It was the night of my 20th birthday party. I had spent the last couple of days preparing for a joint party with my roommate by running around like a madwoman to get food, alcohol and to make sure my apartment looked spotless. As I violently swiffered the entire surface area of my unit, I couldn't distract myself from the intrusive thoughts going through my head.

"He'll come over and I'll get everything off my chest."

I continued to vacuum meticulously.

"I'm just gonna hear him out and I'll be okay and I won't cry, this is good, this is for the best."

When my friends started showing up to my house, now scrubbed pristine, my anxiety continued to build. I welcomed friends at the door with hugs and smile, so glad they could make it, but on the inside I felt like I was about to break in half.

"I won't start drinking until he gets here and talks to me...I'm just gonna make sure everyone is having a good time."

The party was in full swing and I was happy to see my roommate having such a good time with her friends while I was standing there shaking like a leaf, when he walked in.

I was frozen at first, only able to sputter out a quiet hello.

"Can we talk now? I really have to go."

"Oh, yeah, of course."

We locked ourselves in my room and I held my breath.

"So," he started. "What did you want to say?"

The air stuck in my throat before I spoke. "I just don't understand why you can't be honest with me...all I've been is honest with you."

"You have...and on paper it would make sense to...and I've tried to...but I don't love you."

There was a short, endless silence that shrunk me down into nothing. I'll spare the details of the rest of the conversation, but this was a person who I had been so infatuated with for so long and whatever he had expressed as mutual was now dismissed. All I could ask was why it took so long to just reject me...why he couldn't have just ripped off the band aid months or even a year prior. The only thing going through my head once he left was that I needed to not feel this, and I needed to not feel it NOW. I felt too much of a joke, too much of a burden left on the curb, and too much of a living, breathing, human being for that moment.

The rest of the night was a blur as I shamelessly chugged Vlad and orange juice once we ran out of jungle juice. I can't say that I was trying to hurt myself, but I definitely wasn't trying to be anything in that moment but drunk-numb-happy-blissed out. Well, inevitably, I ended up in the hospital that night, disoriented and drowned in more alcohol than sadness for the time being, and for a couple minutes while I was on my bathroom floor before being taken to the hospital, I was relieved to notice that I still feared death.

After a few hours of some seriously terrifying poking and prodding from the doctors at the hospital, they sent me home to sleep it off. My poor roommate sat with me in the hospital the whole time, and needless to say I felt like shit because none of this was supposed to happen. I wish I could say that's where it ended, but that is only where things started.

Once I came home and slept for a little bit, I woke up with a very eerie, very real sense of disregard for myself. I felt like a pool that was pouring over the brim and on the verge of collapsing. I knew something was very wrong and I knew there was no way in hell I could go to class like that the next day, so I got a friend and an uber and went right back to the hospital.

"I feel like I might hurt myself," I told the nurse at the desk. Before I knew it, they took me in and began evaluating me and asking me what had happened the night before. I got sick of the words rolling off my tongue as I recounted the story to multiple people in scrubs and white coats. After I was thoroughly evaluated, the doctors told me that when the events of last night happened, I had apparently been in the middle of a major depressive episode. I knew things had been odd lately, intense rumination and intrusive thoughts, trouble concentrating, and trouble sleeping, but I never would have guessed that was why.

The emotional pain I was feeling was more unbearable than I had ever felt at this point, and so they put me in a mental hospital to keep me safe. I was there for five days and I was the youngest one there. During my stay I was exposed to group therapy and was started on an anti-depressant. I hated every minute of it and I couldn't stop asking myself how the pain of something like a rejection could be so intense that I had to end up there. I found that out later, the second time I was admitted.

When I was discharged from my first stay at the mental hospital, I felt like I had a slightly better handle on life. I was on medication and I had a great therapist who was working with me to keep me on track. I thought that was all I needed.

