Hi. I am an 18 year old boy who lived with depression ever since I was maybe 12. My first suicide attempt was during high school when I was maybe about 14 or 15 years old. It hurt trying to deal with the loneliness, pressure, and the feeling of how I just don’t exist to anybody around me. And looking at where I am now and where I have been before, I think I’ve dealt with it enough to where I can live a happy life. I don’t have all the answers, and I get depressed every so often. But I just want to do something to stop others from going through what I had to. Or even worse, going off the deep end.
I had counselors ever since I had my first suicide attempt, and many of them didn’t know anything about what a kid like me needed. I wanted answers to how to make the pain go away. They gave me medication and sent a tool who talked like he came off a college class and memorized textbook phrases. One of the things that made depression even worse was that I felt this way, and I couldn’t even imagine a way out of this. I was gonna stay like this forever. If it’s not gonna get better, why keep living life? Well, it took a lot of things. But I did manage to get better. It all starts with a good talk.
I have these deep scars on my shoulders when I used to cut myself. Every time my friends see them I have to make up some story on how I was abused as a child to get past the subject. But they remind me about who I once was. I knew how hard it was to actually trust a person to talk to about this stuff, with all the judgment and bs that came with it. They gave smiles but they didn’t know what to say because they never were there. Even the counselors that were supposed to comfort people like me. I’m writing this because I want to be support for everybody living in the same dark place that I used to live in. I know just how close I was to overdosing on pain killers. And I want to do all I can to stop it. Because there is hope out there. You can get back on your feet. If you ever want someone to talk with who has gone through the pain here’s my email rnuon94@gmail.com. Please, keep on fighting through the pain. Life is worth living. Happiness isn’t just a memory.
2 comments
Daydreamer, I hear you. I’ve been there in my own way and it is the unendurable pain that others cannot fathom because they don’t see a reason for that pain. Reason or not, the pain is real. I feel as you do, that I want to relate to others at the bottom of that well. I clawed and bled my way to the top, finally climbed out, and if I ever get even near the edge, work like hell not to fall in again. And that meant cutting mean people out of my life.
For me, that fact that someone actually listened and validated ME was a huge step toward life, a therapist who sincerely cares. All the best to you in your future endeavors to reach out to our brothers and sisters in pain.
Vedura
I’ve also written a novel with a suicidal main character. It’s a bit on the ‘light’ side of reality, but I couldn’t dig deeper at the time, for my own survival; and I also hoped to reach a few on the other side of our looking glass.
It always makes me angry when the family of a suicidal person calls themselves suicide survivors when you and I and the others on this website are the true suicide survivors, a very hard battle to fight and win.