By Name withheld

“It was two or three a.m. when I heard the door open downstairs. My idiot stepfather was back from another night of drinking. His footsteps felt like an ominous bass drum as he stumbled up the stairs.
“¿Dónde estabas?” (Where have you been?) my mother asked.
“Afuera.” (Out.)
“Estás borracho!” ( You’re drunk!)
“No estoy borracho.” (I’m not drunk.)
“No me mientes!” (Don’t lie to me!)
Their voices would continue to rise until they were squawking at each other like parrots. Once he was so angry that he broke one of our cat figurines.
In the dark I would pray that neither one of them would get hurt. When my little sister woke up, I’d ask her questions about her dreams and what she had done the day before, in an effort to distract her from the fight in progress outside our room.
By the time I was 13, the problems at home were beginning to weigh me down. I would meander around the school campus during lunch and nutrition, trying to avoid my friends. They kept asking me what was wrong, but I just said “nothing.”

Life seemed horrible to me
I lost my appetite. I’d go a whole day just drinking a couple of Snapples. Around midnight, when I was studying, I’d eat a Danish with raisins. Instead of listening to rap or hip hop, I’d sit in my room with all the lights off and listen to Nirvana or Pearl Jam. I liked all the songs about the pointlessness of life. For example, in Pearl Jam’s “Indifference,” Eddie Vedder wails about how meaningless everything seems.
At home I hardly spoke, just hi, bye, no, yes, o.k., and fine. I lost about 20 pounds and my mother began to worry. She’d wake up and come into my room, wondering what I was doing up so late.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“What are you doing?”
“Studying.”
“Oh.”
(My mom had seen this happen before when I was nine. When I was in fourth grade she discovered that I had attempted to kill myself with a dull knife and made me see a shrink. The doctors would sit around me and stare at me. I hated every moment of therapy. To make matters worse, my father pretended that there wasn’t a problem. My mother told me not to tell anyone because then their parents wouldn’t let their kids play with me. )
Finally my mother gave me an ultimatum: either see a shrink or talk to my teacher at school. Who would you pick: a cold, clinical psychologist who would study you like a lab specimen? Or a sweet, cheerful seventh grade English teacher who wore long skirts and lots of green (my favorite color)?
One day after school, I walked into my teacher’s room and told her that I needed to speak to her. I was terrified because I didn’t know her very well and I wasn’t sure how she was going to react. For all I knew, she could have pretended that I really didn’t have a problem and I was just imagining things. But instead she made me feel welcome and secure.

My teacher gave me hope
She started taking me out of class to talk privately with me. That spring I spoke to her every week. It took a couple of months for me to open up to her, but pretty soon I was talking to her every day. She was my hope, inspiration and guidance. When I began to contemplate drugs she made sure I understood the consequences.
Once I started crying about my situation at home. I was really embarrassed, but she said it was okay to cry—that’s one way to release stress. I felt guilty for bothering her with my problems. She responded with the following analogy: I may have a broken toe and someone else may have a broken leg, but my toe still hurts. This was weird, because I was used to listening to everyone else’s problems, but no one cared about mine. Every time I felt like I was stressed out, I would speak to her and she never made me feel uncomfortable. It was a great blessing to have such a wonderful person in my life.

I began coping better
I started eating again and hanging out with my friends. I still didn’t like going home, but my teacher helped me accept that my mother had to deal with her own problems and there isn’t much I can do. If my mom wanted to be with my stepfather, she was going to stay with him, no matter what I did. My mother doesn’t like that I have detached myself from family life, but it is the only way I can continue with my life.
In the eighth grade, my best friend also was dealing with depression and suicide and my teacher helped her through it. Now someone else could feel how great it is to have somebody just listen to you. My teacher taught me that I must simply feel my way through life, because not everything has a reason or an explanation.
When my teacher moved to Washington, I thought my life was coming to an end. She assured me that she would still be there for me when I needed her, which meant a lot to me. She taught me that if something goes wrong, it doesn’t mean that my life is over. Every now and then she comes down to California and all three of us (me, my best friend and her) go out for lunch and have a great time. About a year ago, I called her because I had a dilemma and she sent me a teddy bear with sunflowers all over it. I told her that she was my sunflower because she brightens up my dreary days. Just the other day, she sent me a postcard from Indonesia, where she took her summer vacation. Thank you, Sunflower!”