Self-Injury Awareness Day is on March 1, worldwide.

The lack of human voices really gets to me. I never realized that we need to talk with other people just to know that we exist. That we matter. Loneliness is a howling, empty cavern inside of me that just keeps growing.

When some people in the crowd act shocked or repulsed, Diamond calmly tells them her scars are part of her past, part of what made her who she is.

I’ve never seen her defend herself the way she defends other people. It’s like she thinks she doesn’t deserve it, or maybe she thinks she doesn’t need it.

In Maybe I Will, Laurie Gray writes about important topics that teens need to talk about, including sexual assault, friendship, and alcoholism or self-destructive behaviors that result from trauma. Maybe I Will may help some teens know they’re not alone.

You don’t deserve the anger you’re turning on yourself. Your abuser’s the one who does.

If I don’t do what feels right to me, what I need and want to do, then am I really living?

You can see when someone’s been hurt the way I was. It’s obvious. Something changes in their eyes; pain becomes their center, even when they try to hide it.

I think you’ve got to get out whatever’s hurting you through your art, so it doesn’t twist you up inside.

Other times, I look at my scars and see something else: a girl who was trying to cope with something horrible that she should never have had to live through at all. My scars show pain and suffering, but they also show my will to survive. They’re part of my history that’ll always be there.