I need help.

There, I said it.

I need help.

I thought I was okay.

I thought I might be able to make it.

I thought I was getting better.

But I’m not.

I see that now.

For months I’ve been getting worse and worse,

Brushing off the dark thoughts when they crept into my mind.

But I think I finally realized recently:

Suicidal thoughts aren’t normal.

It’s not normal to look into every mirror and say, “I hate you.”

Normal people don’t snap a hairband against their wrist

To drive away the urge to tear at skin.

Its hard to deny something’s truly broken in me when I’m sitting on the floor, shaking as my vision goes blurry from tears.

But how the hell are you supposed to ask for help?

“Hey mom, yeah so I know that you raised me and love me and are so proud of me, but those are all stupid things because I consider myself a total failure and spend most days hoping I’ll wake up dead the next morning. What’s for dinner?”

I’m not okay,

I am broken,

But what am I supposed to do?

We just had a unit in mental health and my teacher said

“If you woke up and your hip was sore,

And then you went a few days thinking it’d go away but it’s still sore,

You wouldn’t try to treat it yourself.

You don’t have medical knowledge.

You’d tell your parents,

And they’d monitor it a few days,

And if it still hurt you’d get help.

You’ve gotta talk to someone.”

Following this analogy,

My “hip” has been hurting for months.

Some days it’s manegable,

Some days I can barely “walk.”

But saying “hey, my hip’s sore,” won’t destroy the people you love.

“Hey, I want to die,” on the other hand, can do some damage.

So if my heart is broken glass,

I’d rather have the shattered peices cut into my skin,

Destroying me from the inside,

Than let anyone I care about get cut by the shrapnel.

If I had any self control, I wouldn’t even post this.

But I need someone in this world to know.

Even if it’s just a stranger a thousand miles away online,

I need someone to know:

I’m not okay.