Choosing Life

Chapter 3

I was in high school. Assignments hit me full blast, and I started to become so stressed that I couldn't function. I would sometimes tell myself that one test didn't matter, that when I was in my thirties that I wouldn't care about that one test. But even if I told myself not to worry about doing it, I would still do it. School became a huge chore, having to wake up early and drag myself out of bed. I had great friends, but I still felt like something was missing.

I started to feel like life had no meaning. We would go to preschool for three years to go to primary school for seven years to go to high school for six year to go to university for three to seven years to go to work. It felt like I would always be feeling the stress of having to work, never being able to relax and enjoy life. I felt like there would never be anything more. I started to ask people what they thought was the meaning or point of life, why we were put on the earth. They all had their own standard answers, but I started to think that maybe it wasn't enough for me. I started to ask why we live through this world, with all this suffering, all this pain?

I gradually became depressed, although I hid it well. I became an eccedentesiast - a fancy word for someone that hides their pain behind a smile. People thought that I had a great life, I acted bubbly in school, and they never realised. We had all these people coming in from the Black Dog Foundation, the Butterfly Foundation, RUOK, all talking about mental health issues. And I started to understand that what I was going through was depression, it was a mental health problem, and that I needed to tell someone. But I couldn't.

I started to learn about all of the organisations and people that you could talk to when going through times like this. Headspace, Black Dog Foundation, Lifeline, Kids Helpline, BeyondBlue, reachout, etc. I was too afraid to tell my parents, to tell my friends, my brother, anyone. I didn't want them to look at me differently, to show that I was weak. I didn't want my parents to stop being proud of me, or for someone to treat me like I was delicate. So I just suffered.

For years that went on, until finally in Year 9, I was starting to feel so suicidal and upset and depressed that my facade was falling. My friends started to notice that I wasn't being my usual bubbly self, and that I was becoming more withdrawn. I wasn't blabbing on about my cheerleading (the newest activity I had joined that I loved) or randomly say facts (like about how our gut is the only organ system that could perform its functions if our brain shut down, or that in 1939, Adolf Hitler's nephew wrote an article called 'Why I Hate My Uncle' ) and I gradually didn't laugh as much, smile as much, or participate in conversations like I used to.

It was becoming hard for me to keep pretending, and I knew what was happening because the Black Dog Foundation representative that had come to speak to us had told us about it. I knew that I had to do something. I wasn't able to tell someone face-to-face, or anyone that I knew, but I decided that I might go onto one of those mental health disorder websites. I decided to go onto Kids Helpline, and after reading about their confidentiality agreement, I was satisfied enough that I decided to email them. The response came back quickly, and they wanted me to talk to a regular counsellor by phone.

I started having a look at other websites such as reachout.com, and learnt about all the things that teenagers go through, and how to deal with them. I felt like people understood how I felt, and even though I didn't talk to them, reading articles made me feel like I could relate to them.

I started to get a little better, and taking part of a survey that reachout.com was doing over the course of several months, I started to realise that I was going on their sites much less and I was slowly getting out of the ditch that I was stuck in for so long. Occasionally it would rain and I would get stuck again, but I knew that I would make it.

Then came a part of our huge extended family from Germany from my father's side. They were moving to Australia and we had to hold a party for them. If there was one thing that challenged me will to stay alive the most, it was huge family gatherings. Every single time, some aunty or uncle would ask me what I wanted to be (my second most hated question). Now the reason why I hate this so much is because people don't just ask you this question in my family. No, when they ask you it's because they have an idea about what they want you to be. And they wanted me to be a criminal lawyer. Do you know how hard it is for me to say a speech in front of the class? Do you know that at Japanese school when I had to do that speech I was so nervous and crying that my teacher gave me their lucky charm because I didn't want to go on stage? Did you know that everytime that I have to do a speech, I get so nervous that I used to shake in class, and one time on my English speech I actually cried? Do you understand that I want to be a psychologist, someone that helps others, not someone who stops guilty criminals from going to jail, like you wanted me to be? I can't do that.

But I particularly hated this moment, because not only did I have to go through the usual problems like: there's not enough chairs or cutlery or plates for me to eat, I have to wait for everyone to finish; or relatives continuously telling me to go and talk to my cousins; or not being able to watch what I want on TV, but this time, I had to face the part of the family that I hated most.

But the main reason why I hated them had nothing to do with them. It was simply because I was jealous that my dad always seemed to like them better than me and my brother. I was also jealous because their parents were together, they got whatever they wanted. I have lived in Australia all my life and they've already been to the Opera House, Max Brenner, Perisher, etc. more than me.

And then I broke down in my room. And this made me feel so humiliated, with all of these family members here. I told my dad about how I felt, but he didn't understand. The only time that I ever told my parents about how I felt, and I'm certain that he didn't fully listen, because he was too busy thinking about the next things that he needed to cook, etc. So I just stayed in my bed, crying.