My first experience with self-harming thoughts was around middle school. Everyone goes through phases, I know. I just don't remember what I was so sad about but the scars on my legs will never forget.

You wouldn't even be able to tell if I didn't point my scares out.

They blend in so well with my stretch marks.

My second experience with damaging thoughts was high school. So much teen angst built up. It's weird how you feel like the world is crushing you when in reality, nobody even notices anything is wrong. I was in a dark place but that was no excuse for my actions. And I know that now.

One night, a very sad and pitiful night, I decided I didn't want to deal with life anymore. I no longer wanted to be here. I didn't want to be alive. I took an entire bottle of pills and I went straight to sleep.

I shouldn't have woken up the next morning and I'm still amazed that I did.

When depression and anxiety overcome you, you don't really get a choice. Depression is not telling the world that you're sad or you want to die. It's not making people feel sorry for you. It's waking up in the middle of the night screaming your dead best friends name. It's grinding your teeth so hard while you sleep that you break a tooth. It's talking to people and telling everyone you're fine so they won't ask questions, the real questions. It's getting up in the morning and doing your daily routine because you think that's normal.

Because you want to be normal.

I read a quote somewhere that said something along the lines of "Suicide doesn't end pain. It transfers it to someone else." And that quote has stuck with me for the past three years and to be quite frank, it's made me realize that I will make mistakes. But taking my own life should not be one of them.

As a whole we need to start paying attention to our friends and family.

We need to check on each other and have the awkward and uncomfortable conversations no one wants to have. Ask your friends if they're okay, ask yourself if you're okay. Be there for the people you love. Life is too short not to spend time with people who care about you and you care about.

Stop telling them that everything is going to be alright because I promise, most of them don't want to hear that in their moment of vulnerability. Stop glorifying suicide and harmful behaviors because of books, movies, tv shows, and popular people. This isn't something that needs to be praised, but it does need to be talked about. Stop sharing the suicide hotline on social media and become the person that someone feels comfortable coming to. If they don't want to go to their loved ones with their problems what makes you think they want to go to a complete stranger?

Don't forget to take care of yourself.

Take a break every once in a while. Indulge in your favorite food, take a bubble bath, go to the movies, buy yourself that expensive thing you don't really need, do it all. There is so much life out there that you need to experience. Be brave, experience life, and actually LIVE through it. Every dark path you have gone down will not even compare to the beautiful light at the end of the tunnel, it will all be worth it eventually.

If you're feeling down and you feel like you want to harm yourself, don't. Remember your friends, your family, your pets, all of them. And if you feel like none of them will care, remember me. Stick around, for me, for a girl who can't bear to hear about yet another suicide.