I have happy memories up until I was around 4 or 5. Then something happened to me and my older siblings. Something that we never got help for. Something that created anger and hatred inside of each of us. Since we had no idea how to deal with trauma, we took out our anger and hatred on each other. I was the youngest, so most of it was taken out on me. I was bullied whenever our parents weren't around. I remember praying as a little kid as I cried huddled on the floor for God to just let me die so I wouldn't have to go through it anymore. I prayed so many times... I remember one time telling my dad what my brother was doing to me, hitting me over and over with a pillow while taunting me, but he said he wouldn't do anything about it unless I showed him what my brother did by doing the same thing to him. I couldn't do it. I remember how horrible I felt that my dad wanted me to do to him what my brother did to me. I was so scared.

I can't remember how old I was, around 10 I think, when I decided enough was enough. I couldn't find any paper in my room, so I wrote on a piece of cardboard that I was giving my rock collection to my mom and that I didn't care what they did with the rest of my things. That night before bed, I went to the bathroom and took a small handful of tylenol and a small handful of ibuprofen and swallowed them. I wanted to die that night and wake up in Heaven.

Instead of falling asleep, my blood started pumping faster, and I got scared. I yelled down to my mom and started crying, telling her what I did. She and my dad had me drink a few glasses of milk, then had me induce vomiting. They told me they didn't want to take me to the hospital so I wouldn't have to go thru getting my stomach pumped and have to be locked in the psych ward. Looking back, I'm glad they didn't, but I can't help but think maybe I would've at least been given tools to help me deal, you know?

Things seemed to get better after that. I was still bullied, but not as much. It was years before my mom stopped hiding any kind of pain reliever from me.

When I do think of happy memories from my childhood, they were all at school. For some reason, even though I was a fat kid, I was never bullied at school. It was like I was invisible though, so maybe that's why.

I'm a mom of a soon-to-be kindergartener, and even though her dad and I are divorced, I do everything in my power to teach her to be kind to others and how to deal with bullies. (She's already had to deal with them at daycare. Unbelievable. There certainly are some idiot parents out there.)

My daughter is an only child, and she will stay that way (unless her dad fathers more kids) because I couldn't bear to know that one of my kids was bullying another one of my kids.