Prologue

So many people are jaded by the thought that teenagers have it easy. They fail to realize the truth that a teenager's life is one of peer pressure, intense workloads in high school, worrying about everything, and being misunderstood. Hi, I'm John, and I am about to prove this common stereotype wrong.

I will begin telling about myself. I was born on a cold autumn day in a hospital in New York City.

I am one of four kids living in a small New Jersey town. I am in high school, and although living in a rich town in suburbia seems like heaven, my life couldn't be worse.

On the surface, I seem like the typical teenager. I hang out with my friends, lie to my parents, and rebel by doing things that I shouldn't. However, many people fail to dig deeper, and they miss the truth.

Teenagers today face extraordinary challenges. Some get hooked on cigarettes, or weed. Some get pressured into drinking too much, and wind up in the ER getting their stomachs pumped. Others face emotional challenges. Bulimia, Anorexia, depression, just to name a few. Unfortunately, many people look past these issues.

In order to generate a better understanding of these things without talking to some shrink, I will tell you a personal story about my life.

Chapter 1

It was a cold, sunny autumn day in 1996. My mother had been carrying me for nine months and in the middle of the night, I wanted out. So she was rushed to the hospital, and a short time later, I happened. I was born innocent, into this unforgiving world. Although my mother and father looked at me as if I was a pile of gold, things wouldn't stay like this for long.

From what I have heard, my early years were quite normal. I learned to walk, talk, eat, and take shits. I had a major fixation with Barney and Sesame Street. I woke up on Christmas mornings and was excited for my presents. I lived in a suburban house, with a big backyard, complete with a swingset. If you didn't know any better, you would say my life was perfect. It was, until I grew up.

When I was about five years old, things started to change. My parents were getting fed up with me, and were becoming abusive. They would scream at me for no reason, call me worthless, and hit me with their shoes. Of course, I was five years old, and I couldn't do jack shit about it. My only option was to pray for it to end.

The hitting slowly stopped, but the verbal abuse hasn't ceased for eleven years straight. This brought me down. It made me sad, angry, and every negative emotion one could think of. I didn't need a shrink to tell me that I was being abused. Since there is little proof of emotional abuse, I was exactly where I was as a five year old; I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Little did I know these rough years would take a toll on my life.

The abuse continued on all through elementary and middle school. When I was twelve years old, I decided that enough was enough. One night, my mother was yelling at me and my dad was being an asshole as usual. Maybe it was out of anger, or sadness when I said "Fine mom, I am going to kill myself."

Her response was the worst thing I have ever heard: "Sure, do us a favor."

That comment drove me over the edge. I went up to my room, grabbed a rope, and wrote a note. I wrote about how much I hated my parents, and that they were the cause of my suicide. I slipped my head into the noose, and stepped off the chair. As that happened, my mother walked in, and started screaming. Needless to say, she cut me down, and proceeded to yell at me for what I tried to do.

Should I have gone do a therapist? Yeah. Did I? Not for another three years.

Since then, my depression got worse and worse. I have tried to take my life many times thereafter, which only fed my depression. My perfect life in a big suburban hose had come out my ass and went down the can.

Chapter 2

Many factors caused me to have depression. Constant verbal abuse was the main cause, but as I recently found out, a chemical imbalance is also to blame.

Well shit, I wish I had addressed that problem earlier.

Being abused played a major role in my depression because the memories of the hitting and the yelling never faded away. It was like these memories were a broken record in my head, playing over and over again. I still remember everything clearly. I remember in hotel in Puerto Rico, my mother threw me onto the hotel bed and hit me with a sneaker, because I talked back. I shouldn't have talked back, but you don't need a shrink to say it is wrong to hit your kid.

Every memory of my father hitting me, or my mother hitting me, is burned into my mind. I remember clearly how my mom would slap me across the face, and my dad would throw things like full water bottles and books at me. I remember being home alone with him and accidentally waking him up. He would scream and chase me up the stairs. Most of the time, I out ran him. But sometimes, he caught me and the hitting would begin.

This physical abuse stopped when I was around eight years old. However, the emotional toll that it took on me still affects me to this day. In addition, they still pound me with verbal insults.

One main source of verbal abuse was my father's fixation on moving to New York. He complained about his commute night and day. He would come home, slam the door behind him, smash bins of Lego's and the basement, and scream at my mother. In the mornings he would get up, scream, and leave. He would then bombard our house with phone calls saying how much he hated his commute.

