What follows is a recap of what has happened throughout this year in my life, there's a lot of mentions of self-harm, suicide attempts, abusive like parental figures, mention of minor eating disorders, and many panic/anxiety attack mentions, be safe if you choose to read this. 

At the beginning of the year, it was fifth-year dealing with depression.

But the first year I actually was given any sort of help for it

Back then I identified as a Polyamorous, Pansexual, Cis-female.

January was fine, either it actually was fine, or I blocked out anything inherently traumatic that happened.

On February 11th, I tried to commit suicide. This was my fifth attempt in three years, the only difference was, this time I was actually caught.

I was sent home from where I was staying at my grandmother's due to me practically begging to just go home and talk to my mom because my grandmother would not understand what was going through my head, and I thought my mother would.

She did. Somewhat.

My father, however, did not.

I wasn't going to go to school the next day obviously, and my wounds weren't major enough to go to any sort of hospital. So I was asleep in the living room, my mother didn't want me to sleep in my room at the time, the reason why I've forgotten. So that morning my father walked out to see me asleep on the couch when he thought I was at my grandmother's, so he had to wake my mom up to ask why I was there.

My mom accidentally irritated him, trying to tell him that she would explain it once he came home due to the fact that she didn't want him to go to work with the thought of 'My child tried to kill themself'. Eventually, he forced her to tell him, not physically or anything, just she ended up telling him because he refused to just drop it for the time being.

That morning I woke up to my father storming past where I was sleeping muttering 'Just another fucking thing I have to deal with' and slamming the front door so hard that the entire house shook.

I can no longer handle slamming doors and sudden loud noises.

Soon after that, they found me a therapist to go to. I went to her for a couple months. She was obviously not the one that fit me, as we just didn't click correctly and I felt like I was being judged for these thoughts I knew I shouldn't be judged for. So while I was technically 'getting help' it did more harm than good.

Around this time, I began questioning my gender identity, for the first time in my life. I wasn't sure if I was cis or not. I believed myself to be Genderfluid and chose the name Max, but I didn't come out right away.

Towards the end of the school year, my counselor informed my parents that I would need to take Summer School do me failing the entirety of my Geometry class. (Mostly due to mental illness and Apathy) My father, of course, lashed out at me. Yelling and screaming at me, I can't even remember what was said, just that I ended up crying and getting yelled at even more so for it.

I relapsed into my self-harm extremely.

In late June the summer school started, luckily it was an online course that I could control at my own pace. But due to my already declining mental state, I began to associate basic human needs with passing and failing that course. I don't want to state that I 'Struggled with an eating disorder' because it didn't get that bad.

I had a rule in place in my head, If I wasn't passing or 'On Track' for that course, I was not allowed to eat until I was. (I still get the echoes of this mentality and often go a while without eating anything due to me just forgetting and my body is used to not eating.) That was the only way I could convince myself to actually do the work. Sleeping was much the same, however, I would just end up passing out due to exhaustion, which lead to me getting very little work done and constantly shaking in fear of getting yelled at for taking a nap and not working.

I was stuck at my parent's house at this time, due to my grandmother going to visit her husband in Mexico, giving me very little reprieve from the constant anxiety. Eventually, my parents found out about my lack of wanting to eat (After a bit of only eating once a day any really mention food started to make me feel nauseous) and I ended up getting yelled at for it.

At the time, I thought getting yelled at for things like this was well, normal, because it had been happening most of my life, so I thought I deserved it. I'm only now realizing that I didn't.

Once the course was finished I was allowed to go back to my grandmother's house, because she was then home, which was good. I felt safe there. Until July, in July my mom developed a drinking habit and would often call me in the middle of the night, (2-5 am was typically her range) crying. She'd talk about how she wants to divorce my dad, the bad relationship with her sisters and mother, how much of a bad mother she was, and it was my job to calm her down.

If I even got a bit upset with her, I was the one in the wrong. I basically became my mom's person to vent to. From this point on, I was always hesitant to accept phone calls from my mom. As it always lead to me somehow feeling worse for ever being upset.

Around this point, I had come out as genderfluid, and it was taken well, however, my mother changed her mind a few weeks later saying that I wasn't that way and no longer allowing me to cut my hair as I had wished to or to get a binder even for cosplay. A little bit of time later, I found the term Demi-flux which at the time worked for me. I was also questioning my romantic and sexual attraction. The label I eventually settled on was Panromantic Autochorissexual. (This may not even be my label now)

At the very very end of July, I met one of my best friends, Gale. A fellow non-binary fander with a knack for rping. They helped me with several distractions that I desperately needed at the time. Things seemed to calm down up until school started, I had recently gotten a new therapist who I really clicked with and seemed to understand the major cognitive distortions I was dealing with and helped me with coping mechanisms and to try to understand some things that were ingrained in my head were toxic.

The school year seemed to be easier for me! The class I had been struggling with was much much easier this year. Things seemed to be looking up!

Until the end of October.

