Personal Letter Alternative Genre Project

I have decided to write a personal letter for this project based around the mental health

issues that I have faced through out the years. The audience for this project is other people that

also struggle with mental health and people that might not truly understand how mental health

effects people and the people around them. I am hoping that this can help give more light to why

mental health should be considered a physical health problem.

I have been through a lot when it comes to mental health. I have been struggling with

depression since I was about 10-12 years old. I learned about self-harm when I was in 5th grade.

It was from one of my best friends, she was older than me and just talked about how it helped

when you were feeling angry, stressed, and even sad. It was something that I never thought about

that before she told me it would release the pain I was already feeling. All I could think about

was finally having an outlet that would help and show the pain I was going threw on the inside.

Let us just say oh boy was I wrong all this did was cause even more harm and issues for myself.

Once my parents found out I had to talk to someone about how I was feeling and why I was

feeling that way. I honestly thought that I had no idea why I was feeling this way. At the time I

did not understand why I was having these mental health issues, now looking back it was

because I was getting made fun of at school, getting made fun of by my mother, and also being

left by my mother. All of this caused me to have a horrible view about myself. Which then

caused me to have abandonment issues, depression, anxiety, OCD, and borderline personality

disorder. Both sides of my family struggle with mental health so it was just something that was

waiting for it to catch up with me and it did. When I was in 7th grade, I struggled the most with

my mental health that is when it all started coming to a point. I did not want to be alive anymore,

I was ready to leave this life and hopefully start a new one. I know now that death this not the
answer but when you are a 14-year-old girl getting made fun of every day, I thought it would

never end.

It was one of those days if you know what I mean. I have already talked to my parents

about how I should not hurt myself because it does not solve any problems it just makes more. I

did have my usual cutting tools, so I went for a pair of dual scissors the only sharp part was the

very tip. So I decided to just take the tip and just dig the skin up going across my leg starting at

the ankle them moving up a couple inches and about 7 to 8 different spots about 5 to 7 inches

long and about 2-3 inches wide. Obviously, I was not going to tell my parents you know how

made they would be if they found out that I did something this stupid again. I did not understand

what hurt more the pain in my leg or the pain that I know I am going to feel when my parents

find out. I waited about 3 days before I could not stand the pain anymore. I was at school and my

pants came up a little on my leg and the cut that I had on my ankle was showing my teacher saw

it and told me that I should go see the nurse. I walk down to the nurse and she looks at it and tells

me that it is infected and that if I have anything else like this then I need to show her so she can

bandage it up for me so it can start to actually heal. Show she saw all of them and was in shock

about how bad they were. I have been hiding this for about almost a week now, so it was bad, I

believe she made me call my parents, but I did it on my own phone. I called my stepmom

because I know she is better at understanding these kinds of things better than my dad. Well I

told her she called my dad my dad came and picked me up, we went to the store to get the things

we needed to fix my leg up. I had to wear shorts to school and have it wrapped up all day. I think

I told people I got a tattoo, but it got infected, so I wrap it at school. Something that I know is

completely not what happened. The rest of the school year I wore pants because I had bad scares

for a while. They have faded since this happened, but I do want to get a tattoo to cover where it
was. That was the last and only time I did that because I now knew how bad the situation was for

me health wise.

I talked to my parents and about what happened, and my dad would help me in the

morning and at night with my leg. I told them the reason I did not tell them, and we all cried

together because they never wanted me to feel that way. I talked to my therapist about what

happened and what I needed to do to fix this. So, we got medication under control and then we

talked about different ways to cope with how I am feeling. This was hard for me for a long time.

I still have my good and bad days, I try to focus more on the good days, but lately that has been

hard. Well I have already talked about some personal things so why not add more for people to

understand mental health.

My recent mental health has been affected because of my recent breakup with my first

real relationship which was about 2 years long. It really affected me in a negative way and

tomorrow I will be talking to my therapist about what happened it had been 6 months since we

have broken up. I have made a lot of changes since this has happened. It has been very hard for

me to understand why everything has happened the way it has. It has been a long hard road that I

am facing, and I am still trying to understand and travel down. Mental health is a real thing that

has affected my everyday life and I am one of those people that want to be there for others as

well. Mental health has and always will be an issue for many people. Many people do not

understand that it will always be an issue through out their entire life, it will never just go away.

This is a very personal topic and that is why I wanted to do this paper for people to understand

that it needs to be looked at in all parts of life. I am really hoping that this will be seen and

understood by many people. I want people to understand that I want mental health to be looked

at and understood.