When I was a little girl I was told the rhyme “sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you.” What they didn’t understand was that words hurt worse than a knife twisting into your heart. At age six I thought they were joking. “Your eyes are big like my baby dolls. Its strange,” they would say. At age 9 I thought they were just picking on me. “You talk funny,” they would say. At age 12 I started to catch on. “You’re weird.” “You’re fat.” “You’re ugly.” The words would keep snowballing one right after the other. At age 13 I started to do something about it. I discovered the world of depression. “Stop eating,” I would tell myself. “Stop talking. You talk funny, remember?” “Stop breathing.” They told us words never hurt, but you know what did hurt? Dragging a blade across my skin to ease myself from the pain that they had caused me by the things that they said. When I tried to go to a counselor all they said was “Bullies will be bullies, you just have to learn to ignore them.” When I tried to ignore them, they pushed me. “Why are you trying to act tough? Everyone knows you’re weak.” I tried to stick up for myself because God knows I didn’t have any real friends that would.  “Stop trying to be brave, you’re worthless,” they would say. One time when I was little I remember hearing this story on the news. A little boy had drowned in the river. I remember thinking about how scary drowning was. Looking back on this, I now realize that I too was drowning.