Before I begin this story, I would like for those of you reading to put yourselves in your most vulnerable state. Feel each word as if it were your own, reread a sentence, close your eyes and imagine yourself in each word, learn the punctuation's as if each breath counted on it. Do not hold back as this story is not my own to tell, though I have written it, it is a story of a friend of mine whom can't put it into words of her own. It's a story most could not fathom but some may relate to, so read intently, listen with your heart, and feel each nerve in your body quiver to the scream for help which is "Miranda's Story."

Have you ever felt as if you don't belong, that your normal is insane to most, that there's a fault in each and every cell of your body, and you've lost the hope to fight for your own life to get back on track? You're begging for a way out, but each and every slit on the wrist is only temporary relief for the pain to subside. Your throat slit open as your life spills out onto the floor and you're left to wipe it up and throw it in the trash because that's where you've always felt it's belonged. The worst of all, is you've felt this since you were eight years old.

Bystanders would walk past her day by day. Seeing nothing but a young girl with a pure heart and innocent mind. Though her heart and mind were what she tried to hide, they never saw the side of this girl fighting for her life. The young soul put in mental institutions time after time only meant to put her mind at bay, but this game was a part of her life long rhyme. Spending half of her life mistreated and misdiagnosed, she simply was a mess misunderstood by most. Her race and her blood could never fully comprehend as they never understood the exhaustion of being asked to break and bend.

In and out of psychiatric hospitals for medication changes only to subside the pain in her fucked up brain. Pills clutched her tight to ease her feelings as suicidal thoughts crept in claiming to ease her healing. Her heart was cold as her mind went numb because of 12 years of a rehab center with a 90-day stay became a repetitive hum. Spending her 13th birthday being rehabilitated for alcohol in which she never consumed. As prescriptions were taken away, the normalcy she felt would soon be doomed.

Neglected and torn as her mother showed no remorse for constantly sending her away door to door. If not in hospitals, she stayed with a relative who broke her down as his rape was repetitive. Feelings of worthlessness and shame she confided in her mother who claimed she was a liar because mother just couldn't be bothered. The psych ward was next as doors locked behind her. Stripped of all her clothes, a gown with no ties was her only cover. Padded walls and no windows around, thirteen years old in an adult psych ward where her cries were the only sound. Holding her down with shots to sedate her as she fought them to tears until the fight was too much as she wanted to put it all behind like her past years.

Days and weeks ran together, a zombie to the game. A bad dream she wished, please God send my knight in shining armor to wake me with a kiss. An entire life of feeling alone, her silence is golden, her thoughts are molded, with actions scolded, her fight became the last piece needed to get back to the way life was meant to be for she only wanted to be set free. Pills hidden beneath her tongue, she cried for help, in the chapel with the son our Father, savior of all, for she was tired of being the world's little doll.

Holding in thoughts, she feared the worst. Over drugged on prescriptions to keep the hurt, out of her heart out of her mind, married at 18 she began to find comfort in drugs to hide her thoughts, hide her feelings, hide her meaning in the ride of life. Her husband, her savior, her knight he was. Begging her to stop and start to love, herself and others and him as well for the ups and downs she would face would soon be far from hell.

After fifteen years and 100,000 dollars and more in debt, she loaded her gun, and grabbed her cigarettes. One last smoke as she wrote her note, to end her fight and say goodbye. Scatter brained and hurting, nothing around was clear, headlights were blinding, the door slammed with fear, lost in tears a friend was her angel after all of these years.

One last psychiatric hospital to go, her truth spilled out and the doctors said no, stay on the pills and here are some new ones, how about some morphine, or maybe I'll load your gun. Exhausted and beaten, her voice was a whisper, withdraws made her quiver more than the breeze on her shoulder. She spun out of control, a niece to raise and to hold, pain pills were her weakness, and her heart went completely cold. No fucks to give as her life had gone down, God answered her prayers, and her husband came around.

Those sleepless nights and panic attacks gone. For her last rehabilitation, she was finally done, with this life she lived, she never asked for, but now she could the mother and wife she always longed for.

Congratulations Miranda, you're going to inspire so many people and I am so happy you opened up and asked me to write this piece about your life.

Always yours,

Haylea