Not too long before all this happened, my best friend introduced me to a guy she was friends with. We all met up one night at a Wawa before going to see a show. When I saw him I was instantly frazzled and wanted to kick myself for not checking what I looked like in the mirror prior to them showing up. She didn't tell me he was cute! We all had fun hanging out but this boy was kind of quiet. I saw him once or twice more when we would all hang out, but never made a move because I thought he was talking to someone else. Then, at the end of November we ended up matching on Tinder and started seeing each other. This boy was beautiful, in a way I hadn't seen before. He had the most intense eyes I'd ever seen and I felt like the air was heavy and sweet when I was around him. We had talked about the prospect of a relationship after seeing each other for a few weeks, and he had communicated to me that he wanted more time to get to know me. I had no problem with that, and I remember thinking to myself that he was worth the wait. After a few months, things didn't seem to be progressing towards anything more naturally, so I asked him about it again. He talked for a long time about why he didn't want a relationship at the moment, but this time it was vaguer, harder to follow. Confused, I tried to make myself clear:

"Look, I don't care if we're necessarily official right now, but I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I want you all to myself. I just don't want to have to worry about other people."

"Fair enough," he smirked. Then he said something ambiguous about not quite conceding with what I was saying, but also that he was pretty old-fashioned and that I just had to trust him. Needless to say, the conversation left me more anxious than anything. I should have said something right then to assert what I wanted and needed, but the fear of getting hurt again paralyzed me in the moment.

Sometime in late March or early April I was feeling okay, or so I thought. I now was seeing two therapists and going bi-weekly along with taking my meds and going to class, being my extroverted self and hanging out with my friends all the time. I had noticed the guy was becoming increasingly distant, but he was very artistic and introverted so I figured he just needed to recharge away from people. I asked him if he was okay and he said he had just felt disconnected from people lately. I remember sighing in relief and thinking, "Oh thank God, it's not me."

Then he started to text me gradually less and I pretty much stopped hearing from him for a couple days. I did everything I could to try and fight the anger/sadness/fear building up in me, but I didn't understand what to do or how to cope so I just let it build and build until one night that I will now remember as one of the scariest nights of my life.

He texted me pretty late at night and told me how he felt he had been unfair to me lately. "This is bad," I thought, "This is so bad."

He started talking very vaguely about how he didn't want me to feel bad about him not communicating with me because we weren't "exclusive" and I didn't understand what that had to do with anything. We had been talking every day for months when he abruptly stopped, exclusive or not that's upsetting. When he used the word exclusive I thought that was his way of telling me he had been seeing other people and at this, the tears started to fall.

"I'm just so tired of this feeling," I bawled to my best friend who luckily was sleeping over that night.

He told me he wasn't seeing anyone and then reiterated that we were not exclusive or in a monogamous relationship before saying a bunch of other unrelated stuff that only left me thoroughly confused.

"I don't understand what you're saying. As long as I have feelings for you and you have feelings for me, we're on the same page."

He then told me he wanted to discuss our feelings for each other and the prospect of a relationship together and I only grew more and more confused.

"What are you saying? Are you saying you need more time? I'm really not in a rush."

Then he finally told me what he had been trying to say in vague explanations for the past two hours:

"I'm looking for a life partner and I don't want that with us." Genuinely shocked at his choice of words and blunt phrasing, I started to fire back (to my own chagrin while looking back).

"What the fuck? You don't even know me. Why did you tell our friend that you think I'm more compatible with you than any girl you've been with? How do you know you're not just scared?"

The anger and confusion were alive and well. After a quick spat he dismissed me and told me that we should discuss it over lunch sometime. Yes, reject me more while watching me eat my feelings. That sounds perfect. I told him not to drag things out and then I spent the rest of the night in what I can only describe as a semi-psychotic episode. I screamed and cried in my bathroom hunched over on the floor, but mind you the reason was not because this boy didn't find me suitable as his life partner at 20 years old. The reason I was in so much pain was because this was the second time in a school year that I had been completely blind-sighted, and even though there were definite warning signs in both situations with both guys, I hadn't been able to see them.

