My name is Ally. I am 16. I am a poet, a writer, an actress, and I design sound and lights for theaters. I go to an arts high school. You would think that being surrounded by artsy people would make me feel accepted. I am not. I am rejected.

I do not have a horrible family life. My parents are wonderful, and I love them. This is why I refuse to tell them that I SI. I do not want to hurt them. I do not consider my life too traumatic. My best friend died when I was twelve. When I was thirteen my other close friend committed suicide. Part of the reason she did so, was because she had come to see my in the hospital a month before when I had tried to kill myself. I am convinced that I gave her the idea to kill herself. Personally, I have tried to kill myself five times. But, since I have begun to SI, I have not tried. I do not want to die. I love my life.

I was raped when I was 14. There was this guy at my school name Ishmael. At a party one night, he raped me. The only person I told was my teacher. My teacher did not know who Ishmael was.

I'm not sure if the rape is what led me to SI for the first time. It wasn't until a few months after I was raped that I did SI. I think that the rape was the last straw in a number of things that had been going on. One night, while I was home alone, I became very upset. I don't know what led me to do it, but I picked up a knife and I began to cut my arms. I felt this relief that I had never felt before. I felt that I had found a way to control the pain that I was experiencing. I liked the fact that I was in control of my life again.

When I was 15 I told a teacher whom I trusted very much about my cuts. He freaked out. He thought, as did many other people in society, that people who SI-ed wanted to kill themselves. I didn't want to kill myself. I loved and still love my life. I just deal with my problem in a different way than most people. I don't do drugs, which in my opinion is a form of SI since it is doing intentional damage to your body. Instead of trying to understand what was wrong with me, my teacher decided that I was insane. He told me that if he had found out that I had SI-ed again then he would tell my parents. This forced me to fear my disease. I felt horrible. I saw the way people had reacted to me when I told him of my cuts. So, I became an expert on hiding my SI.

Since then I have SI more often and more severely. I now burn myself with cigarettes and incense. I do not want to stop what I do. I like the fact that I have found a way to cope with everyday life. I am happy with what I do. Yet, I refuse to tell people about it because I do not want to be feared.