"This is the most broken kid we've ever seen," was the statement give to Ashley's Place from the center that does forensic medical exams for minors of sexual assault.
By the time the teen entered Ashley's Place, she had spent two weeks not bathing, hardly eating, not leaving her home because of her anxiety. Her assault triggered a cascade of symptoms related to post traumatic stress disorder. In the early months of therapy she changed schools in an attempt to start over, but her depression lead her to using drugs in an attempt to numb her emotions.
She became suicidal and wrote suicide letters to her family, hiding them under her mattress in the event that she decided to act on her suicidal thoughts. At one point, her family walked in her room, finding her holding a gun to her head and crying. She was hospitalized. She was medicated. She had moments of wanting to give up.
But she kept coming faithfully to therapy every week, working through the deepest pain she had ever felt. And finally, some hope crept in. She began respecting herself and taking care of her emotions. She distanced herself from harmful relationships and began reconnecting with her family. She stopped using her body as a way to obtain drugs and became 100% sober. She started caring about her future, brought up her grades and recently graduated high school.
The broken kid, the one that almost didn't make it, survived.