I was a lot closer to the edge than I thought I had been, and well, I had messed up, horribly, horribly messed up. I had forgotten to turn in the notes from my therapist to the school so I had almost used up all my absences for the year before the end of the semester. The reason I didn't think to turn them in was that I was only gone for the last class of the day and it was an early dismissal so I thought they didn't count against my full unexcused absences, but they did.

On October 27th, I got a phone call from my father. Both of my parents were yelling and screaming at me for not turning in my notes and informing me that they had gotten a letter from my school. When I tried to explain I could make up hours if I needed to they only got more upset with me and continued yelling. Once they hung up the phone with me I spiraled into a horrific panic attack and relapsed after being clean for a few months at that point, almost making my sixth attempt at committing suicide.

I now have a difficult time with phone calls and can barely handle yelling.

My therapist didn't tell my parents about this because I practically begged her not to out of pure fear, but due to her rules if I had something like this happen again she would have to tell them.

Things were relatively calm for a while, I have been staying at my grandmother's house permanently due to my parent's house having something go wrong with it and so I needed to stay somewhere else. Though I did go over a few times here and there, in which case I had a minor anxiety attack about doing so, things were going alright again. Not perfect of course, but I didn't mind being alive.

Then December came.

Finals week was the worst week of my life.

I was already stressed about probably not passing, and the tests themselves mentally drained me due to their length more than their actual difficulty. Of course, this was around the time my grandmother was setting up the house for Christmas. I was tired, drained, exhausted and not allowed to take naps even though I had been getting nightmares quite a bit in the days preceding the tests. So I would accidentally snap at my grandmother and would barely have any energy to help clean.

Of course, I got in major major trouble for this.

Every day that week I got yelled at or scolded in some form, what was the worst was Wednesday, December 19th. That day I managed to pass out before I was told to do anything so I could sleep a little bit. I, my mother and my grandmother were going to a family event whether I wanted to or not, even though I was not mentally stable at all for it. On the car ride there I got an incredibly long conversation about how much my parents do for me, how they pay for everything I need so I need to treat them with more respect. How I shouldn't give into my mental illness and how everyone has to do things they don't want to so I should just deal with it.

I broke down in the car and began banging my head on the back of the seat and scratching up my arms, neck, chest, and face with my own nails. Only to be told to "Stop throwing a tantrum and listen" so I stopped and choked back my sobs as not to interrupt them again. When we actually got to the event, I did as told and greeted everyone with a smile and a hello, and then retreated to my cousin's room so I can hide and fully calm down.

After a little bit, my mother told me to follow her out to the backyard while she had a cigarette so we could talk. During that talk, my mom said the same thing as she did in the car, and berated me for not doing as told, saying that I had not said hi to everyone and that I was acting like a brat. Which made me mentally break. Because I did. I did exactly what I was told to do.

So for a few minutes, I lost it. I was crying, scratching at myself again (this time in front of her) and laughing. Why was I laughing? Because I had basically trained myself to mask any of my panic attacks as me just laughing off whatever happened while in public so that no one knows what's wrong with me. I don't know why (Well maybe because I've gotten yelled at for crying several times before, even when I was little) or when I learned to do that, but it's too late to fix now. I again was only told to stop, and that I'm not giving them any way to help me besides locking me in a padded room. I yelled " Go ahead" and got a look of annoyance.

I told my mother that night that I didn't care if I died anymore. She only told me that sometimes I have to swallow how I feel. For the rest of the night, I felt numb. I was tired, exhausted and my arms were burning from being scratched so harshly.

That Thursday was uneventful, but Friday I took a nap after school and woke up to a message from my dad. In summary it said that my mother had told him how I had been behaving and come the new year "We will be having a conversation" and they will have a chance to talk to my therapist (who I haven't been able to see since the week before finals) with him, my grandmother and my mother without me. "Because [my] actions are beyond rude, not deserved and unwelcome."

So I now sit in fear for the new year.

Fear of having everything stripped away from me. My writing, drawing, roleplaying, and watching youtube is what is helping me stay alive, and I have a feeling those things will be taken from me as a punishment. Fear of being yelled at more. Fear of never being able to escape this.

While things have been better recently, I'm still scared of my dad following through with his threat, and I'm also scared of myself. I'm scared of the realization that I may be way more on the Aromantic spectrum then I first thought. I don't know how my family would react to that, so I have to hold on for the moment being.

For the moment being, I am safe, tonight is December 31st, 2018, and besides a bit of mild aggravation earlier, today has been okay. I'm going to try to remain optimistic, maybe 2019 will end up being okay. Maybe this will be the year I finally crawl out of the abyss I've been sinking, deeper and deeper into for years.

Today, the way I identify is non-binary (maybe poly or tri-gender) Cuiporomantic

Autochorissexual.

My name is Max, and I use He/Him, They/Them, and She/Her Pronouns.

I hope that I will continue to supply fanfictions/edits/artworks next year. I thank all of my readers and followers for sticking with me even though my posting has not been the most consistent thing and I haven't been keeping up with requests. I love you all, and please remember that your comments/reblogs are what keep me motivated to write and create. I hope 2019 treats you well, as everyone deserves a chance to be happy.

See you next year :P

~Max.