It’s the first day of summer. I should have been at the beach with the rest of my friends, right? Correct, but I clearly chose the wrong day to stay home. It was supposed to be another normal day in the life of Alyssa. Although if I chose this day to write about, it clearly didn’t end up being as normal as I had planned. Yes, it was summer. While everyone else had been celebrating the ending of the school year, I was secretly changing my life. Most of the time I wish I could go back to this day and decide to celebrate summer as well, but unfortunately, no one has been able to invent one of those long lost time machines to help me with that wrong decision.

That was it. I sat in my room knowing how bad things were about to get. This is the first time I had admitted to being scared. I was terrified actually. Something so little and meaningless had triggered me, I had made a mistake that I knew wasn’t going away any time soon. It would scar me for life. I was home alone and had been crying for about an hour when I suddenly realized my mother had arrived home from work. I panicked, knowing that she would assume something was wrong if she saw me crying. At this point I would usually force myself to stop crying and I would be able to act as if everything was okay. Not this time though. This time things were going to end differently, I could tell. Right there and then was when I decided I was tired of putting on this fake act and fake smile making everyone believe that I was happy with everything. I couldn’t do it anymore, and I needed someone to help me with getting through whatever it was that I was going through. Before I knew it she was upstairs trying to get me to tell her why I was so upset. After multiple times of refusing to tell her what was wrong, she left my room. I made it seem as if that was what I wanted, when in my mind I was screaming for her to come back.

About a half hour passed, and she could still hear me crying from all the way downstairs. She knew something was wrong, considering the fact that she hadn’t seen me cry since fifth grade. As I heard her footsteps getting closer and closer, my heart began to race and I began to wonder what I was going to tell her. I wanted so badly to tell her the truth. I wanted to tell her about all of the awful thoughts that had been surrounding my brain for the past eleven months. I wanted to describe every night for those eleven months that I would sit in my bed and cry for hours while everyone else was asleep. Then, I saw her come into my room and I thought I was going to be able to control myself. She continued to ask me what was wrong and what I needed to make me stop crying, and I continued to deny that anything was wrong as my mind was repeating ‘I need help. I need a lot of help.’ I had never been in one of those situations where someone was sitting next to you trying their hardest to figure out why you were crying. I was always in the opposite situation, where I would be the one comforting the person who was hurt. So without any knowledge on what to say, I simply kept silent. I crawled under my covers so my mother didn’t have to see me cry anymore. She was a bit lost on what to do in her position as well, so she thought quickly and told me I needed fresh air. For several minutes I laid under my covers screaming on the top of my lungs trying to explain that I didn’t know what was wrong, which meant I didn’t know what would help me. That was the truth too, I had absolutely no idea what the reason was behind why I was shedding so many tears. Little did I know, I would soon find out.

My mother somehow convinced me to get in her car so she could take me for a ride that would hopefully stop my crying. I kept my head down the whole time, which is something I regret. Then, we arrive at the emergency room. She tricked me. I was furious with her, not knowing that she was just trying to do what was best for me. My eyes were still tearing, and my face was beginning to swell. “I can’t go in there”, I thought to myself. If I went in there, they would find it. They would find my deep mistake.

After throwing a tantrum in the parking lot, I finally went inside. At this time, it was about seven at night. We filled out my paperwork, and sat in the waiting room. My mother went up to a nurse and said something to her as I sat in my chair trying to get comfortable, assuming I would be waiting for a while since the patients with more severe problems always get seen first. I was sitting alone and I saw a kid about my age come through the doors in a hockey uniform and get thrown into a wheelchair by his paranoid father. From what it looked like he had hurt his leg from playing hockey. We made eye contact that lasted about five seconds, and he smiled. I’m guessing he felt bad for me since he saw me crying, but I smiled back with envy of how he could hide his pain.

