Abyss

“When you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

According to Merriam -Webster’s English Dictionary, depression is defined as, “ A psycho neurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness... inactivity, ... feelings of dejection and hopelessness... sometimes suicidal tendencies.” Depression is also defined as “a sinking surface...hollow space” That’s exactly how my mind felt when I was at my rock bottom. Hollow. Sinking. Depressed. I can never say “when I was depressed.” Because like a drug addict, who has stayed clean and sober for a while, and stills considers themselves an addict, I will always be depressed, and I will always consider myself to be a depressed person. Depression will be a lifetime struggle, and I am prepared for it. But this is how it all began.

It manifested itself at the end of fifth grade, so around the time I turned 11. I felt like I needed to lose weight. I was a healthy weight, but I thought otherwise. The anorexia started slow. I cut down on dessert. Then breakfast. Then, well, everything.

I remember the sixth grade Valentine’s Day dance at my school that year. I hadn't eaten anything for three days, so I bought myself a Diet Coke. I started dancing with my friends. I remember the music was too loud. The people were moving too fast. The world was spinning. I felt like I was going to throw up, so I ran to the bathroom. But of course, I had to check how my stomach looked in the mirror, whether it was flat or not. Like always, I cursed at myself for not exercising more, and for being fat. But in reality, I was a living skeleton. Looking back, I find it almost funny that even though I was going to throw up, my ritual came first. But I didn't throw up. Instead, I fainted. I don’t know for how long I was out, but I awoke drenched in sweat. I cleaned myself up, totally oblivious to the fact I just blacked out on the floor. My friend, Dayna, whom I had always envied for her slender physique, came up to me and asked if I wanted to take a picture with her and some other girls. I said ok. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. I was a ghost. My cheeks were nonexistent. My collarbone was three inches away from my chest. My face was a similar color to that of a corpse, gray and blue.

I was admitted into UCSD’s outpatient eating disorder program the following week. After exactly three months in the program, I was discharged. I feel as if the program was like a band aid on top of a wound that has cut through skin, muscle and bone. It fixed one problem, but left another bleeding. While at the program, I met many girls who were several years my senior. They were really nice to me. They also cut themselves.This would affect me a few months later.

After I got discharged from UCSD, things were going okay for a while, and my weight had been restored. In the June of 2011, my mother confessed to me that she was bulimic and had been for six years prior. I was inflamed in rage. How dare my own Mother make me fat, while she was shoving her fingers down her throat every day after a meal she had just forced me to eat?! Luckily, my mom was seeking treatment. She admitted herself into the adult version of the same program I was just discharged from. That summer became one of the hardest of my life. I never saw my mom, because she was at treatment all day, and I really didn’t have any friends in the area.

A few days after my twelfth birthday, a sixteen year old girl, Natasha, whom I met at the program, invited me to her house for a sleepover. The night after, I was admitted as an inpatient to Aurora Behavioral Health Center for confessing to my parents I wanted to kill myself. I was released after 72 hours. I can’t say what triggered the emotions to say that. I’m not sure if I meant it, either.

I started school in the fall, and had begun to cut myself in an attempt to make myself feel better about the whole thing. I used a simple shaving blade, but I hit the ground running. I created scars that exist prominently, to this day, on my arm. I was hospitalized again in November of 2011, right before Thanksgiving, for cutting. I was also hospitalized right before Christmas, and after a week was sent to an outpatient program. There, a girl slipped me a small, squarish blade right under the supervisor’s nose. I don’t know why she did this. I don’t know why she would want to help a little girl cut herself. But she did, and I happily accepted this gift of sorts.

That blade. Oh, how I loved that blade. It became a ritual to cut myself everyday after school. I was continuously bullied for the fact I was “emo.” I wanted to stop, to be happy, but I couldn't. I also, at the same time, wanted to hold onto my depression. I wanted to hold on to the pain.

A couple of months and countless cuts/scars later, my mom found my blood soaked blade. Before, when she knew I was cutting, she thought I was using staples or knives, which she had expelled from the house. She said she threw up. Not from bulimia, (which, by then, she was recovered and had been since August) but from the sight of so much blood. It was inside one of my stuffed animals from my childhood. She decided to wash the filthy thing. The blade fell out.

I continued to cut\mainly on my right calf. Up until maybe late May. I got a boyfriend, Jason, who knew about my troubles and had supported me the whole way.

For summer vacation, we went to Spain. My mom is Spanish, born and raised, so we went to Leon. I had a great time. Away from all my troubles, I was exempt from all my worries. My wounds were healed for the most part, and I kept in contact with Jason everyday. Unlike the year before, it was a great summer. Then... I got back to school.

