It feels like drowning. Your head just below the surface and your knees bent. With everybody out of the water screaming to just stand up. But you can’t and you do not know why. And they just think you’re crazy. It feels like being trapped in a room with glass walls. There are people outside yelling to open the door and they are pointing at it. But they’re all pointing a different way. And you do not see a door. So they just think you’re choosing not to leave.

What they don’t know is that if you could stand up, you would jump to the sky, and if you could find the door, you would run out and never look back. What they don’t know is that you’re trying your hardest.

Some diseases will tear you apart, and you’ll be dead before they realize you were sick. This is not like that. This is me not going out one Friday night because I would rather be alone. Then nobody thinks twice because everybody needs alone time. Next, I stay home from school one day because I feel under the weather. But really the only thing wrong is that I can not get my mind to shut up for more than 5 seconds. Then, I stay in the shower just 10 minutes longer because I like how it feels when the burning water hits my skin. From there it gets worse.

Until you’re here. And you’re here because you thought you were as low as you could be but then the floor collapsed. After a while, the medicine does not do anything and you might as well not take it. And with the pills that are supposed to help but don’t do anything, they just make you feel like a lost cause.

And now you are lower than you ever thought you could be. And when people ask you what’s wrong you don’t even know what to say anymore. Because your mind is a cluster of thoughts and the only thing you know for sure is that you just can not take this any longer. There is a pain in your chest and no matter what happens it just won’t go away. And the only thing you can feel is the blade against your skin but you swore last night would be the last time. But it’s starting to seem like there is never going to be a last time. You’re trying to hold onto that one thing that makes you feel alive but in reality it’s killing you slowly. And deep inside somewhere you know that you’ll be gone soon, but that doesn’t seem to bother you anymore. That’s when you know there is no hope. That is when you should stop getting help. Because in your mind nothing matters anymore and all you want is to get out this place. This place that everybody is living in, and where everybody is happy but you do not even know how to be okay.

Sometimes you can smile and laugh and for a few moments you honestly think you're okay. And others see you happy and they think you're cured. But just because the fever went down does not mean you still aren't coughing and swimming and drowning are two different things.  And maybe you seem alright for the time being but a few minutes later you feel like you're screaming at the top of your lungs and nobody has even glanced your way. And there's no in between. Or if there is, it only lasts a few minutes. And you know not to get used to it, because it doesn't last long. Instead you find comfort in the sadness, and you feel at home when you feel nothing at all.

And sometimes, without even realizing, you get jealous of those who seem to be able to smile with ease. Without it taking everything inside of them to do it. You envy those who can just live and don’t dream of dying. But if you told them what you wish for they would just tell you to stop. But it’s like seeing a stranger and looking at them and noticing the color of their eyes is like the sun setting on the shore. And the rest of the day you think about how marvelous their eyes were and how you wish to see them again. Whatever you think about that day, your thoughts always wander back to those eyes. No matter how hard you try. Because something so beautiful should not be forgotten about. And to you, death is beautiful. It does not matter if you will not see anybody again, because all you ever did was hurt them. It does not make a difference if you were not here, because while here all you ever were was suffering. Death is ridding yourself of suffering.

But you could never say that out loud. Because then you are insane. And even though you are not swallowing a bottle of pills sometimes being suicidal is as simple as not looking both ways before you cross the street, because it does not really matter to you if you make it to the other side or not. And maybe you are not trying to kill yourself but if something were to happen and you were to die, you would not mind. And so maybe you do need help, but all anybody says is to stop being dramatic and to just smile. But a smile does not mean you are happy. Because I have been smiling all day long and  I have not been happy in quite some time.

Sometimes you do get help, they increase the dosage and now you go to therapy three times a week instead of two. And it has been a few days since you have self harmed and everybody is so proud. So now you are scared because you do not want to make Mom cry again, her tears have finally dried. And Dad has not had a drink since he last saw you bleeding and you do not want to make him go down that road again. So you stay clean, not for yourself, but for everybody else. But after a couple weeks you see how happy everybody is and maybe you are not happy but you realize that hearing your sister laugh is a beautiful sound and you have not heard it in quite some time because you were so zoned out. And your mother no longer trembles while saying good night, because she knows you will be there in the morning. And that is what it is. That is why all this pain, is worth it. Because in the end, everything is so much more beautiful than when it all started.