*warning to readers*

Due to some graphic content of the following story/article readers discretion is strongly advised

Please know that this is NOT a made up story this is true.

Based on real facts not fiction. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Troubled Woman

As I stood there looking down at this girl who is in a lot of pain not just mentally and emotionally but also physically. I see the pain in her eyes, the tears flowing nonstop, her mascara running making black streaks down her cheeks and finally dripping off of her chin to the floor. I ask myself, “What could be causing this girl so much pain”? Then something catches my eye and I look at her arm. It’s cut open with blood running out. Is this why she’s crying? Because she has an injury? The more I looked at the girl the more I noticed more cuts. Her arm looked like she walked through a briar brush full of razors and knives.

My god what happened to this girl? Did she do this to herself? If she did, why would she? Her family loves her to death, her dog loves her, I know she didn’t have it so well in school with teachers, other students, also the boys, but why would that trigger something so malicious to occur. Especially to her own self? This thought grasped me hard and it never left my mind. I stood there looking at her in awe, sorrow, and with guilt. What if her parents saw this what would they think? Would they think she’s gone over board and is crashing into Davey joneses locker?

She moved her head and looked at the computer screen that she was sitting at and said “I hate myself! I hate being like this! I hate feeling like this! No one loves me!” and as if it never happened she grabbed her cigarette out of the ash tray and started to smoke it, typing away on the keyboard.

That behavior took me as well, not normal in the least sort of way but as a girl who is disturbed, who needs help, someone to listen to her, to comfort her, to understand her. “I hate those men who hurt me” I heard her say. What men is she talking about? Little did I know my question was going to be answered very quickly. “I hate the man who molested me in school who touched my left breast and rubbed his hand up and down my left side from my hip up to just under my bra strap. He made me feel so dirty, he took my trust, and he destroyed me.

I couldn’t trust my own dad who never hurt me in his whole life but yet I was afraid of him….because of that man. No one helped me put that bastard away so he couldn’t hurt anymore innocent kids like me in my junior year of school.” I understood her pain then. “I also hate the man who raped me for six months that we were together. He threw me around like garbage, yelled at me for being 1 min. late getting to his car, beating me at age 22. I wish both of those men would die.” These little things can do a lot to this woman’s mindset. No wonder why she feels unloved, hated, and why she hates and severely distrusts men.

The question rose again in my mind. Why would she do this? I couldn't imagine why a woman would do something like this. As time went by the cutting on her skin got worse. She would do more in a session and they would gradually get deeper. I remember one time when she was at the computer late at night with a cloth wrist band that kids wore those days and she slipped it off. I thought to myself, "please not again, your body is damaged too much as it is" i saw her reach for her dads knife that folded up and could be used for other carpentry tools.

She turned the point of the blade towards herself, put it on her wrist, pressed down and sliced. She saw it and wasn't satisfied with the outlook of the first slice. So she repeated again...again....again. I swear she must've sliced about ten times in the same spot.

The saying with cutters is "go down the street not across the road" they say that for a reason. If you slice with the vein instead of just going across it you have a lesser chance of survival and a more successful chance of suicide. She followed that saying. Only she didn't succeed. I don't think she wanted to die then but still I’m not sure why she would do that. She took her cloth wrist band and covered up her wrist. Again she acted like nothing was wrong and went on typing in her MSN messenger and on a game that she played called Myth War. Over a period of months she got into a routine of cutting, smoking a cig then talking on either MSN or Myth War.

Then all of a sudden her routine changed. She started to add drugs to it. She started out with skipping all of her medicines that she took during the day and took them all at one shot at night. That was about on average 15 pills at one shot. That new part of her routine only lasted about a week then she added sleeping pills, prescription drugs that she stool from her parents. They had no clue as to what was going on with their daughter. Then again they wouldn't have because she was doing all of this destructive behavior at night when everyone was sleeping.

Before too long after the addition of prescription drugs she added alcohol to the mix. I watched her in amazement at how much this girl hated herself and her body. She was shoving approximately 30 pills every two hours into her system along with a bottle of robitussin, for the alcohol and drugs, which got her very high and to heighten her high she smoked cigarettes. Never in my adult life have I ever seen a person be able to digest and take that much pills, alcohol and cigarettes in their system and still be able to get up and go to the bathroom on their own with no help. Yes she staggered due to the intoxication but she just acted like it was no big deal. This went on for about 3yrs in total.

She started cutting at age 20 and everything else followed suit. It finally stopped at age 23. But in those 3 years of self-torture, drug abuse, alcohol abuse she almost lost her family. They have tried interventions on her, everything you could think of she just would not stop. She blamed everything on her dad because in her mind she had no one else to blame. Her mom wanted to see the cuts and asked her every time that she wanted to see it and see how bad it was. It broke her mom's heart seeing that but her dad didn't really see all of them.

Her final year of self-destruction came to an end when she finally picked up a razor blade from a razor. I thought to myself, "isn't what you've done enough?! Please stop!" but to her it wasn't enough she sliced her calf and left a deep gash. One day her and her dad got into it for one final time "i can't believe this is happening again, please stop blaming him, he did nothing to harm you! You have to stop!" but she didn't stop she blacked out, came to in her room with the razor blade in her hand and a deathly deep gash in her forearm.

She cried out “mom it's time to go! We have to go now!" her mom came in and saw the trail of blood from her room to her bathroom. She immediately grabbed her rushed her to the table asking "why? Why? Why do you keep doing this? Why are you doing this? This is killing us don't you see that?!" by that time her arm was bandaged up and her motor skills and thinking became very impaired. She passed out in the car as her mom drove her to the hospital. Her mom said she walked in fine and that the doctors and nurses wouldn't let her in to see her daughter because of her being so unstable. They had her hooked up to the blood pressure machine, IV in her arm, blood bank on standby. Her mom could only hope that everything would be ok with her daughter.

The nurse came out and said “your daughter severed her vein, did severe tissue damage, muscle damage, nerve damage and she'll never have full healing of the tissue in her arm. Some will never grow back. she is getting 13 stiches in her arm and she is out of it in the room but she keeps saying "i don't want to die, i don't want to die." she will be admitted to the East Wing of Dubois Regional Medical Center." and left to come back in to help the doctor stitch her up. Her mom said that she willingly accepted going into the East Wing.

But when she finally came to she was alone in a room, with padding around her bed, no roommate and a massive bandage on her arm. She knew what she did and it finally hit her that she would have to come face to face with everything. The inner demons that lived inside to the false blaming of her dad. She saw a psychologist regularly every day for the time that she was there at the hospital and every day she grew stronger and stronger. She left the hospital a little after a week of stay. I give that girl all the credit in the world for having the courage to deal with what she dealt with, the demons, the blaming, and finally admitting the truth.

She cut, did drugs and drank because she was so depressed that she couldn't find a man to love her. She would try over and over again what didn't help were the online relationships. The rapist and especially the teacher back in her junior year of high school. All those built up inside of her and to top it off...her grandmother died who she was so dearly close to.

You’re probably wondering how i know this girl. Well to be completely honest that girl was me. I went through all of that to become the person that i am today. A strong willed happy and very determined person. Sometimes we have to go through some very hellish things to make us who we are today...the complete opposite. My turn around was a complete 360 degrees of where i was at 4 yrs. ago.

I’ve been sober of everything for close to 3 yrs. now. I would cut to "relieve the pain" but that only just created more. I wish i knew that then but if i did then i wouldn't have become the person that i am here today telling you this. My trials and tribulations.