Of course, I didn't want to uproot my life and move to some crappy apartment, so I argued back. This arguing earned me the titles "stupid fuck" and "asshole".

I would spend all night crying when my dad would wake up just to yell at my mother. And if I so much as made a peep, the beast would come storming in to teach me a lesson. My teachers would wonder why I came in so tired. Too bad I didn't have the guts to tell them.

Another source of insult was my scientific interests. I remember clearly one Christmas I received a science kit about static electricity. In the kit was a book that was full of experiments. I decided to try one that involved rubbing a foam block on my hair to generate a static charge. My father saw this and said, "What is this, nerd 101?"

Funny, this came from an engineering major, the king of nerds.

I spent that Christmas like so many others; alone in my room, crying.

Now, it may seem like I am pinning this all on my dad. However, my mom was a main cause of it as well.

Truth be told, I was never the brightest student. Yes, I am very smart, but I do struggle in some subjects. Well, getting B's in school wasn't good enough for Mrs. Perfect, my mother. She held me to her standard of straight A's. While some subjects like science came easily, things like history and English were a struggle all throughout middle school.

I remember coming home when my mom received a report card. She would yell at me for the B that I had in English, and said I was destined to work for McDonalds with my lazy work ethic. I was not lazy; I worked hard for that B in English.

In addition to a hard life at home, I was bullied at school. This one kid would always say I looked like a drug addict. Another kid would call me a freak. I had few friends, because I was socially awkward. I went home and cried about it, and when I told my mom, she said, "Those kids are right."

At this point in my life it seemed that nowhere I went was safe. At home, I was constantly battered with insults, and school was the same way. This is what drove me to my first attempt at suicide

The memories of my angry father hitting me never ceased. Around this point in my life, I started getting flashbacks to those memories. Sometimes, I couldn't even be in a room with my dad without shaking. These flashbacks haven't faded.

Years later, I realize the devastating effects this abuse has had on my life. Recently, my dad got angry at my dog and chased him around with a belt. This was even enough to scare me. These memories of my childhood just wont fade, and are the source of my depression.

But if you didn't know the real me, you wouldn't see any of these issues.

In my mind, depression is an illness. This illness is not like cancer, or the flu. This illness can simply be caused by a bad living environment, as I have just showed. Unfortunately, many parents and teachers disregard the symptoms of depression, and pass it off as adolescence. Adolescence is not depression.

It is this common misconception that leads many teens to suffer, and tragically, some end up cutting themselves, starving themselves, or even killing themselves.

Since when is self harming, having an eating disorder, or suicide a normal part of adolescence?

Chapter 3

The night I tried to commit suicide remains in my mind the worst night of my life. I can remember every detail of that night. The color of the rope, the time, are all burned into my memory. These memories continued to depress me throughout the rest of my middle school career and eventually my high school career.

The night started with the usual; my mom yelling over grades, my dad bitching about his job, me trying to ignore it all. Unknown to my parents at the time, this constant fighting and abuse was too much for me, and I was planning to kill myself.

For some reason I decided to confront my mom about the damage she was doing to my emotions. This sent her into an angry rage. She yelled, cursed, and insulted me. My dad caught wind of this and joined in. This was the final straw for me. I simply said, "Mom, I am going to kill myself." Her reply was "Fine, go do it."

This was the final straw for me. I ran up to my room in tears, grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, sat down on my bed, and began writing.

Dear Mom and Dad,

This is what you want me to do. I am simply granting your wish. You guys have done nothing but treat me like shit ever since I was little. Hopefully, this suicide will expose the horrible things you have done to me, because I know the bullshit you tell your friends. I will never be able to tell your friends the way you have abused me, but surely my suicide will send the message that needs to get out. So, as my final words to you, fuck you, and you're welcome for my suicide.

-Your misunderstood son

That was my note I wrote to my parents.

I spent an hour drafting that note, trying to figure out the perfect way to tell everyone why I committed suicide. I wanted to send a message, and in my mind at the time, suicide was the only way.

Once I was satisfied with my note, I put the tear-stained piece of paper on my bed. I cut a piece of rope from a cardboard spool, and tied a noose at the end. I then secured the rope to a pipe in the ceiling. I put a chair below the noose. It was time for me to die.

I stood up there, contemplating suicide for a while. It seemed like forever. The thoughts of "should I do it?" and "should I not do it?" bounced around my mind for three hours. I thought about stepping down and calling the whole thing off. I thought about my friends, about my teachers, about my school. Everything there was to wonder about