I remember waking up the next day in the emergency room with my mom right by my side. I was hooked up to all sorts of machines, things beeping and buzzing in my ears. I was beyond sick out of my mind. Have you ever had a bad case of the flu? Where you’re dizzy, nauseated, pretty much paralyzed and felt as if you were dying? Imagine that but 10 times worse and little do you know I was fighting death.

This all started about half way through my junior year. I’ve always been bullied my whole life but never anything like this. I was being harassed weekly, even sometimes daily. I know that doesn’t seem much to you but it was overwhelming to me. I was emotionally attacked right where it hit home. It was with just my weight and just her involved in the beginning. The Bully is what we will call this person. Well believe it or not The Bully and I were best friends at the start of junior year. She knew my insecurities and knew what would hurt me the most. I finally got tired of it and called her out, in front of everyone. I posted a picture of my stomach on instagram with her full name and said I’m not ashamed anymore, I am who I am and I’m happy with my body. I also received tons of positive feedback on the picture. It was a major relief for me and definitely a boost to my self-esteem. She of course saw the picture, which I expected and wanted her to, and came into my class the next day during school and said some words that I’m not able to write in this. Let’s just say it was a threat, and she did it right in front of my teacher. Her fault. I laughed at her, my best friend even laughed at her. She was a joke. I thought nothing of it and went on with class, until I checked my twitter.

I decided to check my twitter because I knew she would have something to say, considering my teacher of course reported her and she was now sitting in the student advisors office. I wish I never did. She was making tweets back to back saying stuff like “BROOKE B IS A FAT WHORE!”, “BROOKE B IS A WORTHLESS SLUT!” Every single name in the book. I instantly got up from my seat and showed my teacher all of the things she was saying and she said to report it, so I did. As soon as I left class I began to break down, this wasn’t the end. She now had other people involved in it. Not just one or two, about five or six. They were calling me a fat little oompa loompa and all sorts of nasty vile things. I had to dart to the office because I began to have an anxiety attack, and it was a bad one. One of the worst I have ever had. For those of you who don’t know what an anxiety attack is like, to sum it up for you, you can’t breathe. I was hyperventilating fighting for my air. I got to my principles office, Mr. Murphy, and he immediately took me in. It took me almost an hour to tell him that had been happening. Not to mention, not even a week before this my ex-boyfriend was blowing my phone up with back to back texts saying pretty close to the same things everyone else had been. Mr. Murphy told me I needed to go home and take a long weekend. This all happened on a Thursday. I called my grandfather and he rushed to come get me. I stayed at his house that night and just laid in bed all night long crying to myself, but my poppop did take very good care of me. I wanted to go to my mom’s for the weekend in Maryland.

This was very good for me at this point in time, to get completely away from everyone involved and that whole environment. I was okay; at least I thought I was. Someone was always right there with me which is why it wasn’t hard for me until I was alone. Everyone in my mom’s house was asleep and I was at rock bottom. I felt so gross, worthless, and dirty. I felt like a disgrace, a waste of human flesh. I already had a bad history of depression and self-harm. I just didn’t want to live anymore. That’s when I took 16 25mg pills called Nortriptyline which was a sleep aid and an antidepressant. I now had 400mgs of a heavy duty sleep aid in my system. I laid down to relax and let the medicine take its course of action. I started to get scared. Death is a scary thing to think about. I started to regret what I had just done and at that time I was texting my best friend and decided to tell her what I did. She called me not even a minute later and demanded me to wake my mom up and tell her and she was not getting off the phone until she had spoken to my mom. Something in me told me to listen to her, so I did. I went and woke my mom up, sat her down and told her everything. She called poison control and they told her she needed to take me to the emergency room as soon as possible. That high of a dosage would kill me if I didn’t get it out of me. We rushed to the hospital and I was admitted before I had even got there. Poison control called the local hospital and had them prepare for me. They immediately began to string me, take everything away from me and ask me all sorts of questions. At this time I just started to feel the meds kick in just feeling overly exhausted. Luckily I got there early enough they didn’t have to pump my stomach but instead I had to drink a liquid coal to absorb the medication and trust me it did not taste good. After I was done they sent a psychiatrist to question me to determine or not if they needed to send me somewhere like an impatient mental hospital. I could feel myself slowly slipping away and I don’t really remember much after that. I remember nurses and doctors coming in and fooling with me every hour and running tests. Finally I woke up on my own and the doctor told me that they couldn’t get my heart rate to go down and my blood pressure to go up. I had to take about 4 IV’s while in the hospital before they even considered sending me home. Finally my heart rate went down and my blood pressure went up but never returned to normal. When we first got the doctor told my mom I would only be there about 6 hours and I was there for 17 so they had to discharge me otherwise I would have been considered and inpatient and the insurance didn’t cover that. At least I was okay to return home. I was still extremely sick and physically and emotionally drained. I went home and slept all that day, that night, and most of the next day. I did go to school that Monday and told the resource officer there what had happened over weekend and charges were pressed against The Bully and things were taken care of.

This really opened my eyes on bullying and harassment. I didn’t make fun of anyone anymore. I apologized and even became friends with people I have hurt in the past. I became friends with the “weird” people. I greet and welcome anyone and everyone into my life. Now when someone calls someone else “weird” or makes fun of them I will get defensive and call that bully out. People need to learn how to not be so hurtful and thoughtless. It hurts me to see others hurt. It also really made me realize how my life could have been gone in a blink of an eye. I’m so happy I have someone in my life like my best friend because she really saved my life that night and I’m more than happy to still be here today. I have a job now and work enough hours to make decent money. I have the best best friend and boyfriend that any girl could ever ask for. I’m a senior in high school and graduate in the spring. I have a super supportive family who does everything in the world for me. My teachers at school are also supportive in every way possible. My principle really helped me out in this situation along with the resource officer. I’m happier now than I have ever been before and my life is right on track. Suicide is not the answer. Talk to someone, get help. There are people out there willing to help you just like there was for me.