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Nicole (@Daughter_of_the_Gods)

Hi, my name is Nicole and, though I am undiagnosed, I believe I have depression and slight PTSD. To understand why I have this, I'll have to explain my past.

So, as a little girl, I was pretty happy. I grew up in a trailer park with my mom and dad. My mom had Bipolar depression, and would, for days sometimes, retreat to her room or shut me out. When she was with me, I used to do the stupidest things to make her smile or laugh.

Anyway, twelve days after my tenth birthday I could only stand by and watch the effects of an overdose and a mind bent on death take away my mother. I remember standing there numb when the machine flat lined.

What my ten year old self didn't realize was that I hadn't just lost my mother. I had also lost my father.

It hadn't been obvious at first. He was still himself for the most part, just altered by loosing his wife of twelve years.

Then he began to turn to alcohol to numb the pain and drown out the memories. In his drunken state, he was a complete stranger.

Because it was a trailer, we shared the bedroom. I used to sleep through the night, and the only thing in the morning that told me something was wrong would be the fact that my shorts and underwear would be missing. He would tell me I must have taken them off in my sleep, and I had believed him.

Eventually, we got a couch bed and he would sleep there, leaving me the only bedroom. Occasionally I would fall asleep with him though, watching TV.

One night I woke up, feeling something in my leg. Thinking it was his knee, or maybe his hand, I reached down to push it off. I'm sure you know exactly what I discovered it was to my ten year old surprise/horror. I scooted away as far as my father's tight grip would allow, and fell back into an uneasy sleep.

Not long afterwards, I began to wake up in my room to find his hands roaming across my body. I would stare at the wall, not understanding and afraid he would do something should I try to push him away. Eventually I would work up the courage to push him away and either get him to leave or run out of the room myself.

The next morning, I would tell him what he had done. He would apologise profusely, and then tell me I couldn't tell anyone otherwise he would be taken away from me. I had just lost my mother, so I wasn't going to be telling anyone.

I blamed myself for his attraction. "Maybe if I didn't look like mom," "maybe if I had been a guy instead of a girl," and finally, "maybe if I had never been born." I learned of self harm from a friend and, staring at a pair of scissors one night, I decided to try it. They were just little scrapes, barely any blood was drawn, but they were there.

I tried to hide them from my father, and, when I noticed he never seemed to notice, I stopped trying to hide them. He never said a word about them.

He was still his old self when sober, so, when there wasn't any alcohol around, I trusted him. That's the side of him that everyone saw.

Eventually, feeling too alone with no one, I finally told some of my closest friends about it with a promise that they wouldn't tell anyone. I felt a little better about it, finally having opened up to someone.

I spent three years with my father like this. I gave up telling him about it, and he wouldn't bring it up. The only time it was mentioned was when I brought it up, and even then he tried to change the subject after a few apologizes and his warning.

I would fall asleep staring at the wall, cocooned in my blanket as the only barrier I had. I had even colored little "beware of girl" signs for a false sense of security. I don't know why I believed that dumb idea would work, but I tried. Maybe I thought he would see sense through his haze if he noticed them. He never spared them a glance.
Eventually I went to spend a week with my aunt on my mother's side. They noticed the scars hours after I was with them and I finally told her about what had been going on.

She called CPS and I stayed with her for three weeks under the assumption that I would live with her.

I was then placed with a foster family who went to my church, and they told me I had a place with them for as long as I need. That lasted ninety days.

Then, CPS placed me with my father's mother. I quickly learned she didn't believe a word of what happened. Instead, she believed my aunt blamed my father for her sister's death, and would do anything to get back at him.

My grandmother has been telling me to lie. To say none of it happened. She degrades me, tells me I have no common sense and that she should make my life as horrible as I made my father's.

I am a monster. I destroyed my family's happiness. I'm selfish. I'm worthless. I cause pain wherever I go.

My thighs and hips are covered in thousands of scars. I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking that I'm back in the trailer with my father standing over me.

The school counselor told me I am broken. And I believe her.

I may not have been officially diagnosed, but I believe I have depression and slight PTSD. I am suicidal, and would have killed myself years ago had I not had my boyfriend. I'm here because he told me that if I gave up, so would he.

This is all that I've dealt with for six years. There is much more. Talk to me if you're going through something similar or just need someone to listen. I am Daughter_of_the_Gods on Wattpad, and Nicole Richardson on Facebook.