The Mental Hospital

Prologue

I screamed my head off. "This isn't fucking fair!" I said to no one. Filled with depression and rage, I wasn't thinking properly. But at the same time I was. I was having an inner battle.

Kill yourself!

No! I have my family and friends! What will they say and think?

You're worthless! You'll never amount to anything!

I have so much to live for!

There's nothing to be happy about! You're ugly! You're stupid! You're fat! You can't do anything right!

I grabbed whatever pills I could find. Xanax, aspirin, anything. Thirty pills later I'm crawling to the cabinet under the bathroom sink where I kept my blades. And then I slit my wrists. I thought about slitting my throat, but I didn't want my parents to have to clean my splattered blood off the walls.

I started to feel a horrible feeling in my stomach. I brought my hands to my face and realized that I'd been crying. I took a shaky breath and looked at myself in the mirror. My shaggy brown hair was everywhere. I looked pale. My eyes were dull and glassy--as if I was already dead. My eyeliner had run down my cheeks and my bottom lip was quivering, making my lip ring shake. I smiled wryly at myself.

Look what you've become. A former shell of yourself. You need to stop this. You'll be okay. C'mon! You've got your whole life ahead of you!

And just as I started to feel better, life ripped my happiness away from me and I doubled over. It's funny. I was never able to be happy. It's like as if I'm allergic to happiness--as stupid as that sounds. Look at it this way. A little boy eats peanuts as soon as he has his teeth. He loves them. He'll eat them with anything. They were his favorite. Then he finds out he's allergic. He's devastated.

I became dizzy. I screamed. "Help! Help, I'm sorry!" My voice became quieter. "I didn't mean for this to happen." I sobbed.