I have a different outlook now. You know, I love my brother, and I always have, but I guess I never really saw that even though my friends made me happy, he did too. I think I tend to see things as the person I'm currently around, like Tori, is the one that usually makes me the most happy, even though there is happiness outside of that person. But.. he's right - once that person that makes you happy disappears it feels like no one can replace or help keep that happiness alive. But.. my brother, and his fiance, and his friend all seem to care a lot if I'm okay. Like, he literally said,

"If this was with Ricky (another brother of mine) this conversation would have ended about fifteen minutes ago because I would have told him to grow a pair. But, when mom texted me and said that you were really sad, I kinda got sad too and actually started to cry. I don't like it when you're sad, kid, because it's my job as a brother to protect you and make sure you're happy."

Nobody's ever said that too me before. I've never gotten told by anyone, especially not in my family, that I'm "uber awesome" or "the best friend" of anyone. One of the first things he told me was that I shouldn't doubt if I was being a good enough friend because out of the hundreds he had, I was the best. He told me even if he was having the worst day and was pissed off at pretty much everything in the world, he could talk to me for five minutes about really stupid shit (this can go anywhere from how the dog runs into the wall when he plays fetch or how sucky the newest x-box game is) and make the day seem a lot less shitty.

A really small part of me still wants to take my life... but the rest wants to live to see tomorrow.

I shouldn't talk so much about myself but... I don't think I've ever been so... calm or dare I say it, happy.

Well, im really glad!

My brother just helped out a bit, I just got off the phone with him... Even through ridiculous pain and tears, he still managed to put a smile on my face. My chest doesn't hurt so bad anymore.

You can always check yourself into a hospital. or tell your mom you dont want to live. Listen, i did that. I told my mom I didnt want to live. She yelled at me, but she brought me to the hospital. And they put me on meds, and I was doing very well for a long while. but then i stopped taking the meds. and im ehh. Alright. But I know it helped a lot! so if you feel like ending it. go there. please.

Being here helps, even if it just means ranting and seeming really angry when I'm just sad and tired of holding myself back. I've almost always held myself back - I let myself bottle up emotion and convince myself, and everybody else, that the smile on my face isn't fake and my memories are good ones. But, no, that's not true. In fact, I've only shown about seven true smiles in my entire 14, almost 15 years of living.The rest are just... there.

I've really tried to tell my friends at school about it - hoping maybe, just maybe, they'll have some sort of advice and get that I need to be distracted or else they're going to be picking up a very sad, crying very hard Deandra. I've thought about the counselors, but they're all rude as hell and usually shush someone before they have a chance to speak. I've thought about even going to one of my teachers, like my spanish or english or science teacher and just handing them a note but... I have no courage. I have no yen to let them know that the reason I can't focus, the reason I can't hear what they half of the time is because the thought of death and pain and pills and cutting and caring and wishing and hoping and dreaming and sleeping and nightmares and every thing else blocks my mind. I try to distract myself but... nothing seems to work. Reading does a little, but that's about it. I used to write stories and journal posts but the only thing I wind up with is "It's your fault" or "Where is Seth?" or "I MISS TORI". Nothing seems... satisfying. I want to talk to my mother about seeing something about severe depression, anxiety, to maybe get some pills or therapy to help it... but I don't know how to bring it about that I've been in so much pain the last year and a half.

I don't have a lot of friends left, and that's a bit shocking for me - I used to have a group of friends who would cling around me and make me laugh and what not. Slowly... they disappeared. One left, another followed, more followed. I'd gain some, say something stupid, and I'd be alone again. The friends I have now... they don't really understand. They don't understand that the silent, strange girl they've paired up with doesn't enjoy life as much as they do. They're happy. They have good families and are decently popular and pretty and talkative. Yet, while they try to make me social, I have to back out. I get scared. It's like... if I interact with someone I don't know, I get really.. nervous. What my friends don't see, what I want to admit to Jason and Lateryka and Keyoisha is that the person they've met that seems rather happy and content is really ready to end her life and say "Fuck you God, I quit."

I would hope, that if I live to see the day, that if my children go through this I can give them sort of advice and give them a shoulder to lean on, unlike my own. My dad's a deadbeat drunk who usually forgets that I exist and my mom just... she's seen scars and cuts and heard me cry but never does anything about it. If a child of mine ends up with an eating disorder or self harm or an addiction to fucking pain killers I can tell them that mommy went there once, and it was a scary ass place but I pulled through. I won't tell them that they shouldn't feel that way because someone else in the world feels worse. That won't change how they feel.

I wish my family could see that. I wish they could see that comparing me to other friends and family is painful for me to hear. I wish they'd quit commenting on how I eat too much, don't eat enough, that my bangs are in my face, that my clothes are always dark or that my hair is never brushed, or that I need to be more social and stop spending so much time on the computer or how I need to suck my belly in. Listening to them point out every single little flaw in my appeareance, every little flaw in my emotion and the way I act, is like... it's like bullying me, but at home. And that's not good. In the fifth grade alone I had 11 bullies and my principal, no matter how much my brother and I complained about it to him, never did shit about it.

Speaking of my brother and this whole suicide thing with my friend... my brother tried to take his life in 2008 in front of me. He knew I was there... I know I was young (I was like nine) but... a part of me should have known to stop him, or have him take me home, or call my mom so she could come get me and make him stop drinking. I mean... to this day, I blame myself for letting it slip through my fingers. He's still alive, but... I always feel like I could have done something to prevent my friend's, or at least make him wait a little longer to see if things got slighly better.