It was awful. The crazy teachers, the even crazier kids/bullies, and the drama. Oh God, the drama. So many rumors. I got called names up and down. I broke up with Jason , just because I couldn’t love myself enough to love anybody else.

I was staring into an abyss, and the abyss was staring into me. While I was staring, I was preparing to jump into the depths of the abyss. I couldn’t eat. Not like I didn’t want to, I just couldn’t. I slept constantly. I was constantly thinking about suicide. Wondering, being a Christian, if God would forgive me if I killed myself. On the way home from church, passing several highway overpasses, wondering which one would kill me the fastest if I jumped. I prepared a suicide note. I knew I was going to die, I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I would be dead by the end of September, which I knew to be “suicide season.”

On Friday, September 14, 2012, I was having a horrible day. But nothing unusual. Bullies. School. Bullies. That night, I was video chatting with a friend. I can’t honestly say I didn’t have feelings for him. Then I found out he was going out with one of my biggest tormentors. Yasmin, from the year before, had made it her mission to destroy my life. My parents had gone out to dinner, and my sisters were downstairs watching television. I couldn’t take the pain any more. I hung up on my friend. I ran across the hallway, to the medicine cabinet. I grabbed the Costco-sized bottle of non- aspirin Tylenol. I posted on Facebook the suicide note I had prepared days in advance, and a video saying sorry to everyone. In the video, I took a handful of pills. In total, I want to say I took about six handfuls of 500 mg pills.

People on Facebook, begging me to stop, saying they would do anything to keep me alive. The friend whom I had called earlier, the one who was newly dating Yasmin, messaged me. He said he loved me, always had, but didn’t think he had a shot with me. I didn’t care. I was determined to kill myself. I continued to take the pills. A girl who I sat next to in class, who I never had talked to, messaged me as well. She said I was worth it. She told me this feeling would pass. I ignored her. I was on a self- destructive warpath.

Yasmin called 911. I find it almost ironic that the person who had killed me on the inside wanted me alive. The police knocked on the door. My sisters were terrified. They had no idea what was happening, why the police showed up and had asked for me. The medics rushed upstairs, only to see me take more pills. I was NOT going to let these people stop me from dying. They assisted me downstairs, and I was stable. I didn’t talk, I didn’t cry. I was praying. Praying to drop dead on the spot. For God to take me away from this Hell.

They took my vitals, and my heartrate was really high. They sent me en route to Rady’s Childrens’ Hospital to have my stomach pumped. As I was loading onto the ambulance, I saw my friend Adam sobbing in the back of his Mom’s car. I broke down. I wanted to die so bad. I felt dizzy, everything was blurry, and I vomited in the ambulance. I kept vomiting until we got to the emergency room. I don’t remember anything until the point where I felt like my bed was moving. It was. I was being transferred to the CCU. The critical care unit. I was immediately hooked onto various machines, and had a gazillion IVs in me. I stayed at Rady’s for three days, treated for an overdose/liver failure.

I was then transferred to the Psych unit in a separate building. I was there for two weeks. I then got transferred to Center For Discovery. It was a residential treatment center near Los Angeles. There, I healed. I felt a wave of transition. I came out of there as a new person. I got back into school a week later, in the charter school I am at now. I love it. I have a clean start. They can’t touch me here. So here I am, at Innovations Academy. As my first writing assignment, my teacher made me write a “Where I Am From” poem. It reflects where I was, and where I am now. Here it is:

I am from many phases
From a place of unquenchable torment
From a fearful depth of despair, becoming a place of elation and relief
I am from hope, faith, and miracles.

I am from a dark abyss
From lost isles of heartache
From unrequited admiration
From songs of sad refrain
I am from a place similar to H-e-l-l

I am from a place of transition
From sadness, to neutrality
From inferno to purgatory
I am from the road to recovery from this
sweet depression

I am from a newfound happiness
From sadness, to an enthusiasm
From the way children perceive life
I am from relief, knowing the war has ceased

I am from a miracle
From a loving Mother
From a loving Father, both heavenly and tangible
I am from Imago Dei
Image of God.

I am from a salty breeze whipping through my exterior
From absolute nirvana
From love
I am from a realization
It IS worth it.

So here I am. I am a strong, young, beautiful girl. With battle scars to show my strength, I am ready to face the world. Yes, I was staring into an abyss, but now, I am staring into a mirror. And I see a miracle.