I remember one day in the middle ninth grade, I was in spanish class and the girl who sat in front of me was my best friend throughout fourth and fifth grade but, when we got separated at different middle schools, we drifted apart, far apart. Anyway….., this girl sitting by us was a huge Demi Lovato fan and was talking about Demi’s battle with depression and cutting and my ex-best friend made a comment about how she didn’t understand why someone would ever cut themselves and how stupid it is and how people only do it to get attention. In that moment, it took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. I realized that I didn’t know the girl sitting in front of me and, she didn’t know me.
In the seventh grade, my depression was kicking up and I don’t remember where I got the idea but, I started wearing rubber bands on my wrists. At that time, I was beginning to feel angry all the time. Why? Well…, I was in a public middle school surrounded by perfectly normal people who bitched constantly about the stupidest, unimportant things and took everything that they had for granted. And I would just sit there in my wheelchair, with my speech impediment, in physical and extreme emotional pain, and I could literally feel my insides burning from a combination of fierce sadness, overwhelming jealousy, and scorching, blinding rage. I felt(and still feel) completely cheated but, there was nothing I could do about it. So, I started wearing rubber bands and whenever I would feel overwhelmed with anger or sadness, etcetera, I would pop my rubber band(s). It’s hard to explain how this made me feel, I guess it was a way to release a tiny bit of my anger, a way to make me feel in control of something, a way for me to feel pain not caused my “disability”. I would pop them so hard and so many times that my wrists would get so raw and sometimes they would start to bleed a little. I did that for most of seventh grade and eighth grade I continued and also started to use the pokey part of a pen cap and sharp pencils. It wasn’t until ninth that I started using razor blades. It’s almost like a drug, once you start your hooked. Every time I would feel like I was seconds from going off the edge, I would feel the urge to cut and, most of the time I did. I would do it different places so no one would suspect. I would watch the blood flow out of it and feel a sense of empowerment and relief. My parents found out around the beginning of tenth grade and they were pretty surprised. The last time I cut myself was March. I still have the urge to do it sometimes but, I haven’t given in yet.