Self abuse

I spent years trying to destroy myself, both overtly and subconsciously. I recall severe depression and self-injury starting in the fifth grade. It escalated from there to hallucinations, overdoses and slit wrists. I was desperate as a young girl to make my pain go away. Suicide seemed like the only viable option.

The first time I was seriously hospitalized I was in the ninth grade. It was like a saving grace, to be away from my family who refused to help me in the midst of all my turmoil. I remember feeling safer but that was not a place where you'd want your child to spend a month.

I was hospitalized again in tenth grade for another suicide attempt and for bulimia. By then I was learning that I was too timid to actually pull off suicide, so I started to kill myself slowly. Bulimia was a way of saying, "F--- you," to my family. It allowed me to scrape my insides raw while looking normal on the outside. I could starve, then binge, then puke it all out. Anger within, exited with food.

It felt good to be in control of one thing in my life. I ran, I starved, I was sick with sores around my mouth. I was anemic. I thought I was fat when I was not. I bought in to what I was told: I was selfish, unlovable, stupid, BIG.

In fact, I was none of those things.

I abused myself because I knew of no other way to survive. There was no help for me, no therapy, only people telling me I was wrong. I was the weird one, the freak, the black sheep. No matter how small I physically got, I could not escape my parents' prying eyes and harsh words. They said I wanted too much when all I wanted was love and acceptance.

Bulimia overtook my life. I lived on diet pills, diuretics, and laxatives. I exercised like crazy, sometimes twice a day. At one time I was doing five thousand sit-ups a night. It took me hours to accomplish this.

It took me years to beat bulimia.