.1.8.

I was eleven when the dark got loud,

Too young to know what was wrong somehow,

Thought everybody cried behind closed doors,

Thought growing up just meant hurting more.

Bathroom light and shaking hands,

Didn’t think anybody’d understand,

I tried to leave before life even began,

But somehow I survived myself again.

At fourteen they sent me off to therapy,

Cold school rooms and people staring at me,

They asked me questions I couldn’t explain,

So I learned how to hide the pain.

Every year got heavier somehow,

Like I dragged my own storm around,

Doctors, counsellors, little white pills,

Trying to fix a mind that wouldn’t sit still.

Now I’m eighteen, learning how to cope,

Still losing grip, still finding hope,

Maybe healing isn’t becoming new—

Maybe it’s surviving what you went through.

Sixteen hit and I started college,

Started smoking just to stop my thoughts then,

Got addicted to feeling numb at night,

Anything to make my head go quiet.

I was blind, covered head to toe in scars,

Trying to escape myself in the dark,

College counsellors all knew my name,

But nothing ever really changed.

Then seventeen came with bigger words,

“OCD,” “dissociation,” everything hurt,

More secure therapists, stronger meds,

Feeling drugged while trapped inside my head.

Every year got heavier somehow,

Like I dragged my own storm around,

Doctors, counsellors, little white pills,

Trying to fix a mind that wouldn’t sit still.

Now I’m eighteen, learning how to cope,

Still losing grip, still finding hope,

Maybe healing isn’t becoming new—

Maybe it’s surviving what you went through.

I fought everyone trying to help back then,

Refused the meds, pushed away friends,

Angry at the world, angry I stayed,

Angry my brain worked this way.

Now I’m eighteen and it’s quieter sometimes,

Still relapse, still lose my mind,

Dosage gets higher every few months still,

And I hate depending on pills.

But I’m breathing more than I used to,

And maybe that means something too,

There’s no therapy now, just me trying

To live instead of always surviving.

Maybe “better” isn’t feeling okay,

Maybe it’s choosing to stay another day,

And maybe scars will always be part of me—

But they’re proof I made it to eighteen.

Every year got heavier somehow,

Like I dragged my own storm around,

Doctors, counsellors, little white pills,

Trying to fix a mind that wouldn’t sit still.

Now I’m eighteen, learning how to cope,

Still losing grip, still finding hope,

And maybe healing’s ugly and slow—

But I’m still here, and that’s enough to know.

Sometimes I miss who I could’ve been,

If fear and pain never moved in,

If eleven-year-old me had known

They’d make it past the breaking point.

I still have nights where I fall apart,

Still carry old wounds in my heart,

But I don’t want to disappear anymore,

Not like I did before.

So here’s to every scar I hide,

Every night I somehow survived,

Every version of me I had to be

Just to make it to 18