Sometimes I feel like dressing up. I wear that shirt that everyone tells me they love. However, I can't help but feel transparent. “Your ass looks great in those pants!,” so I've been told. But does that make me noticeable or just sexualized?

I put on make up some days to mask the fact that tears have been streaming down my face for the past three nights. Constant panic attacks and anxiety that keep me up wishing, no, begging for another high. I take pills to lessen the blows, but one by one they knock me down. I constantly feel like I’m swimming in a sea of doubt while praying to God to let me drown.

Sometimes, It's like I'm slipping off of a cliff, but everyone's begging me to jump. I’m paralyzed by thoughts, fear, and never-ending "what ifs" because saying how I feel couldn’t change any of this. I'm begging for help but I can't scream. Doctors are writing scripts for meds I never thought I would need. Therapists and counselors will never understand me. They haven't seen what I’ve seen.

I’ve been living in darkness, feeling around for a way out. Searching through my head while trying to wage war with all my doubt. That's a battle I've been fighting with no end in sight. Maybe I've struggled long enough with myself to end everything tonight. I constantly wake up screaming from nightmares that seem a little too real, but sometimes I use them to remind myself how I’m supposed to feel.

Growing up, I was always told that self-medicating is dangerous, but most times I find myself wanting to feel pain rather than nothing at all. I’m standing at the edge of the cliff waiting for the perfect moment to jump, to fly, to fall. Scars cover my arms and thighs serving as a reminder of all the times I wanted to die. I have burn holes in my sweaters from the cherry of a menthol cigarette which serves as a reminder of memories I’ll never be able to forget.

I’m grasping at straws, trying to find another way, carelessly migrating around, trying to find all the words to say. Someone else's problems on an entirely different day. It’s always the saddest of people who give everything to help others and I think that’s because we don’t want others to hurt the way that we do; we want them to be okay.

This constant feeling of hopelessness will never be outweighed by the sincerity of my own self-worth. Let's tally up our scars and see whose is worse--because playing roulette with a blade can cause secrets to be unearthed.

I play tag with my demons at night; they chase me, they haunt me, and they only tear me down. But if I didn't have my demons, I wouldn't be alive right now. My demons project thoughts in my head; like instead of living, they would rather have me dead. I fight with the tiniest notion of what it would mean to end my life in one simple motion.

However, I find suicide tragically ironic because the one who kills you is precisely the one who should be protecting you from an assassin. Do not fall victim to yourself; our minds are our worst enemies and our demons lack compassion. I know there’s not much left I’m able to do besides maybe giving my brain frostbite in the middle of the cold. But that’s what it’s like inside the mind of a depressed 21-year-old.