i flipped through scrapbooks that my mom had taken the time to put together over the years. my mom had taken pictures of me from the time i was born until the present day. it was bitter sweet to look back on all these pictures and memories because the hard times, pain, and hurt werent put in pictures and on pages through out the scrap books. this is my story, my life, and the scrapbook pages that were missing.

i came into this world like any other child. my mom met somebody and then nine months later there i was. however, my life was different from other kids from day one. my mom was a severe drug addict and alcoholic before, during, and after her pregnancy. she was also a prostitute so she could make the money to support her addictions. while pregnant with me she found out that it wasnt just me in her belly but me and my sister. she was having twins. the day i was born the doctors took one look at me and said, " this baby doesnt have a chance". i was one pound and fighting to live. my twin sister died a day later because a vein burst in her head. my mom had already decided she didnt want me so she gave me up for adoption. i was adopted by a nurse on the hospital staff that took care of me every night. four months of my life from the get-go was spent fighting. fighting to breath. fighting to live. after four months, the doctors told my new family that i was ready to go home. even while i was at home, there were precautions that had to be taken. while i was sleeping i was hooked up to a monitor that would monitor my heart rate and beep if it stopped. my dad tells me when my mom would work nights and he would hear that beeping he would jump out of bed in fear thinking he was losing me but just to find that i had wriggled my way around in the monitor so that it was off. he would readjust it and head back to bed and lay there waiting and listening to the monitor.

that was the beginning of my life. let's fast forward a little bit into my elementary years. i started kindergarten when i was five like all the other kids. i dont remember much of it but i do know that i enjoyed it a lot. my teachers said i was a smart kid but was distracted by the social aspect of school. life was going pretty good for me until third grade. my mom decided that she was going to take me out of school and homeschool me the beginning of my third grade year. i remember crying every day for a while because i was so upset about this. i didnt understand why she would take me away from my friends and school that i loved so much. it was hard for me adjusting to being homeschooled i do remember that. i went all through grade school being homeschooled trying to keep the friends that i had made in school. for a while, i stayed friends with them but after a time i wasnt really the "cool kid" to be around. things changed a lot for me around the year i was in seventh grade. i started dealing with depression. i didnt understand what "depression" was but i knew that it was something that just didnt feel right. i felt sad, lonely, anxious, nervous, and "not good enough" all the time. i turned to cutting some people refer to it as self injury. i remember the first time i ever cut. i went upstairs into my parents bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the container that held my dad's razor blades. i took one out and pulled the sleeve up on my left wrist and sliced three perfectly straight even lines. there was such a rush and adreniline that came with that first time that i "forgot" everything that was going on and the confusion that i was trying to understand. cutting became a daily habit for me. whenever i was upset it was just so easy to go make those neat lines and watch the blood slowly ooze out and then wipe it away and go on with life. i would bite my lip against the pain because this was my "control". my secret. at this point, me and my mom werent really getting along. we were both butting heads about different things mostly about me wanting to go back to school and she didnt want me to. on january 13, i attempted suicide by overdose. i was so sick of feeling the way i did and cutting and feeling like i didnt belong in my family. after my suicide attempt, i began suffering from anorexia. it was just one more form of "control". i wouldnt eat for days. it was so addicting to not eat for days and feel that "strength and control". on top of cutting, anorexia was just one more addiction. my mom took me to the doctor one day and she sat me down and told me all the harm that an eating disorder can do to your body and what could eventually happen to me if i didnt eat like i should. i sat there and listened but just didnt care. life was rough on and off. the october that i was fourteen i attempted suicide again. before this my parents got me into counseling. i wasnt putting into counseling because i just didnt care. i didnt want help. after my second suicide attempt i was admitted into a physce ward for a week. they put me on depression meds and stablized me and sent me home. for a while, life was better. then things got hard agian. when i turned 16 i got a job in a town that was half an hour away from my house. this was the first time i was ever really out on my own. i got into drinking and smoking during this time. eventually i got fired from the job because i was having people over at the house while i was working. getting fired really hit me hard and i was really upset about it. the only thing that at this point was a good thing in my life was that i was dating my best friend. he broke up with me after the summer because he couldnt handle all my issues. after we broke up i attempted suicide again and was admitted into the intensive care unit until i got better. at this point, my parents decided to try me going to school again. i did okay there for a while but then got into drinking and smoking again. at this point in my life my parents decided i need something drastic. i was sent 3000 miles away to a theraputic boarding school in a completely different country. this was quite the shock to my system. everything there was monitored and you were pretty much under supervision at all times. the next year and a half of my life were spent in this boarding school working on things. i managed to get my depression under control and was finally taken off of my depression meds. i finally quit cutting after 5 years of cutting. i graduated high school. during my last couple months there i started talking to my best friend that i had dated the summer i was 16. i had never really gotten over him and he told me that he had never gotten over me either and we found out that we both still loved each other. we started dating again. once i came home it was wierd to readjust to "american life". life finally started taking a turn for the best for me. i was no longer such a mess but i was happy and healthy. a while after i was home i came into contact with my biological family. 18 years of wondering and searching had come to an end with good results. my mom has been clean for years and she is remarried. i found my older sister and a lot of my aunts and uncles and cousins. shortly after i found my biological family my boyfriend proposed to me. life couldnt have been better. this present day i can look back on all the hard things that i experienced and realized that it shaped me into the strong woman that i am today. some of those things i experienced were by choice and some not but either way i learned a lesson and became so much stronger. as of right now, i am planning a wedding, working as a waitress, working on getting into college, and enjoying a happy and healthy life.