"I can show you the way home."

My father is my best friend, and has been since I was in middle school. 

When I went to college five hours away, we would call each other multiple times a day. I would make sure he was taking his prescriptions, and he would offer me a laugh and make sure I was going to class. 

I've battled depression for most of my life, and my father is no stranger to it. I pulled away from him during one of my darkest times, the closest I'd come to actually killing myself. I stopped calling him. 

He gave me a couple days, and then left me a voicemail. 

"You're lost somewhere, I know. I'm just calling to remind you I'm here, looking for you. And can show you the way home."

I still have that voicemail.
 

"You look so good now..."

"You look so good now that you're finally losing that weight!"
-My fiancé

Littlefoot

When I was 9, my older sister told me I looked like Littlefoot (the dinosaur from The Land Before Time movies) when I wore turtlenecks.

I haven't worn a turtleneck since. 

"Whales shouldn't wear fishnets."

Halloween 2014, I dressed as a cat with fishnets. I felt beautiful and I loved my costume and I wore it to school. 

As I was sitting in English class, I overheard a group of boys laughing and taking photos of me, saying, "Whales shouldn't wear fishnets." 

Now I stick to t-shirts and jeans.

"You'll never be raped."

My boyfriend and I were staying alone together one night, something we rarely got to do since he went to college about 5 hours away. Needless to say, it was a supposed to be a special night.

We'd been having sex for a year by then, but it was starting to hurt. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew that I physically could no longer have sex. And I honestly wasn't in the mood to do anything sexual because I was feeling so depressed about not being able to do it. 

That didn't seem to deter him.

He kept kissing me and it got to a point where it felt like we were fighting. It almost seemed like a game to him. It took me hitting, kicking, and biting him until he nearly bled for him to stop.

He lay down next to me while I curled into the fetal position, fighting back tears.

He said, "Well at least I know you'll never be raped!" Then he chuckled and went to sleep like nothing had happened. 

It still haunts me how close he came to succeeding, and how painful it would have been if he had.

Turns out I had a condition that makes sex very painful and I'm having surgery this week to remedy it.

He didn't believe me and thought he'd take advantage of the situation.

Screw that, I'd kick his ass every time.

"Why would he have a crush on her?"

I was a late bloomer.

When I was a senior in high school, I was hanging out with my best friend and one of our guy friends. This guy friend revealed to us that one of his friends had a crush on me, and that this friend wouldn't stop talking about me.

His friend was never really on my radar, but I felt so flattered and special and amazing just to have someone have a crush on me.

But right after our guy friend told us this, my best friend laughed and said, "Wait, why would he have a crush on her?"

We both called her out and told her that that was an extremely rude thing to say to me.

She laughed and said, "Sorry, sorry." She paused and looked me up and down. "But like actually, why? I don't get it." 

She didn't say this in a mean, mocking way. She said it as if it was obvious that one would be baffled that someone would have a crush on me, and that we were all on the same team of cracking the case of why anyone could possibly consider me attractive. 

I wish I could say that after this interaction we immediately stopped being friends, but that didn't happen.

We both went to college. I eventually got a boyfriend. She got a thousand boyfriends, like always. And we gradually drifted apart. That's how it goes, I suppose.

"I don't have time for your depression."

"I have enough going on in my life. I don't have time for your depression."

- A very good friend who I'm no longer friends with.

"We could braid our hair!"

I went to a small country school growing up. It was sheltered and isolated, much like my childhood and thoughts. Everything was so innocent and candid. 

One day in first grade, three college students (two male and one female) came to speak to us about drugs. 

The put us into groups, and all of the girls were place with the female college student.

She didn't have any hair. At that age, I didn't know what things like cancer or alopecia were. 

She asked us what we could do with our friends at a sleepover instead of doing drugs. Without thinking, I raised my hand and said, "We could braid our hair!" 

I realized what I said a second too late and saw the look on her face. Never had I felt so stupid, so inconsiderate, so ashamed. Nothing will ever take away how loathsome I felt that day.

I'm 22 years old now. That memory stick will me and will never go away.

"You're good, but not great."

I'm a singer.

I've been singing since third grade, and I'm pursuing a career in vocal music education after high school.

In eighth grade, I was dating my first boyfriend. He and I had met in choir class. One day at the end of the year, we were texting, just speculating about high school and all, and got up the courage to ask him whether or not he thought I would make the top choir in high school.

I'll never forget his response.

"Maybe. I mean you're good, but not great, so I really don't know." 

It wasn't just the fact that he was supposed to be a supportive boyfriend to me and he wasn't, but he basically shot down everything I loved and believed about myself.

I broke up with him a few months later. 

Two years after that, I finally started to take voice lessons. The next year, I finally made it into the top choir, as a junior.

This year, I'm auditioning for six colleges, and I still haven't forgotten what he said to me when I was fourteen.

I don't know if I'm good enough. No matter how much my private lesson teacher reaffirms that I am good and I am ready to sing in college, I can't believe her.

I am here.

I was standing in the kitchen at my boyfriend's house, telling him about my plans to go to Oregon State for physical therapy. He laughed and said, "Okay, when you drop out because it's too hard, you can come live with me."

Three years later, I am now in my freshman year as a kinesiology major at Oregon State. I graduated from high school with an honors diploma, and I am loving college.

For almost two years after he and I broke up, I struggled with feeling useless and stupid, because he put me down so often and so subtly that it snuck into every part of my life.

Today, I say look at me now. I am here.