First off, I'd like to state, yes, starving Darfur war orphans' plight is much, much worse than anything that I ever have experienced or anything I am ever likely to experience in the future.

That said and done, I think I've been suffering from depression; I don't really know. Certain things keep coming to mind, especially late at night when I'm unable to sleep (insomnia's a bitch), and they just leave me mentally exhausted. Here's the story, but I'll warn you now, it's a long one.

When I was younger, I used to be intimate with one of my younger, female cousins. She was 3 years my junior. It was never anything much, mostly just cases of "heavy petting", I suppose it could be called. Childhood curiosity and exploration gone on too long. When I was 12 and she was 9, it somehow came out to her mother. My aunt, who had been close like a mother, told me that I needed to go die. "And you can do it, Cody. You can go die." She told me the world would be better off without me, and she told me where my grandparents' medicine cabinet was. She told me just how much of which medicine could kill me; she was a nurse and she was able to tell me coldly and precisely just how I could do it. Then she moved and took her three daughters, almost my sisters, away. I haven't seen or spoken to them in five years.

Later, when I was 15, I made the exact same mistake. I did the same with my sister, also 9 at that time. That time I lost my father, my stepmother, my sister, and two brothers. My grandfather blamed my church. He went to it and in front of my youth group called them all godless heathens, abominations, and said that they could all go to hell but he wouldn't let them take me with them. That was the last time I went to that church, saw those friends, and incidentally, the last time I ever believed in God. This was also about the time that, because of what my mistakes had done, I lost any and all interest in women except for my then-girlfriend, who had stuck with me through everything; she did eventually leave me for someone else after three and a half years, though. I almost instantly fell into another relationship out of a need to have -someone-; I was suffering from some pretty bad abandonment issues (father and mother never married, broke up because I was born, left me with my grandparents; so much of my family leaving later only compounded them) and I just needed somebody. 9 months later, he left me as well, again for someone else. Just more for the abandonment issues and lack of self-esteem.

By age 17 I was facing circuit court and several years in jail (24 years less 9 leaving 15 to serve, is how the docket put it), because of some stupid, stupid mistakes I'd made. I've repeated what my aunt told me so often - that I should die, that I'm worthless - that it's simply the truth to me at this point. Even the reason for my wanting to go into medicine is essentially a misguided idea that if I can help people, perhaps I could atone in my mind for what I'd done, and finally feel a little less angry at myself.

It almost goes without saying that, being a teenager going through something really emotionally draining, I would hurt myself. Usually cutting, but other ways, too. Every now and then I see the scars and remember, and it's always a hell of a reminder.

I'm 18 now, and the entire court thing is officially over as of last June. I had to take a guilty plea and I was able to get probation instead of jail time -- I'm still on probation, incidentally, will be for about a year longer. Essentially it's all over, or rather, it should be. I'm away from home, I'm being kept busy with my classes, my worries about jailtime are over... but it's not better.

I still have a wretched time falling asleep. I still have terrible self-esteem, and get so angry at myself for miniscule things. Tonight it's only 1:45 as I come to a close on this, still early for me, but I know I won't be able to sleep tonight - I keep remembering my aunt, my cousins, family I pushed away because of stupid mistakes, people I'll never see again, and it just takes so much energy; I always feel completely exhausted, insomnia compounded with a constant state of anxiety and self-loathing.

So, SA, help me out here, if you think I deserve to be - how could I stop having these lapses where I think about the past, or start sleeping properly for the first time in five years?