Looking back now, everything makes sense. It makes sense why I was contemplating suicide at nine years old. It makes sense why I reacted so violently to the smallest of criticisms from my peers. It makes sense why I so often believed everyone in my life would be better off without me - all before I had even hit puberty.
   

I guess you could say that I had some challenges in life. I was born to sixteen-year-old drug addict with no real home and then neglected by her for the next two years of my life. I was saved by my mother, a foster parent at the time who adopted me at my birth mother’s request. But the damage had already been done. My parents struggled with me. I was moody, sneaky, and had a penchant for running away from home on the smallest of whims. I threw wicked tantrums that would have my father’s blood-pressure skyrocketing and my mom’s seemingly endless empathy running dry. I just wouldn’t connect.
   

After the strain of my little brother dying of kidney disease and my parent’s subsequent brief but painful divorce, I was bounced from babysitter to babysitter who were not equipped with the knowledge on how to take care of a difficult child like me, and having so many different caretakers didn’t help my strained emotional capacities. When my father moved back to Utah, things only got worse. I don’t remember much, but I know that when my dad took full custody of me at six, my mom was at the very end of her rope.
   

Moving to Utah to be with my father full time didn’t help like my parents thought it would. We moved every eight months and my new stepmom had a worse temper than my dad’s. Being a male nurse with strenuous hours, my dad would have to leave me for days at a time with this woman, who didn’t have the slightest clue on how to deal with a child with my kind of emotional disturbances, and often resorted to violence out of anger. Obviously, that only made matters worse.
   

When my father suddenly died of a heart attack, I was again ripped from the life I knew to go back to Texas. To be with the one person who could actually take care of me: my mom. But by that time,  I was practically damaged beyond repair. I had just survived eight whole years of never having a permanent home. I didn’t know how to connect with anyone because no one was ever in my life for very long. My tantrums weren’t just wild; they were downright dangerous. Even therapy didn’t seem to help- nothing really did.
   

The summer I turned fourteen, things started changing. And not for the better. My life was slowly beginning to spin out of control and I didn’t even know why. I began exploring dangerous relationships and participating in activities designed for much more mature individuals. I didn’t talk to my mother about anything in my life. Maybe if I had, high school wouldn’t have left me so completely hopeless.
   

When I started my freshman year, I thought my life would somehow magically get better. It didn’t. I constantly struggled in class. My mom and I fought every other day. I began to do anything I could to try and get rid of the black pit of aching despair that had taken up residence in the place where my heart should have been. Even if it meant hurting everyone around me. I was drowning, and I didn’t even know why.
   

All of this escalated for nearly three years. I hid everything about my life and prayed I wouldn’t get caught. I became addicted to hurting myself because the pain distracted from the intense, boiling heartache that wouldn’t go away. I began to lose some of my closest friends. Even worse, I began to lose myself. I didn’t know who I was - I didn’t even know who I wanted to become. I didn’t see myself growing older than twenty-one, because life didn’t seem worth living that long. Not when everything hurt this bad. I was stuck; stuck in a prison of my own head, which you can’t escape no matter how hard you try. And believe me, I tried. I did things I had promised myself I would never, ever do. I did drugs and got drunk in the middle of the day. I stained my sheets with my own blood. I hurt the person who loved me more than anyone else in the world every. Single. Day. All just to try and flush out that glaring, all-consuming anguish occupying even the deepest corners of my soul. 
   

It all came to head on June 24, 2015, when I had the worst nervous breakdown of my life. I remember screaming so loud my throat felt raw as hot, messy tears flew across the foyer because I wouldn’t stop whipping my head from side to side. There were scores of red lines racing up my arms from my fingernails, my fists ached from punching the hardwood floors, and there was a small reasonable part of my mind shouting at me to just f***ing stop. That was the day that I realized that something was really, very wrong. That was the day that I finally let myself get help.
   

Looking back now, everything makes sense. More than that, everything is okay. Reading those three words on the discharge paperwork, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of pure relief. I saw my life flashing before my eyes, and I almost started crying when I finally realized that there was a reason I was like this. I wasn’t broken - I was sick. The proof was right there, in my hands. Reading that diagnosis in bold, black print wasn’t a certificate of condemnation; it was a confirmation of hope. I knew I was going to get better.

And I did.