The first was when I was 13. I was depressed, anxious, and I was doing poorly in school because of these issues so my parents were furious with me. My relationship with my dad has always been difficult, but this was the first time that I felt like my mom wasn't on my side. I had been self harming for a while at this point, but it went from being something I did from time to time on bad days to a ritual that got me through. I had always been weird and I hadn't really ever had friends but during this time people went from just ignoring me to actively tormenting me. I truly felt that there was nowhere that I belonged and I just lost the will to live; I have several memories of being in the car or on the bus to school and just praying that it would crash so that I could die and nobody would be mad at me. I didn't really sleep, I'd just sit awake and stare at the wall. Eventually, I ended up being committed to a psychiatric hospital because I told my therapist about my plan to kill myself, then tried to run onto the highway leaving her office.

I've had some rough times since then, recovery from that bout of depression brought my eating disorder to the attention of my family (they figured that I would eat when I actually had a will to live) and I continue to struggle with anorexia. I spent close to 2 months of my senior year in residential treatment and ended up spending a lot of last week in the hospital because of it. I think the thing that has made all of my other lows less 'low' is my knowledge that things will eventually get somewhat better, and that things won't always be as terrible as they are in that moment. I have come so far that that no matter how shitty I feel about myself I will always have the progress that I have made to be proud of. I graduated high school with over a 4.0, got a full academic scholarship to one of my top choice colleges, and I've made a lot of great friends in the last year (since starting college). It still breaks my heart that I was in so much pain at such a young age.