There I was, 20 years old, and ready to die. I truly believed that this time was only the second in what must be a lifetime of these same rejections. I thought to myself that this was going to keep happening over and over if I let it and that it is just the way people were going to view me and interact with me. I thought I was disposable, only good for a limited time before whatever fun, wonder, intrigue and sex appeal I had to offer withered away and expired. I thoroughly believed that I was defective and that I couldn't stop this from happening again if I continued to live.

I grabbed my razor and started trying to cut at my forearms but the blade was dull. I hunched over my toilet ready to vomit with pain and the need to purge everything that made up my existence. My best friend stayed with me while another texted me throughout the night as I sent her cryptic, hopeless messages. The next day my wonderful friends took shifts coming to my apartment and staying with me while I lay in bed all day, making sure I was eating and bringing me food.

When I was alone I walked, teary-eyed over to the kitchen knife drawer and tried to cut up my forearm again. I couldn't do it and I sat down at my kitchen table and wept. I knew I had to go back to the hospital.

Before I went to the hospital, I posted some cryptic statuses on Facebook about how if I didn't make it through the week, all I wanted was for my poetry to be published. I caused a lot of alarm and I really wish I hadn't done that. I never wanted to scare anyone, I was just so resolved to end things. The boy texted me telling me how confused he was about my reaction. I tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault and that I just couldn't handle the pain of what was happening over and over again. To this day, I don't know if he believed me when I told him it wasn't his fault, but the last thing I said to him was:

"Today I am either going to die or go to the hospital to stop me from killing myself, and neither of those things are your fault."

This stay was different. It was still awful but it was different. I made some friends and I tried to participate in the groups as much as I could. There was an old lady there with Alzheimer's who would confuse my room with hers and follow me around. She made me smile. The doctors increased my medicine and started introducing me to the prospect of DBT therapy, which I will discuss more at another time. DBT helps people who have difficulty with things like rejection and interpersonal conflicts such as the ones I had experienced that past school year. To think that there was a book made especially for people who had the same problem as me made me feel so much less alone and brought tears to my eyes. After my second stay at the hospital, the doctors referred me to an outpatient program. I luckily got to do my performance final for my Acting III class before I had to start the program, and that inspired me to put in the work for that outpatient program. I thought, if I could come out of a mental breakdown and ace a performance final, I can do anything.

The outpatient program was about seven to eight weeks long and focused on group therapies, some with all different types of people, and a couple specifically for my age group. I met some truly awesome people there and made a few good friends, people who I feel I could still go to if I ever needed to talk. My meds were adjusted about three or four times while I was there, but I can finally say I'm on the right amount of the right medicine to keep those intrusive thoughts and low mood at bay. It took a lot of fighting through the hopelessness, the indifference to living (which can sometimes be scarier than the actual suicidal thoughts), tears and laughter, but I came out of that program with a better understanding of myself and others. I gained a solid arsenal of coping skills that I now have at my disposal whenever I need them and I have a greater understanding of what major-depressive order is and how to not let it define me. Most importantly, I learned that the rejections that happen to me are not because I am "defective" or "disposable," and even though my biggest challenge has been and still is getting those ingrained views of myself out of my head, I have a great support system and tons of passions and talents, a need to help others, and the confidence that I know I'll have a future. These things assure me of my worth. I shared this story with you all today because I want anyone else out there who has been suffering to know that you are NOT alone, you DO matter, and you are IRREPLACEABLE. I have so much love and empathy in my heart to those women and men, girls and boys, who struggle with depression and mental illness every day. This is my reminder to you all that you can make a recovery for yourself and your loved ones. You have the strength to do it and YOU alone, are ENOUGH.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please know that you are worthy of help. You can call the Suicide Hotline here to get the help you need. Take it from me, things get better.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

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