When I was in 7th grade, I cut myself for the very first time. That was in 2003, March 28, sometime between 4 and 6 PM on the west coast of the United States. The cause? My best friend, Ashley. Well, it really isn't fair to say it was her fault, but in a way it is. She met this 8th grader named Amery. Now, Ashley has always loved anime, anything that has to do with Japan really, and Amery was the best anime artist I have ever seen. Ashley was in love with the girl and her artwork. In the morning before school started, Ashley and Amery would talk about anime's I hadn't even heard of. I tolerated this for a couple months and was finally fed up. I always felt like a third wheel, awkward as I just stood there, not saying a thing. I decided to tell Ashley about how I was feeling. We had been best friends since kindergarten and I thought she'd be real understanding and try and speak to me a little more. Nope, I was wrong, She got mad at me.

We ended up not being friends anymore, so I went and hung out with my other best friend Stephanie. I met a couple new people, one in particular whom I liked right away: William Mancuso. I fell in love with him, sounds crazy I know, but I did. But I didn't ralize it right away.

Stephanie was going out with William's cousin Vinnie [whom I hated with a passion!]. They eventually broke up and Steph was real sad, I mean seriously depressed. Then her older sister was being extremely mean to her and her grades were dropping and she was having a really tough time with it all. Then one day she sort of announced she wanted to cut herself, and then said she had been doing it since the fourth grade. I was scared shitless, for lack of a better saying. I couldn't believe sweet Stephie could ever do that.

I dwelled on the thought for a really long time and decided that it helped her, it might help me too. But it wasn't just that, I knew I wanted to do it real bad, I just wanted to, like it was an instinct. So I did on March 28, 2003. It was all downhill from there.

I missed Ashley terribly, my other friend Zaneb was being really annoying, always calling me Mrs. Mancuso, and I didn't even like William then yet. So my stress reliever was cutting and on December 6th [2003], I made my deepest cut on my leg. Since that one I haven't made one deeper. It left a scar, which I morbidly cherish.
During the summer of 2003 however, Ashley and me became friends again over the internet and I found out she had missed me as much as I had missed her. Then, 8th grade, a nightmare.

That year Stephanie and William were going out and I had a huge crush on William at this time, and later on in the school year I began to love him. But let's not get carried away. Their relationship was very bumpy and they were a bit on and off a lot. Stephanie loved him too I think, she's still upset about him as he went to a different high school than we did. During one of our school vacations, William and Stephanie broke up and he started going out with a girl on his swim team, Rachel. Rachel went to a different school. One night William and I were chatting online and I he told me him and Rachel broke up and he missed her. I asked him if he loved her and he said he might. I lied and said I had to go. I went to my room and was going to kill myself, but got too scared and just cut my arms up really bad with surprisingly no scars.

Then, 2004. I eventually got the courage to tell him, actually e-mail him to be more precise about how I felt. He didn't care at all. That pissed me off a lot. He just shrugged it off like it was nothing and that pissed me off to the extreme. I cut to deal with it. Eventually I told Stephie about how I felt about William and I could tell she was uncomfortable with it, but she dealt with it anyways. Then, William asked Steph out and she said yes, both of them knowing how I felt. I was in love with William, one of my best friends.

As the year progressed, William and I began writing notes to each other. He told me things he never told anyone else , and I really appreciated that. I talked to him as well. But then, he started being a total jerk. We all tried to deal with it, but he was still being an ass.

Then comes March. One week after my birthday [March 2nd being my birthday] my parents found out I cut myself sort of. I was a member of the journal website teenopendiary.com. One day the site wouldn't load up my entry and being used to this before I clicked 'submit' I copied it, ready to paste it if it wouldn't go through. It didn't go through so I saved it to a file, my file titled Kristin's Stuff. I had a get together with my friends to celebrate my birthday. They slept over and as soon as they left the next day my dad said he wanted to talk to me and I immediately knew what it was about somehow. My dad said he was looking on the computer and he found the file and read it. He said he didn't go into my file or anything, but I knew he was lying. A couple days later I even checked to make sure it was in my file and my file only and it was. He was looking in my file. Him and my mom sat me down and talked to me about it. The entry said things about how I hated how William and Steph were together [when they asked me about this I lied and said they were both my best friends and if the broke up I don't know what I'd do if it became awkward]. The entry also said that I had cut and where and I lied and said the cat did it. It was just awful. That's how I got my psychiatrist, whom I saw exactly a month later. I ended up deleting that journal account.

I was still cutting to relieve the stress of everything and lying to everybody about it. Then, on Mother's Day, my mom and me got into a big fight. I went to my room and was seriously gonna slit my wrists. I had a blade pressed to my wrist, just sitting there waiting for myself. I did cut my wrist a little bit the right way. I was in the dark and I couldn't see clearly; I missed the vein, but not by much. The cut wasn't deep at all and it wasn't more than an inch long, I had 'come to my senses' as they might say. I cut a lot thought, leaving a few scars.

I told William the next day, told him it was a suicide attempt and he said it was cool or something. That hurt a lot. I could have died and he wouldn't have cared one fucking bit. That enraged me so I went to the bathroom and cut some more. William got assier as the year went on and everyone tried dealing with it, but it was really hard. I was really mad at him for being mean to everyone for no reason, especially me. I had helped him so much all that year and the thanks I get?

His cousin Melissa and I go to the same high school and she told me he cut my picture out of the yearbook, which has made me seem to hate him. But I don't know if I do hate him, I think I still do love him.

Besides all that stuff that I had going on in 8th grade, I think I was steadily going insane. I would hear a voice in my head criticizing me and began seeing faces made of leaves in the tree in my backyard. All that seemed to stop after I didn't see William. I do miss him still, but that's not the point. I cut still for various reasons.

For a better clarification on my story, go here: http://www.fictionpress.com/read.php?storyid=3D1408121
and to see what's going on in my life now, go here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/journal/index.php?mode=archive&u=3D321633