I’m a seventeen year old girl and I want to share my story with other people. At twelve years old I couldn’t stand the bullying anymore, so I started having panic attacks and skipping school. I didn’t know that those were the first signs of a depression and a very long battle. I started cutting myself at twelve years old. At thirteen I starved myself for the first time, it lasted an entire day. At fourteen pretty much everyone found out about the cuts because I tried to kill myself and ended up in the hospital. I had no hope, no dreams…basically I became empty. At fifteen years old, I still couldn’t believe that I was sick and needed help. At sixteen I was admitted to a children’s psychiatric ward and I was there for over 5 months. I didn’t get any therapy and I slept through most of the day because I was completely medicated. After those 5 months I got to go home, but that didn’t workout well as you might have figured out. The truth is, I was still the same…my life was just on pause for a while. I started cutting again and skipping school, so I went back to the psychiatric ward. After a while of doing nothing and complaining that I wasn’t getting better someone had the worst idea ever. I don’t know who decided this, but I was sent to an adult psychiatric hospital. I’ve seen allot of movies and when a psychiatric hospital in involved it’sthis horrible thing, but trust me that it’s actually allot worse.

Basically, I was a kid in the middle of really scary grown-ups who I couldn’t trust and who spent most of their time yelling, hitting others, getting naked…well, basically I feared for my life. I’m being serious, in case you couldn’t tell. I was afraid and incredibly stressed out 24/7 and I couldn’t say a word about it or the nurses would throw me into solitary.

Side note: One time I was able to see what they do to people in solitary. They take all of their clothes off, give them tranquilizers, put diapers on them, tie their wrists and ankles to a bed and leave them there for as long as they want to, in the dark with only a little bit of the blinds up. They actually give the patients food and water for them to soil themselves. I am still haunted by what I saw.

After leaving that hospital I was sent to an institution that was about three hours (car drive) away from my home, my family and everything I know. I was there for 6 months and I ended up cutting myself more times than I can remember, I got drunk once and spent the night throwing up blood and I was sent to the hospital several times for getting really really pissed and frustrated with everything. But that changed.

I realized something. Nothing is going to change unless I actually do something. So I used my most stubborn side and all of my strength to do so. And trust me when I say that I’m stubborn.

I decided that I was gonna work hard and behave and everything would work out. So I went to all the therapies and did my chores (which I hate doing). I listened to what everybody said and I would nod my head. Of course there were times when I was feeling overwhelmed, luckily I could say whatever the hell I wanted in therapy. After those 6 months of being there, the therapists decided to send me to an institution that was closer to my home, which meant I would have to start all over in a place that I hated even more. So after three days I left and went home, apparently they couldn’t force me to be there.

Luckily my judge understood and I was officially ready to go home.

I wanted to share my story because even though I have officially beat depression and haven’t cut myself in almost 10 months, I still have days when I just want to sleep and only wake up when the bad things go away. I still have bad thoughts. It doesn’t go like that but it is bearable.

So please, don’t give up. If you can’t be that strong then…be that stubborn. Kick depression/anxiety/any bad things right in the ass.

You’re amazing and yeah, I know that I’m really young but…I believe in you and you should too.