I wonder sometimes
if all of me is still here.
It's ten years longer now
than I ever planned on living, and
I'm not sure if I kept everything
after giving up so early.
I wonder about the parts I turned off,
pieces I locked up or threw away;
if I could even get them back if I tried.
I don't always know
whether or not I want them back.
I'm aware that what I have
isn't living. Hasn't been for a long time.
Slogging through a battlefield,
my quality of life
(along with my expectations and aspirations)
got downgraded to "Survival"
even before I vowed to keep going
for as long as she did.
My soundtrack [anthem, call to war] is anger and desperation,
disguised beneath a croon and a pop beat.
Better living through (medically sanctioned) chemistry
couldn't keep me out of the war.
I think it's because I never had a chance
to know who I was without depression.
I know everything about me in the dark.
The light makes me a stranger.
--Laura (one week before turning 21)


I wrote this poem November 18, 2007.
I suffer from major clinical depression, and have suicidal tendencies. BUT. This is NOT all that I am, and I refuse to allow depression and suicidal impulses to dictate my life. I've been in bad places before and have made the wrong decision on how to deal with those situations. I'm trying not to make the same mistakes I've made in the past, and I want more than anything to be healthy.
I came to this conclusion Sunday morning. I woke up, gathered all the pills I had in my possession except for Mucinex and Midol, counted them out, lined them up--more than 100 pills, 1200+ mg of sedatives all told--... and I flushed them down the toilet.
This is me. This is where I am right now. This is where I'll make my stand against depression, and it's not the high ground, but I'm still on my feet, and I'll stay on my feet.
I will not go quietly into that good night; I will rage, rage against the dying of the light. I will not let the light die. I will not let ME die.