The Way She Feels

In the end we had pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained. Oddly shaped emptiness mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn't name. What lingered after them was not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts. A clock ticking on the wall, a room dim at noon, the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself

--The Virgin Suicides

I believe that things don't just happen. I'm not talking about the reason they occur, but when people say things "came out of the blue". The nation preaches gateways in every aspect of life. Unemployment is a gateway to the increase in poverty, marijuana is a gateway to other drugs. What many people don't understand is the correlation of self harm to suicide. Suicides receive a lot of recognition, national statistic, news stories, and schools hold days of awareness. Victims of self harm go unnoticed typically and once noticed it is usually too late. When I was in 7th grade a friend of mine told me she was going to commit suicide. That was the day I noticed the cuts on her wrist. After going home that night and telling my parents, who told her parents (and don't worry she is alive and happy today, she just doesn't talk to me) I laid in my bath tub with a safety pin and wondered what could make her want to do that. After that night I struggled with cutting, just like a shocking number of teenagers. The reason I write about this today is because it has been exactly 2 months since the last time. I, just like others, would go to practices and count how many times I messed up, or the number of questions I got wrong on a test, and that would be the number of times I would slide the object across my wrist, my ribs, my hip, or the bottom of my foot. Few friends knew and most just said to stop, like it was that easy. My parents, if they knew, never said anything. Just because someone isn't plotting suicide doesn't mean they aren't hurting and it doesn't mean it wont happen. For a lot of people suicide isn't the only escape from reality, rather it be self harm, abuse of alcohol or abuse of drugs. If you know of someone who does any of these things don't just tell them to stop, talk to a counselor, or their parent, I know now I wish my friends had because then maybe I wouldn't be struggle with it now in college. There are too many teenage statistic, don't let yourself or a friend be one of them.