My mom is in here bugging me. “Quit writing.” She’s told me that countless times, ever since they found my juvenile-angst poems scrawled on wide ruled paper when I was in the fifth grade. I remember sitting in my old living room, watching in horror and humiliation as they retrieved my poetry from the secretary’s bottom drawer. “What the hell is this?” they asked. “You can’t write like this, about these things. Are you disturbed?”

Fast-forward two years, sitting in my parents’ room as they play a voicemail my friend Krysti left me on my home phone. A three way call; she didn’t hang up. My heart starts pounding as she tells her friend Zach that Kassy and I cut ourselves, and isn’t that horrible. My mom is staring at me with a calculating, cold gaze. Once the message is over, she screams, “What the fuck is this?”

They don’t bring up the cutting issue until my freshman year, when the school counselor sees how there isn’t a square inch of flesh on my left arm that bears no mark of a razor blade. Simply put, my arm was a solid red. I showed Laura and she cried.

Three years later, as a senior, I slouch in the library and cringe when Ross notices my arm. “Oh, God. Elz…” In his eyes I see a softness I haven’t witnessed from anyone in years.

Then a flashback of January of my junior year, walking into the library and running into Kara, flanked by Marysia. “Elz,” she says, grabbing my wrists. She sees the grimace and melancholy etched into my face and knows. “Elz, did you cut? Elz, you promised me.” She starts sobbing in front of Mrs. Sharp’s desk. My face crumples and I quickly walk into Mrs. Sibert’s office, throwing my backpack into the wall as Brittany and Julia watch in astonishment. I run outside, no jacket on, torturing my frail body with the cold. I wasn’t eating much those months; my stomach rejected anything that wasn’t coffee.

As much as any of those moments killed me, as much as I wanted to hurt myself, as much as I tried to end my life, all I wanted was someone to say “I’m worried about you.”

I remember how I split open my skin after Brittany said she was sick of my bullshit. I remember spraining my wrist after my mom said I was worthless. But I also remember the painful hope I felt when Kara cried, when Ross showed that he cared.

It’s still so hard to live. Sometimes, I trace my scars and wish I could go back to my old, negative behaviors. As Bayside tragically put in “How to Fix Everything”: “Disfigure the outside to show how ruined I am.” I still feel dirty, ruined, worthless. But I know deep, deep down that I am not. That I am beautiful, whole, worth something. It will take me many years to feel secure, many more to have confidence, to feel good about myself. But I, even as a cynic, look forward to that day, whenever that day may come.