I would like to start this by acknowledging the fact that my story might not be the toughest one, and maybe what I was being told weren't the meanest words; but what made them feel like knives stabbing my heart, was whose mouth (and facebook account) they were comming from.

My name is Mauricio, and I'm 19 years old (20 this Sunday May 4th). I live in a beautiful, small town in Mexico. My story begins back when I was about 13, I was in 7th grade. I remember I went to a friend's home one day and met his neighbour, a beautiful girl our age who was incredibly fun and way too smart for our age. I can remember instantly falling in love with her smile, her laughter, her words, and her eyes. That was the first time I ever felt that way about anyone. Like I could spend the rest of the day, in fact the rest of my life, just listening to her talk, and laugh, and watch her look into my eyes. So we became good friends, apparently. But whenever we spent time together, she'd always "joke" about how I wasn't "good looking" (those were the words she used first); then she would say "Just kidding!". Or maybe she sometimes added how she thought I was boring, or simply pointed out I was a little dumb. That's how it started, and it was so small and even meaningless that I never took it seriously. As time went on (now I was in 8th grade), and my caring for her became bigger and bigger, her words and actions also became more hurtful. At first she'd just stop talking to me for a while and when I asked why, she would respond with something like "because you're f*ing disgusting", and then she apologized and said she was having a bad day and ask for help. After I had helped her, she'd go and tell some of our common friends how stupid I was, and that I wasn't worth their time, so everyone should just stop listening to me. Bad luck for me, they all listened to her and would later call me a fag, a pig, a freak, a weirdo, a creep, a hopeless outsider. Then she would say she was sorry, and I forgave her every time she did this. I thought, well, maybe this is just the way she loves me. But, of course, the insults started to become stronger. She would repeat all those words to me every day, every time she had the chance to. She added that I was unworthy of love, that she had never cared, and that no one would ever care. She once said I was worthless, useless, ugly, and should think of killing myself sometime soon. All these words that came from her mouth, and that I kept encountering in our facebook conversations began to grow inside me. Making me think of myself as all that, so when she showed the slightest bit of care I didn't even think of her rude words to me. I just did as she asked and helped if she needed to. All of this continued all through 8th grade, until one day, she said something that made everything fall over me and made me fall apart. I told her how I felt about her and how I had felt that way since the first moment we met, and she replied saying she knew and she had been waiting for me to tell her so she could say something as well (of course I got very excited because she had also been keeping something to herself. She loved me too!!). And what she said was I was a poor, delusional, lonely boy who was desperate for attention. She said she thought I was the most disgusting person to ever live and she had always felt embarrassed to be seen with me. "You're worth nothing, don't you understand? How could I, or anyone, ever love a piece of nothing?", this is the only part I remember so clearly I can even quote. The she laughed to my face, slapped me so hard in my right cheek that my right eye began tearing because of the physical pain, and when she saw this she said I was miserable and pitiful, and left. All I did was go back home, and her previous words popped in my head: I SHOULD KILL MYSELF SOON. And so I took an entire box of pills, very strong pills, that my grandmother had to take for her Alzheimer's. I actually had to go to the hospital and have my stomach pumped, and every person who knew just stopped talking to me. If before this they didn't have a reason to call me freak, now they did. I was the crazy person who had attempted suicide. 

I changed schools, and started fresh. I was able to make friends, good friends. I was content, but I can't say I was happy. After having cared so much for someone who hurt me so much, it was hard for me to ever trust anyone again, or even trust myself. And I have to admit it's still hard, and I'm still quite afraid of being myself because I think people might judge too harshly. 

Anyway, I'm thankful I survived my suicide attempt. Because now I'm trying to help others see how we're all beautiful and love worthy. I'm really trying hard to build my self-confidence again, and I'm trying to build the life I know I deserve.

Had I died, I wouldn't have ever been able to build anything again. Not even a Lego house. And I can honestly say that this strength in me might have never shown up if I hadn't experienced what I did. So, thank you Ana. You helped more than you ever wanted to, mainly because I know you never wanted to help at all.