark red blood was overflowing out of the slit. I dragged the blade all the way down to my forearm. Gasping for cold air, my teeth freeze in the back of my mouth. I go for my second slit and this one I'm prepared for, it wasn’t as bad as the first cut. Midway down my arm--

My god brother peeked his head in my door, his eyes opened wide. His heart was broken, never thinking he'd see me do this.  We both sat there frozen locked in each other's eyes. I felt like he could see through me when he looked into my eyes. He is my god brother and my cousin. We've always had a lot in common. We have both been through a lot of stuff these past couple years. 

" What's going on?" My cousin asked in worry.

" Everything hurts" That’s all I could say now. Nothing else wanted to come out.

He wrapped my arms up in a towel. I feel even worst. This don’t feel better at all. It makes me not want to be here at all. I go into the bathroom and soak my arm in peroxide, its bubbling and extremely cold. 

It's like 8:30 at night on April 15, just three days away from my 15th birthday. I totally forgot about the pills I took. I thought I was going to be okay because it's just a little slit. I was scared and didn’t know what to do. I realized this was the wrong thing to do. I struggled to put my pride aside and I then told my mom. I walked into the kitchen and saw my mom's back. She was facing the stove preparing dinner for our family. 

"Mom?" I cried, my face red and eyes filled with tears. 

"What's wrong with you?"  She asked.

" Mom I... I did another dumb thing" I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know how to word it. I'm standing by the front door with an empty soul. 

"What'd you do now?" She replied.

" I took almost a whole bottle of Tylenol" I cried.

" What?" She questioned. I was assuming she thought she heard me wrong.

" Look." I told her as unraveled the towel from my arm. 

She turned around not expecting to see my face full of tears and my arm and towel covered in blood. She dropped all the dishes in freight. Her heart sunk into her feet, and she screamed my dad's name as loud as she could. 

"Paul" Her voice cracked.

" What" he replies.

My mom was reaching in the bottom of the cabinet searching for something. She pulled out a large bottle of vinegar. She yanked me by my neck and tilted my head back forcing vinegar down my throat. Thinking that the vinegar is going to make me throw up all the pills.

I'm screaming and crying. Throwing myself onto the floor. My body felt weak. I was scared and all I wanted was my mom next to me. I felt comfort.

My dad walked around the kitchen corner like any other dad would when he hears his 14-year-old daughter screaming and crying.  He yoked me off the floor and looked me in my face. 

"What's wrong?" He yelled. 

I sat there in silence. He dropped me to the floor and walked out the front door. My mom told me to get in the car. Just me and her going to the hospital. She was asking me a million questions. 

" Why did you do this? What is it?" She kept going the whole car ride. I think my mom was scared and didn’t know how to react. I would be scared too if I was her. 

She jumps out the car and walks me through the emergency room doors. She rushed up to the receptionist. I sat over in the chair in silence scared. I felt like everyone knew what I did. I felt like everyone thought I was crazy. This was just the beginning.

Finally, they call me back into the crisis unit. The nurse comes in and hooks me up to all these machines finding my veins and punctures me with IV's to try and clear the medication from my blood streams.  She tells me that another lady is going to come in from DYFS and ask me a couple of questions.

" Hello." The woman welcomed herself into the room wearing a white fleece sweater. 

"Hi" I replied with my hands locked into each other, squeezing with nervousness.

" So, I'm from DYFS and I'm just going to be asking you a few questions about why you chose to do what you did tonight. I'm just going to ask your mom to step out for a couple minutes."

"um okay." I replied with a slice of attitude. My mom gathered her purse and walked out the room. I was already tired of the talking and it barley even began.

"So why did you do what you did?" She asked.

" I don’t know" I replied. I was going to make her work to get the answers out of me. Like always I was being stubborn. I didn’t realize that she just wanted to help me and figure out what was wrong with me.

" Your telling me that you 'don’t know' why you did it." She said as she tapped on her clipboard with her special ballpoint pen. I could tell she was getting aggravated with me, but I honestly didn’t care.

" I do know, I did it because I have a lot going on and I feeling like this is the only way out. I feel like being in this world full of people who judge you for who you are and treat you like you mean nothing sucks. Why should we all sit here. And just wait for our death. It's pointless. I hate it here I hate everybody. There is no reason to be here anymore. I have no friends, and everybody judges me constantly." I explained in tears. A few seconds went by silently.

" Nobody understands me and how I feel. Nobody talks to me. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me. What's the point?" I continued.

"We were all placed here for no reason; to just walk around and work for the government and follow the rules. Ife is like a big game. Why are we here?" 

"Thank you." She ended the conversation, she turned around and closed the door behind her. My mom came back in the room later with some snacks and a soda. She handed me a Mountain Dew and a bag of nacho Doritos (the red bag, my favorite kind).

" Thanks." We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. All I could hear was the sound of the chips crunching in our mouths. It was satisfying me. I was so tired; tired of sitting in this bed, tired of being awake. My body was drained. It was like 3 o'clock in the morning. They told me I couldn’t fall asleep because they were afraid I wouldn’t wake back up. Every time I'd dose off they'd tap me and wake me back up. I was becoming more and more frustrated. 

Hours passed by and I crawled into the car. I could barely keep my head up and it was like 7 in the morning. I had school that day, but I was not going, after the sleep I got. I eventually made it home and dragged myself out of the car and into my bed. I felt so relaxed and run down. My Dad was home waiting for me to get there. I've always been a daddy's girl. I missed him a lot. I could always tell him anything and he knew how to talk to me when I did something wrong. He wouldn’t scream and freak out in my face, he would come sit down and talk to me and tell me what the right thing to do is. 

A couple months flew by, I'm doing better now. I'm over my depression stages. I mean sometimes when I get upset I still think about cutting myself and suicide

"Mom can I get a tattoo?" I asked.

"Where and what?" She replied. 

"I want a tattoo of a black and white rose over my wrist... Over my scar... I wasn't the stem to be right above it. That’s where I started... And I'm growing from a stem to be a beautiful strong rose. " I explained.

"Why black and white?" She questioned.

"Because a black rose stands for immortality, and a white rose stands for new beginnings. I feel like I'm having a new beginning. I'm immortal mom. I can make it through anything because I'm much stronger now. The tattoo will basically be a memorial for everything I've been through." I continued.

"Okay I understand, just don’t get it too too big." my Mom answered.

"Thank you." I was so excited and couldn’t wait to go get the tattoo. I couldn’t believe she told me yes. Everyone sees my tattoo and thinks I'm too young but honestly, I feel like age is just a number. It's just a small 4-5-inch tattoo on my wrist, and it's for a good cause. A couple months later and I'm in 11th grade much stronger.