I didn’t cut anymore. The purpose that I originally started out with had disappeared, therefore there was no reason to leave more evidence of my failing mental state. I had a few more attempts, but the one we’re going to focus on is special.

Picture this: I am twelve years old, overweight, and sitting in my room. Five feet to my right, on the other side of the wall, my second oldest brother is playing video games, raging about whatever unbeatable boss he has encountered. Five seconds ago my mother went down the stairs and out the front door for a smoke. Two hours ago my step-father fell asleep on the couch surrounded by a few Budlight cans. And my eldest brother, he has walked into the kitchen for a glass of water.

I am twelve and overweight, my second oldest brother is sixteen and naive, and my eldest brother is seventeen, rebellious and angry. My step-father is now awake and has locked the front door.

It was all doomed for disaster. My eldest brother’s angry slamming of the cupboards rang through the house and had very quickly woke up my step-father. I don’t know what was going on in his drunken mind, but he locked the front door, leaving my mother outside and began to yell nonsense to my brother. My brother was seventeen, rebellious, and angry, so he yelled back.

My step-father pushed him, and my brother pushed back. My mother had heard the yells and was banging on the door. My second oldest brother paused his game. And I sat in my damn room, crying because I already knew how this was going to go.

My angry brother tried to back away and open the door for our mother, he was trying to walk away and be smart. He just wanted to go down the seven little stairs to the front door and… well. I was never sure if he wanted to let our mother in or walk out.

But my step-father wouldn’t let him. He was angry just like my oldest brother. So he pushed him down the stairs.

My mother is screaming through the door. My eldest brother is at the bottom of the stairs clutching his foot, step-father’s shadow looming over him. My second brother’s game has been forgotten and he had called the police. I am in my room wondering what pushed him over the edge.

The night passed in a blur and before I knew it, a month has passed and everything is so, so different.

We have moved houses and this new one is filled with a heavy smoke that I come to associated with weed and other drugs. My eldest brother has moved out and started his own life somewhere else. My second oldest brother has become more aware. And I am two pounds above average weight and I am so, so, so sick.

The constant smell of weed makes it impossible to eat anything, so i lost weight. The constant sound of my mother fucking a new man every night makes it impossible to sleep. The constant thoughts of ending it all make me weak and vulnerable.

So i sat in the bathtub and lay fifteen ibuprofen pills on the edge. One by one I feed them to myself. But I never made it past five before my brother knocks on the door and tells me to hurry up, he needs to use the restroom.