I grew up fortunate. My parents were loving and I had two older sisters. I lived in an upper-middle class home and made straight A's. I was the sweet little girl who never gave her parents any trouble... on the outside.

When I was nine my sister was impregnated and abused by her boyfriend. She overcame everything and is now very successful and will soon be getting married to her wonderful fiance, with my nephew as the ring bearer. Those years didn't directly involve me, but the fear and sadness left scars on my nine-year old heart that never quite faded.

I don't blame incidents completely for my problems. Mental illness runs in my family through several generations. I have been diagnosed with Major depression[severe, recurrent], generalized anxiety disorder, eating disorder not specified, and borderline personality disorder tendencies (this stemmed generally from my self-injury.)

I started scratching my arms with scissors when I was 11. I barely broke the skin, but it served it's purpose. As with all addictions, there is never enough. I soon began cutting my arms and ankles with razor blades. I knew it was a very wrong thing, but the feeling of the blade in my skin and the blood running down gave me power and blocked out everything I didn't want to feel. At that time I was also dealing with borderline anorexia.

At 12 I was hospitalized when I attempted suicide by slashing my right wrist with one of those big kitchen knives. No one knew about this until a few days later when I saw my pediatrician and she saw the wound. In the hospital I made progress but never took care of the problem. Soon after I was discharged, I began cutting myself again. I soon developed full-blown Anorexia and Bulimia. Slowly with the help my therapist, I stopped cutting. It has been over two months since I last cut myself.

When I stopped cutting, my eating disorder raged even worse. I had lost over 20 pounds and was purging multiple times a day. My tired eyes were rimmed with dark circles and my hands and feet were purple. I had starved myself into a state of dissociation, which was exactly what I wanted. My parents were horrified and I was sent to an eating disorder specialist, whom I still see today. As for Anorexia, all I can say is that I am stable. I have not gained or lost weight in the past month or purged more than a few times a week.

I think the reason I developed all of these disorders was a blind attempt to bandage my bleeding soul, when in actuallity all I succeded in doing was making everything a million times worse.

I am 13 and have seen a lot and been through a lot for my young age. My life's goal is to some day be able to help others in my position, because I know what it feels like to try to bleed your pain away.