The Library Stopped Me From Hurting Myself

A Child's Search for Community

Me (2012)

When I was in seventh grade, suicide seemed a viable option.

I was avoided like a plague. There were a few reasons: my vocal and physical tics, being vice president of anime club, my uncool thrifted clothes, and my general lack of understanding social cues. I overheard one kid mention me in a Fuck Marry Kill scenario to his friend who groaned, because I was considered bottom of the barrel. One of my classmates rated me a 6 in their group chat and sent me a screenshot of it. I asked out a boy with a note, and he never responded, though I saw him sharing the note around with a laugh. My vocal tic, clearing my throat uncontrollably, got me annoyed looks in quiet classrooms. One kid “accidentally” rammed me into a locker and laughed while he ran off. I sat with a few people who tolerated me, and a boy who joined late commented on ‘people who aren’t supposed to be here.’ He looked me in the eyes.

I wasn’t a saint. I knew I was at the bottom of the ladder, and when I met another girl who I considered beneath even me, I treated her poorly. I made fun of the way she smelled, I purposely left her out of games, and talked bad about her. I thought that by doing this it would elevate me, maybe not in anyone else’s eyes, but in mine. It didn’t.¹

My home life was rocky. Financial stress made my dad angry. My mother retreated into herself. My older sister tried to kill herself. My little sister was bullied. Needless to say, my pre-teen melancholy wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list. I pretended to be sick every Thursday so I could go home early and escape to my room. I never hung out with anyone. I never went anywhere. I felt a cold, hopeless loneliness. I remember undressing in front of the bathroom mirror in seventh grade, looking at my body, and feeling overwhelming disgust. I hate myself, I thought. I hate myself.

I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness. My mother, a devout believer, told me I shouldn’t get too close to the kids at school anyway since they were ‘people of Satan’s world,’ our religion’s term for outsiders. But my religious peers treated me with the same disdain as my classmates—laughing behind my back, excluding me from gatherings, leaving me out of conversation. I had no friends there, either, and I was on the cusp of a slow abandoning of my religious beliefs. Still, I preached to everyone around me because I thought I was saving them from a near-future apocalyptic death. No kid wants to hear about Jehovah. They don’t know who the fuck that is.

All this to say—yeah, I thought about killing myself.

I’d been to our local library before. It was a rare free place for a struggling family of seven to spend time. It’s where I discovered series like WondLa and comics like Rapunzel’s Revenge that I eagerly took with me to school. The children’s section was the largest I’d seen in any library and had beautiful storybook murals along its walls. There was a nook with a large window, bean bags, and soft chairs. There were kid-friendly computers to request books and play games. I always headed to the back corner where the middle-grade fiction and comics lay, then met up with my little sister on a bean bag under the tall window’s sunshine. We were far enough from my school to avoid seeing anyone I knew and I read comfortably with that in mind.

In middle school, the magic of the children’s section faded. I looked longingly over to the teen section, which was considerably smaller, and couldn’t wait until I turned thirteen. There weren’t strict rules about who could enter but I always imagined that if I went before I was an actual teenager, an older and much cooler kid would point and laugh at me. There was one rainy day when the teen section was empty. I was eleven. I entered cautiously, expecting to trigger some loud alarm, and perused the books with hesitant glances over my shoulder. I grabbed copies of Maximum Ride and I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You and left the teen section feeling like an adult.

Then I discovered manga.

Visits every other month turned into weekly drives to the library. I was averaging a book a week. I breezed through the Inheritance Cycle in a month and a half and read all twenty-four volumes of Pandora Hearts. And after my thirteenth birthday, I walked into the teen section with a new jacket and a pep in my step. I can be here now, I thought. I’m a teen. The teen room was a small square of genre fiction and occasional comics with two cushioned booths against the far window. I grabbed a book and sat in the booth. Some children came in and gave me fearful looks like I’d point and laugh at them. When I didn’t, they grabbed a book and read criss-cross-applesauce on the floor.

I memorized my library card number to make requesting and checking out books easier. I still have all 14 digits memorized to this day. The librarians knew me. I started recognizing fellow frequent regulars. It smelled like books. It was clean. The floor was carpeted, the windows were tall, and the front desk was gray. There were children’s book readings, local events, and movie nights. I memorized the layout.

The teen section had local artwork on its walls—crayon portraits, sharpie landscapes, and ink anime characters. I looked every week to see what changed. I liked the anime art. I thought that maybe I could submit my own, too. I ended up too afraid to submit my work, but it got me to practice when I otherwise wouldn’t have. I started scribbling comics on binder paper. One was called Hero & Heroine about a pair of twins who learned they had magic. Another, whose name I can’t remember, was about a young elven woman escaping her evil captors. I spent class looking out the window and imagining my characters fighting off bad guys or ways I could draw the next cover. I shared these comics with only a handful of trusted people. I knew it would worsen me in my classmate’s eyes, but I loved doing it.

