I was a curious child, as most are. What's for dinner? Who's the mail from? How old is she? How much longer? Questions poured from my mouth as though it was a faucet and, as is the norm, my parents blew off the questions I asked at four years old. But as I grew further in my developmental life stages, my parents still refused to answer me. I was taught not to question so much so that when I was fifteen and failing algebra I did not know how to ask for help. Now suddenly it was expected of me to know what I was even though my inquiries had been dismissed along the way for years upon endless years.

Because of my socio-economic standing as an upper to middle class kid with clear problems in my head that my parents failed to address, I was told to be silent. When I questioned the rules, my society, my religion I was told to be quiet because I was just a little girl. I was just a girl. And that mindset is what teaches us exactly what role women should play, subservient to their male counterparts. Even when he is the fisherman with his subject sprawled out on a board being heinously gutted of their very existence, having their insides drained into a bucket and their eyes lifelessly roll into the backs of their heads and yet she is the one being blamed for just being a fish. She swam into dangerous waters and should have known that he would catch her and pick her scales and flesh from the very bones to which they were attached. But still, she never questions it because being born as a fish means reaping the consequences.

You taught me never to question authority. So when the first man to tell me he loved me used the phrase as a barbed weapon to get me down on my knees, I never thought twice. When the first man to tell me he would never hurt me as my ex did, I didn't worry that he would end up taking my "no" as fuel for his engine and allowed him to go harder. I didn't think twice when my cousin who was seven years older than me told me to kiss him in awful ways and touched me in ways that were worse. Authority, ladies and gentlemen, has beaten me to a very exhausted pulp.

You taught me to never question my feelings. That I was doing just fine on my own, I didn't need any help, help was just an illusion. If you must, discuss it with your therapist. You're not sick, you're just troubled. You'll handle this on your own. Just like I handled it so well on my own two years ago when I grabbed a kitchen knife off the shelf and dug it into my arm sitting on my bedside, praying I wouldn't wake up the next morning? Just like I handled it so well on my own six months ago, when I was crouching over the toilet seat made of cheap plastic 4-7 times per day, sticking a stealthy finger down my throat and making myself throw up so I wouldn't have to feel how much I hated myself or how much grief I was in? Do you know how it feels to have stomach acid burning up the inside of your organs and gradually eating away at your esophagus on the regular? To put it simply, it hurts. But I was fine with it. And just like I'm doing just fine now, where I'm having panic attacks in front of teachers because I see my friend Briana's strawberry blonde hair and freckles, the person she was before she became a ****** addict, everywhere I go? I'm sorry, I guess that was too many questions.

Do not try to silence me. I am almost eighteen now, and asking what matters. Which means each and every one of my questions. Stop telling me my questions are not relevant, stop telling me I don't matter. I am never going away because I am important. I will not accept that I can be splattered and gutted and thrown away simply because I am just a little girl. This little girl will continue to question everything, and she will be heard. I will be heard.