You don't understand!

 You don’t understand!

You don’t understand,

What it feels like to be 20 kilograms underweight,

And still feel fat.

To be sitting at the table trying to come up with a plausible excuse

To go to the bathroom so you can throw up the remains of the meal

You just had,

Because you're unable to see yourself as anything other than what your mind tells you you are.

No,

You don’t understand!

And you don’t understand what it feels like to be sitting on the bathroom floor crying

As you try to keep the razor blades steady,

To try to see through your own blood to get to the vain

Because even the pain of dying

 is less painful than the pain of living.

No,

You don’t understand.

You don’t understand what it feels like

To feel so bad that you down enough pills to end it all,

Only to end up throwing them back up again.

The experience doing nothing but double the feelings of worthlessness

And loss of will to live.

No,

You don’t understand.

You don’t understand what it’s like to have to constantly cover your skin,

To cover the infinite array of cuts that you painted on yourself

 with a razor blade in the dark.

No,

You don’t understand.

And how could you because everytime I try to talk about I see the looks on all of your faces, sometimes it’s pity, but I don’t want your pity

 More often than not you look at me like i’m stupid,

You don’t even let me tell you why I've done what I've done,  you just  judge me.

You don’t know that I started cutting because it was the only way to release my emotions because no one would listen to me.

You don’t know that I kept cutting because it was the only way that I could feel ANYTHING,

That it was the only thing that could counteract the numbness that I felt for 2 years.

You don’t know that I would make myself throw up so that I could be skinny because everyone would make fun of me the second I looked just a little bit chubby.

You don’t know that I tried to take enough tablets to kill myself because it was the only option that I could see, the only way I could escape the pain that’s been my constant companion since I was put in foster care because my dad would beat me. 

No one knew any of this because no ever listens,

You just judge me,

And you judge everyone else who battles with mental health,

Because you never actually listen to their stories.

Try to take a break from judging and try listening because you’ll learn so much more about a person.

And if there was a little less judgement in the world, it would be a much better place.