It was six years ago and it was yesterday.

It has been every single day in between.

I woke up on a Monday morning, close to 4:00 a.m., feeling like a knife had sliced through my middle.

Over and over again, I felt like my insides were being ripped open and torn from my body.

I was fourteen and I was scared.

Fast forward six months.

I was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night.

I was usually silent when my pain intensified, but that night, I screamed so loud the neighbors could hear.

"You're going to feel a little pinch," the nurse in the ER said to me.

I didn't feel the needle violating my arm, just the knife digging deeper and deeper into my side.

I shook violently and cried quietly, waiting for the Dilaudid to enter my system.

Waiting for it to take away the sting of the pain.

Waiting to feel nothing.

The doctor's orders took away my pain for six hours.

My sharp slice became a dull ache.

The tests came back normal and I was discharged.

Fast forward one week.

I followed up with my doctor.

I followed up with her again in two weeks.

And two weeks after that.

And two weeks after that.

I knew her staff better than I knew my own friends.

My life was doctors.

My life was hospitals and waiting rooms.

My life wasn't a life. Not one that I had control over, anyways.

Fast forward one year.

I was too weak to go to class.

I was too weak to go out with my friends.

My body allowed nothing and took everything.

I was fifteen and I was confused.

All tests showed no physical signs of weakness.

They couldn't explain why it took me three hours to get out of bed in the morning.

They couldn't explain why I couldn't eat or sleep or function.

My life was controlled by the pain I felt with no answer to why this was.

Fast forward another year.

My pain the week prior had been almost intolerable.

I told myself I had to push through.

I would not make my grandmother spend her birthday in a stuffy hospital room.

But I couldn't push through, and my grandmother did spend her birthday in a stuffy hospital room.

A tube was forced down my throat and into my stomach because I couldn't eat food or swallow oral medicine.

I couldn't drink water.

I could barely talk.

I was a measly 78 pound 16-year-old with no eating disorder, no disorder they could find.

Fast forward seven months.

I was two weeks into my senior year of high school when I was pulled from all classes but two and enrolled again in Hospital Homebound.

I missed more class than I attended.

Not because I didn't want to go, but because I couldn't.

I loved school.

I loved seeing my friends.

I loved being around people my own age.

My pain robbed me of that.

My pain took everything I wanted and left me with nothing but doctor's appointments, experimental prescriptions and a permanent, worried look etched onto my loved ones' faces.

Fast forward another seven months.

It was one month before prom.

I was in the hospital.

The pain was so unbearable that both Dilaudid and Tramadol barely touched the agony my body endured.

Day after day passed.

Test after test was run.

Doctor after doctor came in to see me, ask me questions, and attempted to diagnose.

Three weeks before prom, another tube was put down my throat.

This time, though, the nurse was new and the tube went down into my lung instead of my stomach.

My mother made her pull it back up at the look on my face.

Red, wet, and sticky liquid stuck to the yellow tube.

I threw up.

Another nurse came in and correctly placed the tube down into my stomach.

It fed me medicine.

The IV in my hand fed me water and nutrients.

I felt useless.

My body composed the ultimate betrayal, the betrayal against me.

I was released from the hospital one week before prom.

Fast forward one month.

I sat in my guidance counselor's office as she told me that because I was on partial Hospital Homebound, I would not be walking with the Top Ten Percent of my class, even though my GPA put me there.

I was furious.

I was bitter.

One more thing that I had earned was taken away from me and it was, again, out of my control.

Fast forward to present.

I finally have a diagnosis.

Functional Abdominal Pain.

The doctor explained that to many people, it could mean many different things. Not all people who suffer from this disorder endure the same kind of pain I do, nor do they have the same triggers as I do.

The sensory neurons in my brain transmit pain signals to my abdomen when my anxiety is heightened.

Basically, my brain causes me to feel physical pain that isn't physically there.

I struggle every. single. day. Some seconds, minutes, or hours are easier than others. I don't get to choose when an attack is going to happen. I can't plan my day around it. But I've also learned that I can refuse to allow it to control my life.

Knowing how big of a role my anxiety and PTSD play in my functional abdominal pain, I have proof that the mind is a powerful thing; in fact, it is the most powerful instrument we have as human beings.

I also emerge every. single. minute. I fight my mind and I fight my pain with every fiber of my being, and I will continue to fight until I have conquered my illness once and for all. I have endured things that no 14 year old, 17 year old, or 20 year old should ever have to face. But I see now that, through my struggle, I have come out on the other side a better, stronger person. I won't let my pain, my anxiety, or my mind beat me black and blue.

These are the things you can't see.

They live inside me, fierce and strong and always on the defensive.

Some of our scars we wear on our sleeve; they radiate off of us with so much strength that even a perfect stranger can see them. But most of our strifes are kept hidden, buried way down deep.

These are the things you can't see.

And that is why it is so important to show compassion to everyone you meet. These are the reasons why we should all be accepting of each other, loving each other unconditionally.

This is my battle.

I have mine.

You have yours.

Luctor et emergo. I struggle and I emerge, and you can too.