This is the part I warned you all about before, I'm going into great detail here and parts of it are not pretty. I'm not talking "and my guts were hanging from the ceiling", but there's been a *LOT* of shit in my life the past year and a half and a lot has gone on that I need to vent about. And this is my site, so it's where I'm going to do it.

I try not to judge people or make fun of them because I've been on the other side at certain times in my life and I didn't like it. Besides, some people look different, it makes them unique and I think that's cool. And what's wrong with being different? Once you read below, you'll find out I'm different in a lot of ways. I think everyone is to some degree.

And now, I really can't believe I'm about to reveal all of this stuff to a world of people I don't know, but here goes......

I was like I said, a typical teenager up until a year and a half ago. I went to school, got good grades, went to parties, kissed boys, hung out with friends, everything like that. Then I guess you could say I got involved with the wrong guy. We were what you could call "going out" for about four months, and throughout those four months, he hit me. Now, from the start, my parents didn't even know I was seeing this guy, but he was "really popular" you could say and I was shocked he even wanted to go out with me. But the hitting began, and it was like he knew exactly what he was doing, because he would hit me in places he knew no one else would see. My chest, my thighs, etc.. It was another secret I was keeping. And then came secret number three. I was pregnant.

I had never been so scared in my life. I was 16, with an abusive , could you even call him boyfriend, and pregnant. I was too scared to do anything at first, and then finally found the courage to tell him, and what did he do? Beat me. And told me to get rid of it. And with that "we" were over. He quickly moved on and I was left to deal with the mess. Now I haven't even mentioned my father who throughout my life was a constant scare to me because of the verbal abuse I was subjected too. And it continues to this day. But I knew I couldn't tell my parents, there was no way in hell. So I went and did the only thing I thought I could do. I had an abortion.

I regret that choice to this day, and probably always will. But that became my fourth secret. I went alone to Planned Parenthood and thought I could deal with it alone. And I could not have been more wrong.

I'd always been depressed, and then after a few days I'd feel better. But after the abortion, my depressions started getting much more severe, and began lasting longer. My entire outlook on life changed, and I became a completely different person. I spent a week and a half in Disney World, more depressed than I ever thought possible. Disney World is suppose to be the happiest place on earth, but to me it felt like 10 days in hell. And thats the way I spent the next 3 months.

School began, and along with it my depressions got worse. I couldn't concentrate, I knew "he" was always around, thankfully not in any of my classes. I secretly began cutting myself. Just small cuts at first, on my thighs or legs, just to see what it would feel like. And in a sick, peverse way, I liked the way it felt. To me, it released my demons.

Along with the mood swings came voices in my head. They were constantly plaguing me, taunting me as I read, ate, slept, walked, breathed. They would tell me ways to hurt myself, tell me what was wrong with me, that I was a menace that didn't deserve to live. That aborting my baby had made me destined to rot in hell. They were always there, and if I tried tuning them out, they got louder. Like having a television in my head that I couldn't shut off. I tried to ignore them, pretend they weren't there. But one day I grew tired of it all, and I gave in.

Two days after Thanksgiving of 2001, I went into the bathroom and swallowed 3/4 of an economy sized bottle of tylenol and shut the door. After I did, I can still remember the voices telling me that I finally did something right in my life, that I had finally listened. Then the daunting continued. "Fucking bitch. You useless whore. Nobody's going to care that you're dead." I'll never forget that line.

I don't remember much about the rest of that night. Just that my mom found me and rushed me to the hospital where they made me drink 2 buckets of charcoal that I couldn't keep down so they put an NG tube in. The rest of that night is a blur of visions and voices as doctors and nurses tended to me, and I woke up the next day in the PICU, hooked up to every machine imaginable. And I spent the next 4 days there, being given medication that I cannot even remember the name of to absorb all the tylenol.

After those 4 days I was transferred to a psychiatric hospital where I spent a week and was the discharged, only to return again at the end of December. It was then that my cutting got worse and I moved to more visable places, not caring who saw anymore. I cut "FUCK" into my left ankle and I now have a scar from that. I did that IN the hospital, only proving to my parents just how safe this so called hospital was. And my cutting continued, as did my depressions even though I was on Celexa and Zyprexa.

But it was after that hospitalization that they put me in a partial hospitalization program at that same hospital did a small amount of hope enter my life. I met a social worker named Jaime who was the first person I had met in a LONG time that I trusted. I trusted her enough that she was the first person I ever told about my abortion, and this was 6 months after it had taken place. She became the one person I felt would be there to support me throughout this, and I spent a month in that program, with her helping me every step of the way.

Then in February right after my 17th birthday I was hospitalized again, and it was at this point they told me that I was most definetly Bipolar. At that point they switched my meds to Depakote, Geodon, and Effexor. After that I again returned to the partial hospitalization program for another 2 weeks, where Jaime finished off what would make my school life a lot easier. She got me into a new school.

After I was discharged I switched from my current home tutoring, to a BOCES learning center where everyone had emotional problems and therapy is part of the school day. Its a pre-requiset to get into the school. And by taking me out of the 1500 or so kid environment of my old school and putting me in a school with 170 kids in it, it greatly decreased my stress load, and I didn't have to face you know who anymore.

But I was still having severe problems, and returned for a third time to the partial hospitalization program where I spent another 2 weeks.

It's July 23rd as I type this, and to this day, I'm still plagued by the voices in my head. They are always there, yelling at me, ordering me what to do. My arms and legs are covered in cuts and burns that I've purposely put there in attempts to allieviate my pain, and I still cut to try to rid myself of the pain. It works some of the time, and other times, I do it just to take the numb feeling I have away. I'm sitting here, practically suicidal at the moment, but I have to look at it as I have a disease, and that disease wants to bring me down, and I can't let it. I have to fight, because I know what I want. I want to finish growing up and I want to have a life.

Jaime was the one real person that's helped me through everything thats happened, and she inspired me to become what I want to become today- a social worker. I wouldn't be alive today if it werent for her, because she managed to talk me out of another suicide attempt, and that time I can almost gaurantee it would have worked.

But my doctors say its good that I have a positive outlook on things because that's what I'll need to get through this all. I know I'll never be the same again, but I want to return to a somewhat normal, healthy level where I don't have to worry about having a manic episode, or falling into the darkness of a depression. I want to get into what they call remission, and I want that soon.