My life is a mess. I'm trying not to let the stupid sadness take me over but... it's so hard. Seeking help, believing the help...

Im so sorry you feel that way. no one deserves to hurt that much. NO ONE. And i am sad to say, i know how you feel. I know that feeling when you just want it to all end, everything. All the pain, the misery, the hate, the love, the sadness, everything. And you know you can. You think "oh, this would be so easy!" But something is making you stay. Part of you doesnt want to go. You want to be here. You will stay here, because otherwise you wouldn't be on here, you wouldn't be talking to me. And i promise you, thats a good thing.

Life may not be how you expected it-- let alone wanted it to be. But it is. And sometimes, you just have to move on. I know its hell right now. You may feel you can't hold on one more day, you have so much pain. You hold it in your heart, your eyes, your stomach, you even wear it on your skin. But life goes on. And you will move forward. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or even the next but some day. Some day you will move on, and you will have the life you always wanted.

You wont feel the pain you are feeling now-- relief will just work its way into your life. You deserve to feel happy. You deserve to live and breath. If you can't do it for yourself, do it in memory of your friend. Because again, I know he would want you to move on. And its hell. But you will make it. And the second you do, you will know. You will KNOW that you made it. Soon, you wont feel the pain, or sorrow, it will just be faint memories.

Maybe one day, the pain will come back, but it will soon move onto its next victim. You just can't let it take control over you. You can't, cause if you let it. It wins. Pain wins. Depression wins. It will have taken over every part of you. It will have taken your life.

It's so hard to push myself to keep going, especially when the razor and pills are right there. You know, the first night, my mom was symphethetic and she let me cry on her shoulder, but the day after, she told me "You know, you're gonna have to get over this." I've wanted to ask her and tell her almost everything... Have you lost your best friend to suicide? Have you ever felt so worthless and hated yourself so much that you were ready to end it? Have you ever had someone who said they loved and cared about you to suddenly go LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, right to your face, and pretend like it never happened despite how bad it hurt you? Have you ever felt like the only father you had promised you he'd never leave, and BAM, he's already gone after just two months?

What nobody seems to understand is that when I say every breath is painful, I mean it. When I say it feels like someone is taking some dull knife and carving shit into my heart, I mean it. When I say I feel like no one cares and the world would be better off without me, and it wouldn't matter if I took the pills and finally died, I usually mean it.

Honestly, I can tell you what this kinda feels like. For the people who love living, the ones who never want to die because life is so great and they're skinny and perfect and have all these friends and family members that crowd around them when a boyfriend leaves, it's like telling them that they suddenly have to die. Then there's people like me; the ones who don't have friends and family crowding around them in a time of need, who aren't a stick figure, who don't have the perfect life and probably never will. The ones that hate living but are told that they have to live. I'm not saying that living is bad, but when all the pieces are chipping and falling aight in front of you and you can do nothing but sit and watch and try your hardest to haphazardly stick them back together - despite the pieces that are missing - life becomes incredibly difficult.

You know, as a little kid, I always wanted to grow up - to be a rockstar, to be a vet, to be a doctor, to be a teacher, to be an author, to be a famous movie star. I wanted to have my own family and move out of the house and be the cool mom that I thought mine wasn't. But.. I've grown up. I've grown up, and it's nothing like what I imagined. I'm not the popular skinny girl with a boyfriend and half failing grades whose family loves her. Puberty sucks and I'm not tall and gorgoeus and I never got to meet my favorite singers. It seems like a child's version of teenage/adulthood is never accurate enough. They can blame the hurt on hormones and cycles and 'just being a teenager', but being depressed, being suicidal, feeling worthless and every other word in the book isn't really part of being one. Yes, of course there will be emotional trouble and drama and break ups but... how does wanting life suddenly turn into wishing you could jump in your grave early and have no one care?

Looking into the eyes of death was intoxicating. It still is. I think it always has been.

Aw love, you will get through this. You really are important. and it was NOT your fault! Sometimes people do things. You never handed him the pills/gave him a rope/ pushed him in front of a train/etc. Of course you are going to feel bad, but you will get through it. You just have to feel. Go through the emotions, but don't do something based on your feelings now. Because he would want you to go on. He really would. I know it.

I don't think it's so much that I'm lost, I've gone extended periods of time without him, it's just... he was like a brother to me, we were really really close. I can't help but feel like I should have been a better friend, or a better sister, or should have avoided saying or doing some things... in a way, I'm blaming myself for it... it was so sudden, you know? One day I believe he's alive, and with his boyfriend and the next I hear that he's dead and in his suicide note he put that no one cared. I always tried to care. I always tried to show him that I loved him and without him, such as I am now, I'd be quite broken and spend most of my time in tears and wishing I could take my own life because every breath is painful. I get the feeling he wouldn't want me to grieve, to be sad, to wish I could gain the courage to overdose, but... every part of me feels the need to. Every part of me tells me that since he hurt over me in the past, I should hurt because he's gone. but this time it's for good.

I'll be back soon, I have to take a shower.

Java is terrible. Anyways, i know how you feel. I really do, but i care. And im always here if you want to talk. But dont take your own life, so many people would be lost without you. Just like you are, without your friend. I care about you.