When school, church, and home felt like challenges, the library felt like a sanctuary. No one was judging me for my too-small pants or my vocal tics. No one was telling me to preach to my classmates lest they die by Satan’s hand. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was there for a different reason. Everyone was a stranger. But we were all united in this free shared space.

In those cold nights where I cried into my pillow and wondered why I couldn’t ‘just be normal,’ I reminded myself it wasn’t all bad. If I died, I’d never learn if Max and Fang would get together in Maximum Ride. It was okay if I didn’t have friends because Shizuku from My Little Monster didn’t have friends for a while, either. Library media was my biggest reason for living. Books and manga taught me social cues, how to manage loneliness and interpersonal relationships, and how to dream for something better. They taught me red flags in romance, what qualifies as “good writing,” and strengthened my vocabulary.² They ignited a love for writing and I scribbled short stories and novel/comic ideas into journals. I went from spending my evenings alone by the TV to giggling with a book in my hand on clean bedsheets. I started sitting at the dining table with my sister and showed her my comics. I made a friend who saw me reading manga. A boy at school who I thought deeply disliked me was fascinated with one of my Pandora Hearts volumes (he thought it was cool that it went right to left) and started drawing the cover art next to me in class. People saw me reading a lot and thought I must be super smart and started asking for help with assignments—most asked me to do it for them, but I was strictly against cheating at the time and tried to explain it instead.

The library got me through seventh and eighth grade. At the end of middle school during an overnight trip to Yosemite, I ended up bonding with classmates I hadn’t gotten the chance to know before. We talked on long hikes, threw food at each other at lunch, visited each other’s cabins, and made inside jokes. This led to decades-long friendships I still have today. And back in school, I’d finally started to hang out with a group of girls that seemed to slightly more than tolerate me.

Now, years later, I have a book on hold for me at my local library—Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. It’s a small library in the mountains with a modest selection and a $1 book room. I’m not reading a book a week anymore, but I’m averaging one book a month. It wasn’t necessarily a smooth road after eighth grade. I stopped reading frequently in high school and hid my self-loathing under self-righteousness. I wanted to ‘act normal’ and spoke poorly of others before they could speak poorly of me. When I stopped caring and started reading again, everything shifted. It’s of no surprise that my teenage path to kindness and self-acceptance was paved with books.

Libraries have more resources than people think.³ My local middle-of-nowhere mountain library gives free Covid tests. Most libraries have literacy programs, community hubs that provide housing and food support, group activities like parenting support and education events, free paper and 3D printers, free WiFi, etc. With more people turning to print, analog, and at-home digital media after price increases from streaming services, you should know libraries also let you rent DVDs, music, and magazines. And renting a book is a good way to curb book-buying overconsumption. Most libraries also have a “friend of the library”⁴ option where you contribute a few dollars a month to support these services, and many take volunteers.

With libraries being defunded,⁵ it’s more important now than ever to support your local library—especially in this capitalistic nightmare where everything costs money. Take your kids to the library. Stop by before work. Sign up to be a Friend of the Library. Follow them on social media. Even getting a library card helps, so I’m told. Without the library, I don’t think I would be here. I know what’s at stake.

I think about Little Kyrie sometimes. She was so lonely and bitter. She wanted to believe in herself and in God. She wanted to belong. Having books, comics, and a free space gave her little reasons to keep going until things got better.

Me (2024)

I’m twenty-four now. I have my bachelor’s. I was accepted into a program at NYU. I have a loving partner, supportive friends, and a great relationship with my family. I feel pride in who I am, in my identity. I have no God. I didn’t need one, in the end. I’ve been an editor for books like Chile, en particular and The Gray Bird Sings, and worked with debut authors to make their dream come true. I’m trying to write my own books now. Maybe one day my name will end up in a library, too.

1. I found her on social media years later and apologized.

2. Weirdly enough, I had to learn social interactions through dating simulators like Mystic Messenger. I’ve never been diagnosed autistic nor do I claim to be, but memories like that definitely make me wonder.

3. Howard, Jennifer. “The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library.” National Endowment For the Humanities.
https://www.neh.gov/article/complicated-role-modern-public-library

4. Rachel von Essen, Leah. “What are the Friends of the Library and How Can You Get Involved?” Bookriot. October 20th, 2023.
https://bookriot.com/what-are-the-friends-of-the-library/

5. Clark, Larra. “Outlook on Federal Funding Threats to Libraries.” American Libraries Magazine. February 26th, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_electronic_sources.html