Nine months ago, I was not alive. Sure I was a living, breathing creature, and I still am, but I was dead spiritually. Had I not decided to tear myself away from my life and all that I knew, I would still be that dead person. If I had not come to Sunny Palace, I would still be wreaking havoc around my town.

  My life before Sunny Palace was one as dark as obsidian. I was in with the wrong crowd and constantly in trouble at school. And home posed no sort of comfort. My parents were never home and could careless if I were breathing, as long as I made a decent appearance at dinner parties. I suppose they are the reason I turned to drugs. I was susceptible to peer-pressure and life drained from me like water down a toilet bowl.

  Though I smile on the outside, inside I was broken; dying. But when I was on acid or pot all the disdain and fury fled from me. The doctors here say drugs were my ways of seeking my parent's attention. They say my obsequious behavior drove me to the false security of joy, and had I not decided to separate myself from the sycophancy, I would surely be dead.

  The trips acid took me on were great. With the candy, the world was colorful like the bijouterie of a queen, but without them, the frabjous atmosphere faded away, and the world became gray and fallacious. My parents would tell me everything was going to be fine and that my life would lighten, but they were lies. Everyday was the same as the last. I kept skipping school and hanging out with the "cool" kids, smoking pot, and getting into things I wasn't supposed to.

  Slowly my life slipped away from me, trip by trip. The drugs became encroaching leeches and soon after I begin taking them, my suicide notes began to pour from the tip of my blood-red pen, one after the other. Nothing in my life mattered to me; life didn't even matter to me, not that it ever had. Each suicide attempt failed me though. Every time I woke up alive, I felt abandoned by the pills I had taken. There was no satisfaction for the pain I felt inside. Life would not leave me.

  Then one night, a near death experience opened up  my eyes to the truth. I was at a party and didn't realize I was eating M&M's laced with acid, they tasted so good. I kept eating them non-stop, until I got that familiar feeling of elation. The hairs on my neck stood up, like the hackles of an animal as I stood on the ledge of  that bridge. The scruples of my consciousness called out to me, but it was far too late for I leaped from that high place.

  Apparently there was ecstasy amongst the M&M's that night as well. I just couldn't tell the difference, it all tasted so swell. The doctors had to pump my stomach and hook me upto an I.V. just to keep me from slipping into a coma. My parents berated me for going to the party, not even caring that I nearly killed myself. The very brunt of the water might have killed me had it not been that the hood of my jacket caught on a nail, catching me by the throat before I hit the water. But my parents didn't care about that; they were only worried about their reputations with their bosses, the neighbors, the country club. They didn't care about me.

  After that near death experience, I talked to a doctor who recommended Sunny Palace. He said it was a great option for young drug abusers. I decided that the palace was the best option for me because the therapists, unlike my parents, weren't easily won over by adulation. No form of benevolence could allow the therapists to look the other way when I misbehaved. The palace offered me structure and discipline, something my life lacked.

  So I abandoned my life of havoc and moved to Sunny Palace. It isn't exactly a mental hospital, but there are patients here who suffer permanent cephalalgia because of the voices in their heads, patients who talk to themselves, and people who, like me, are drug abusers. I valiantly left behind a "good" life to join a place where everyone had issues.

  By the end of my fifth month here at the palace, drugs no longer stymied my growth into a happy person. The therapists were kind and examined my brain overtly as not to scare me away, and I like that. They allowed me the chance to talk with them and express my emotions, unlike my parent's, who brushed me off for some business meeting or lunch at the country club.

  And now, as I have said, it is my ninth month here, and I've shed my old skin. I imbibed all the therapists here told me, and everything I learned, to creat a new sking for myself. I purified my mind and heart in the past nine months, and applied all that I learned here at the Sunny Palace to my life. My parents were always so mercenary, only worried about work, and how many tosy they bought in, that they had no time for me. I took it as rejection and turned to drugs to pacify the hurt and pain, and the loneliness. But drugs weren't the answer. Attention and a listening ear were the true antidotes.

  A million chances at starting over slipped through my withered hands before I came to Sunny Palace. Everytime I called out for help, there was no one to listen, not at home anyways. But here at the palace, everyone listened, and even some people could relate.

  By admitting myself to Sunny Palace and leaving the old behind me, I created a new Zola. A new me, who learned the hard way that death; is neither a comforter nor solution to any problems faced. Sometimes it takes seperating yourself from the pain, and a little Sunny Palace up on a hill to ease the pain and give a new beginning at everything life messed over.