Last summer, I noticed that all my friends were starting to do drugs, and starting to smoke. And I was like, why are you doing this? Is it like a group thing, where they all decided "hey lets go get high?!". I didn't understand, I was always taught not to go near any of that stuff. Like what was so awesomely fantabulous about it. You're filling your lungs with tar, and gross stuff.

But then I started noticing, that literally everyone I knew, was doing it. Should I have started too? Was I being a loser, was I not cool? What were they going to think of me if I never said "yes". But I saw that I could seriously care less, if they are my friends, they will still think of me the same. Just as I still thought of them the same. This was just a phase they were going through. And it turned out, that it actually was just a phase they were going through. Except some of them continue to smoke, like my boyfriend. He's horrible, he doesn't do drugs anymore though. But he smokes a pack a day, or more.

I understand that nicotine gives you that, somewhat burst of energy you need. But what's so great about it, why do you start. There's just so many questions.

I went through a time period in my life, where everything was falling apart. I was diagnosed with depression, everything was just hell. I refused to take pills for it, and I understand now that, that one little choice not to swallow a pill the size of the end of a pencil, probably made me what I am today. Whether thats good or bad. But you always have to go through the mud, the rain and the cold, to get to the beautiful part.

I remember the first time I cut myself. I was in grade eight, and I had just moved into a brand new house (I've never lived in a house before, only basements) with this new guy, and his three kids. Like what twelve year old wants that to happen. Me and my mom were on my own from the time I was six, my dad left my mom. She was in a relationship with a guy I never liked, ever. And I couldn't understand why he would touch me in funny places, or why he would hit me whenever he got mad. Because my daddy never did that. Daddy never hit me. And I remember the intial fear, when I walked into the front door of the house I still live in to this day. Absolutely terrified, that the guy she was now seeing, was going to be the same as the last. I sat in my room crying, terrified that he was going to burst into my room, and tell me to be quiet. It never happened, but I was still scared.

The first time I cut, I was doing a project. I had just gotten in a huge fight with my best friend of ten years, and I found out she was switching schools. I was bawling my eyes out, and ferociously cutting out shapes for my art class. I slipped and it knicked my thumb. And it didn't even hurt. I was wondering why it didn't hurt, so I tried it again, a little harder that time. And then I became addicted. I would cut everytime anything would upset me. Anytime I felt like my world was crumblng, I would turn to the tiny knife underneath my mattress.

I never cut my wrists, ever. I cut my hands, my stomach and my biceps. I was extremely uncomfortable of my body, so I did it in places no one would dare to look. I kept on cutting, untill one day my mom saw this giant cut, bleeding a lot from my hand. And she knew, right away she knew. Her eyes welled with tears, and so did mine. I felt so ashamed. So ashamed I was hiding everything from my own mother. Nobody knew that I was broken inside, from losing my best friend, from the fear of losing my mother to a random stranger, the fear of becoming the teenager i was becoming, the fact that i had gotten pissed drunk for the first time when i was twelve. I was ashamed of myself. She helped me get through it, she helped me through everything.

I don't understand why the physical pain of cutting yourself, releasese the build up of the most intense emotions. Sad, anger, guilt, anything. I swore to myself I wouldn't put my mother through that again. But still that need, that need to release it still comes to me when I'm so upset, but I resist it, and sometimes it just makes me more upset.

I just want to know why it's such a relief, or I guess I'll never understand.