I was confused when the doctor called me up so quickly. Was he aware that there were more severe patients in the room with me? My mother and I got put into a separate little room. I had to sit on one of those fancy tables all doctors have, and my mother sat in a chair to the left of me. The doctor came in and asked me the normal thousand questions every doctor asks when they see you. Then the more serious questions came, the ones that would have answers telling the doctor what was wrong with me. A few questions passed and he still had found nothing wrong. Then those terrifying words came out of his mouth and formed an even more terrifying question. “Have you ever purposely harmed yourself?” I knew at this time I had two choices: I could either lie like I always had and make up a completely believable story about how I was only crying because of something stupid, or I could confess to taking a knife from my kitchen drawer earlier that morning and purposely pressing it down on my skin to form a wound that would eventually turn into a scar. I figured that since everyone already knew something had to be wrong with me, why not just find out the truth about everything else while we were at it?

It was that moment where I regretted ever making jokes about people who complained about having their hearts broken, because we all know that if it was literally broken, they wouldn’t be alive. In that moment, I finally understood what everyone was always talking about when they used that expression. Your heart doesn’t actually break, but with all the pain you experience it makes you wish it would. Your chest gets numb, it feels as if your stomach has disappeared, and you can’t focus on anything else except what’s causing you to be so hurt. It’s as if nothing else exists, and the only thing left is that moment that keeps kicking you in the stomach for what it seems to be over a decade, but in reality only lasts a few seconds. All of these unknown emotions were exploding inside of me as I saw my mother’s face after shaking my head ‘yes’. She buried it in her hands so that I wouldn’t see her tears. I had seen them though, and I would never forget what they looked like. Who would have ever thought that a tiny mixture of water and salt had the ability to rip apart someone’s world in an instant? I never knew I had the ability to affect my mother’s feelings so much. I never really saw her cry until that day, and let me tell you, making your mom cry feels worse than any other pain in this universe.

After the doctor left, I sat with my mom for a while, not being allowed to leave the room. I needed to somehow let my mom know it wasn’t her fault I was like this. But of course, she being an amazing mom, took the blame. I wanted to go home. I felt nauseous. I was sick. I couldn’t control my crying. The doctor returned and when he saw me he immediately said, “Why do you seem so scared? You’re finally getting the attention you’ve needed.” I sat there and thought to myself that I didn’t want attention, I just wanted help. I got diagnosed with depression a few minutes later by a different person, and it made me understand myself a bit more. I was depressed, that’s what had been wrong with me the whole time. Depression. Who would have thought that one little word could sum up my entire life? I thought that was it, I thought I was allowed to go home now. Once again, I was very wrong.

At eleven, the ambulance arrived to bring me to a hospital a few towns away since the one I was currently at wasn’t specialized in dealing with my “type”. I held my mom’s hand the whole ride, feeling sorry for everything I was about to put her through. We entered the other hospital and got placed in our own room again. A nurse came in with four police officers beside her. I had no clue as to why they were there, but I guess I was about to find out. They made me change into one of those lovely little hospital dresses, and then they searched me. They took everything. My bracelets, my glasses, my earrings, my shoes, and anything else that was in my possession had been considered a hazard. I started freaking out and yelling at them. All I wanted was to go home, but that obviously wasn’t happening. I was categorized as suicidal and was told I was going to have to stay overnight to be admitted into IOP to be cautiously monitored. I knew I had my mom with me, but all I wanted when they told me that was my father. Too bad he was a few states away thinking everything was fine. I finally saw another specialist and she told me I was good to go and didn’t have to stay the night. It was four in the morning and I had never been so happy, not only because I got to go home, but because it was the first time all day I had seen my mom smile. I figured out that night that all I needed was help, and now it was finally on its way.

This made me who I am today. Who am I today, anyways? Well, I’m still trying to figure that out for myself. I guess I’m a teenage girl who still doesn’t understand how to relief stress the correct way. I’m just a kid going through problems just like everyone else, except now I’m in therapy; taking medication, and learning how to cope with this thing we call life.