“be careful” - everyone always told me while i was growing up.
“don’t walk alone at night”
“always keep pepper spray on you”
“when you’re walking alone,
pretend to listen to your music but don’t actually
listen to your music - you need to be aware of
your surroundings at all times”
“use your keys as a weapon if you need to”
“we don’t want any suspicious man to hurt you” -
they said.

you see, growing up i always thought there was something wrong with me.
all my friends would be talking about their latest guy crush and i just
really didn’t get it.

so at fifteen years old i was really excited to finally realize that i was gay
and that i was, in fact, not going to die alone like i had previously thought.

feeling comfortable enough to come out and explore my sexuality
in an environment that felt safe was such a big relief.

the thing is - no one really tells you to be careful around friends,
or around the people you’ve grown to trust the most.

no one tells you to be cautious when you’re laying on
your high school crushes bed making out instead of
watching the movie tarzan that’s playing in the background.

sure i was aware she had a quick temper and occasionally
threw the furniture around at school in fits of anger.
- but when she wasn’t angry she was always the first
to crack a joke and make me laugh, so everything’s ok, right?

no one told me that girls can **** too.

so when it happened later that night after tarzan was over,
in addition to the crippling disgust and paralyzing fear i felt,
i was really lost and confused.

because it happened,

but it didn’t happen in a dark alleyway like they had told me -
i was in her bed.

we weren’t drunk - like the men they had told me to be wary of,
we had just been watching tarzan earlier that night.

it wasn’t a man that did this - like they had warned me.

it was a girl.
a sixteen year old girl.
it was someone who i had grown to trust.

after, i spent the majority of my time dissociating.
i dissociated to the point where that night was completely
erased from my memory and replaced with a black hole in my mind.

it’s almost exactly like when you’re watching a movie and the
dvd is scratched up so it skips a couple of scenes forward and
you know something had to have happened because now the
main character of the movie is uncontrollably crying when just
two seconds ago she was smiling,
and now the story doesn’t make sense anymore.

you can’t go back and rewind it because
its a permanent scratch on the dvd.
a permanently damaged movie.

so yes, i always knew something happened that night.
because even though there was only blank space in my mind,
the self hatred, deeply rooted anger and questions about what happened
still remained and i couldn’t figure out why my heart
was hurting so badly all of a sudden.

i’ve been told by doctors that this is all a normal reaction to trauma.

so why do i still try to convince myself that it never
happened, when i know **** well it did?

and why did i keep quiet and carry something so heavy
for years after the memories started resurfacing, alone?

maybe it was fear.
i mean how could i expect others to believe me when
the majority of the time i didn’t believe it myself.

maybe it’s because it’s unbearably painful
when i do acknowledge it.
and it’s unbearably painful when i don’t.

i don’t really know.
i never wanted this to happen and i’m still trying to
find my way out of this ******* mess.

all i know is that no one ever told me that sometimes the
ones who hurt you the most are so often the ones you trust.

and i am so scared to trust again because man,
i was only a kid but i was forced to grow up overnight.

to my family that doesn’t believe mental illness is real:

i sincerely hope you never get woken up in the dead of night
by a phone call from one of your precious girls, hundreds of
miles away from home, calling to tell you with a heart full
of pain yet a voice void of emotion, that she is so sorry
but she has to take all of her pills.

i hope you never find her so dissociated and confused,
walking in dangerous parts of town without a coat on,
in the snow, hoping someone would **** her or at the
very least she would freeze to death.

i hope you never have to plead with one of your girls
to not press the cold blade against her skin, or not
to put her neck through that noose she spent so much
time researching how to tie all while you’re desperately
trying to call an ambulance to her house, praying it will
get there in time.

i hope you never have to watch your child be escorted by
two cops from her room at the general hospital that she
was stuck in for nearly a week because her blood was so
poisoned from the lithium and her risk of seizure and
blood clots were so high, to be safely taken to a psych unit.

i hope you never have to watch your child be taken back
to a psych assessment room while you have to sit there
in the waiting room, pretending everything is okay all while
your heart is silently breaking into a million pieces because
your girl has been broken by abuse at another persons hand
and you couldn’t have stopped it from happening.

i hope you never have to see one of your girls get admitted
to a psych unit. one minute you walk in with your suicidal
child and 2 two hours later you walk out, but this time alone,
knowing that there is nothing you can do to ‘fix’ your hurting baby.

no mother or father wants this for their child.
and no person chooses to have mental illness.

do you really think i wanted to spend my high school years
in and out of the hospital?

i don’t think you understand the loneliness that comes
from being stuck there while your ‘friends’ are only
worrying about the next big test that was coming up.

i would have loved to only be worrying about that next test
but instead i was preoccupied with death, wanting nothing
more than to finally feel the pain draining from my body.

do you really think i enjoyed having to strip down naked,
no underwear or no bra, every day so the hospital staff
could make sure i wasn’t still hurting myself?
i felt like i was being violated all over again.

do you really think i enjoyed having to sleep on a mattress
on the floor with the lights on so hospital staff could watch
me to make sure i didn’t **** myself?

i hated being in the hospital.
and i was terrified knowing that when i got out i had to
find the strength to walk back into school with a smile
on my face despite knowing that i would have to see
my abuser walking the same hallways everyday.

you don’t know my story. it’s none of your business.
but since you have felt the need to pass judgment
on my family and i, i thought i would let you know
that your ignorance is a death sentence to some,
not me, i’m learning to deal with my dark thoughts,
but to others who aren’t fortunate enough to have the
support and resources that i do,
it sends them straight to their graves.

mental illness is real,
and the stigma that ignorance creates, kills.

and i hope that if one of your children is
ever plagued by an illness similar to mine,
that they feel comfortable enough coming to you.
and if not, i hope they feel comfortable coming to
me. i will lend a non judgmental, compassionate ear.
because the only thing that ever talked me off the edge
all of those dark, cold and lonely nights was just that:
compassion.