Dear patient,

I have two things to tell you.

You're fifteen. This should not have happened. This should not have happened to you. You should not have been dealt the hand you've been dealt.

Things will change. The way you feel will change. It will get better. It won't get fixed, it won't be all sunshine and roses, it won't ever be like it never happened, but you will, at some point, feel differently than you do right now.

Well, three things to tell you.

You don't deserve the pain you want to inflict on yourself. You didn't do anything wrong. The punishment you think you deserve is not, in fact, to be meted on you. You deserve to feel better than this.

Four things.

My job is to keep you safe from harm until you feel differently. To keep you safe from hurting yourself as long as you're under my care. Because at some point, I hope, you'll come to know what I know. That you don't deserve this pain. And there's no need for you to add to it.

Jesus. And five things.

And here is the thing I can only say here in this letter to you. Here is the thing I can barely keep myself from telling you when we talk. But I have to because I'm supposed to be the wise adult. The empathetic grown-up who can somehow, maybe, imagine where you're at.

Do you know how I can understand the desire, the drive, the compulsion to hurt yourself? I get that it's not about suicide. I get that it makes you feel better. I get that not doing it hurts almost as much as doing it. And do you know why I get that?

Because I fight it every day.

Little sister, I love you.

Constance