21. I’m breathing. I’m clinically alive, I have a pulse, I can function. But am I living?

20. I can’t take the pain. I buy bulk supplies of pills and drive my car off the road. It takes a machine to pump air into my lungs until I am stable again.

19. I’m feeling myself slip down a steep road, I feel my heart being pulled down as I skip one – more – meal. “This will be the last time” I always say to myself. The last time I throw up. The last time I skip a meal. The last time I see red.

18. I’m free. I have a car and an apartment. I have a job. I can feel the breeze in my wings; but the joy is artificial. The joy has a metallic taste to it. I don’t like this feeling like I hoped.

17. 17 and I’m beginning to be happy again. 17 and I’m being asked to hang out with friends and go shopping and to stay overnight. 17 and my friend wants to come over to stay the night. 17 and she wants to sneak out to a friend’s house – I haven’t met him before. 17 and he has me in his car. Alone. 17 and I feel his hands on me. 17 and the heart I started to piece together shatters - again.

16. 15.

14. I learn the term “social phobia” and “depression”. I also learn ways to cope with them. Like that sharp blade my dad uses for cooking. I sneak down to the kitchen one night while the world is asleep and press the blade against my arm. The blood soothes me.

13. I’m excited for high school. I go in the first day with a new outfit and new backpack. I have my journal and my stuffed animal in my bag (for moral support). I keep my nose pressed to a book because I’m scared of the big kids around me. I try to stick with my friends, but, they’re leaving. They walk away and never look back. And I’m left. Alone.

12. 11.

10. I blame myself. It’s my fault my mom leaves with my sisters whenever Dad has had too much to drink. It’s my fault my dad drinks. Maybe if I was different he wouldn’t have to down that second bottle at 3 in the afternoon. Maybe in his blurred vision he sees a girl who isn’t socially phobic, one who gets her nose out of a book and plays with dolls or goes shopping or messes with makeup. Maybe in his blurred vision he can see the girl he wishes he had, instead of me.

9. My sisters and I are starting to see my parents in a new light. It never was like this before. Moving to a new state changed things. My dad hits me and my mom takes my sisters and leaves.

8. 7.

6. It’s time for my first performance on stage. I’m scared. So I turn my back on the audience and secretly cry as I face the backdrop. I am yelled at for causing a scene.

5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

0. My mom is pregnant with her second child. She says she doesn’t care but she wishes for a girl. She plans her daughter’s future, what kind of college she will go to, what kind of man she will marry. Not once did the thought of sitting at her bedside while a machine breathed for her daughter come to mind.