I should totally be writing my research paper. Ten pages on religion and politics due tomorrow by 5pm. I haven't even looked up a source. But I'm not too worried. Even if all I want to do is sleep. There are bigger things.

I've been depressed now for over 10 years. Really depressed. I think it may have even started earlier than then. I just dealt with it in different ways. I've never been a happy person. Ever. My most earliest memories are of me at about three years old and all I really remember are my parents fighting. My mom crying, my dad being drunk. Waking up early in the morning and knocking on my aunt's door to watch Winnie the Pooh and Under the Umbrella Tree. It was my escape. She was the only one that saw me. Everyone else didn't notice. And most of my life it's been that way. It's almost as though I'm off the radar. Life goes on without me. And no, it isn't just my perception. My family has never noticed me.

I grew up fast. Too fast. There's a problem when your parents go to a parent-teacher conference and your kindergarten teacher just tells them that their child is too mature. That she thinks too much and carries too much weight on her shoulders. I think my parents just exploited that fact however. Because I specifically remember life getting harder in first grade. And well in second grade, my mom left me.

I've never had many friends. I've always just kept to myself. Stuck way too deep in my head. It wasn't that I wasn't liked. People talk to me and usually there is some sort of connection. I'm polite and friendly, despite my shyness. But the problem was deeper than that. I was just never understood and I wasn't going to waste my time trying to explain.

My early years were spent in a tree. Or sometimes on the roof. I'd just sit and think. Watch the world from underneath me. It was always as though I never belonged.

I moved to Arizona permanently in 6th grade. It was a very difficult move. Mostly because my life in 5th grade was improving. I was very popular, and no, it didn't go to my head. But I was noticed, and I knew it. And that year, my mom didn't miss a single basketball game I had. Words couldn't describe how much that meant to me. She had missed so many other games in my life. Coming to Gilbert, Arizona was a total culture shock and I got lost within it. I had been lonely all my life, but it didn't sink in until I literally had no one. Seventh grade I came home each day and cut myself. I don't even know how it started. But every day I took that blade to my skin and i have hundreds of scars to show for it. Then I developed an eating disorder. Once again no one noticed. No one. Until the day I tried to take my life.

My second suicide attempt was three years later. I was 16 and in high school. There was much more drama involved. There was also much more pills and I was much closer to dying. How I didn't is still beyond me. Because I didn't send that text to Alyssa. Not consciously.

I'm 21 and no longer on antidepressants. I stopped four years ago. My eating disorder is very much past me, even though I still hate to eat. Cutting is a constant battle, but hey, it's been over a month. Everything else though? The thoughts, the loneliness, the emptiness, the unworthiness, the self hate, the insecurities, the fears, the pain...so much worse. It is currently everything I am. Please someone tell me, what is happiness? Will I even recognize it if it ever comes?

If I could, I would travel back in time. Not very far though. Less than 24 hours even. But I'd go back and just somehow have what I need longer.

I'm walking such a thin line and I don't want to walk it anymore. But I have to. I promised. Everything in me wishes I didn't have that promise to keep.

But I love you and I don't want to hurt you.