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Real Life #1 - @nightscapes

A real life story submitted by nightscapes. Thank you so much for your submission.

I have attempted suicide four times since 2013. The most recent attempt on June 7th of 2015 landed me in a hospital, just months after I turned fourteen. I am fifteen now.

I remember so clearly that the date was June 7th because my school gave me an award, praising me for my resiliency. Every single person who knew any fragment of my past told me that I was strong. Because I had gone through what they couldn't imagine - an alcoholic mother, my uncle sexually abusing me, emotional and physical abuse, witnessing domestic violence for seven years, being forced into foster care in the second grade (where a girl tried to drown me, and where the boys sexually assaulted me), moving every single year, an eating disorder, and maintaining As throughout school. To them, being strong meant that I laughed and made jokes. Being strong meant that I smiled. Being strong meant that I did well in school.

Last year, when I was in the hospital for an overdose, I remember people in white lab coats asking me why I did it. I told them that I was tired of being sad, that I was tired of fighting and being strong. I spent the entire night in that hospital doing school work because I wanted everyone to think I was happy and okay. I was still pretending, even after a suicide attempt.

Depression changes you. It made me think that I couldn't tell anyone because then they would pity me, or they would think I was damaged, or a million other things. I stayed quiet, and it almost cost me my life. My depression isn't all that I am, but I thought that it was. I thought that me being depressed was this huge insurmountable flaw in character.

Depression is a flaw in chemistry, not character.

I didn't feel regret for wanting to take my life until I had a conversation with a girl who I've known my whole life. The two of us have grown up together, and I had lived with her family in the fourth and fifth grades while my current foster parent was studying to be a nurse in Prince George, Canada. We talked about my eating disorder. I am suffering from anorexia nervosa (something I am seeking treatment for), and I thought no one had noticed because I got so good at pretending and because no one had said anything.

Everyone noticed. But the didn't pity me or think I was damaged like I thought I was. They cared, they were worried. They wanted me to be healthy.

My depression has influenced my thoughts all my life, making me think that I am invisible, unwanted or unimportant. I am important, wanted and loved, and to anyone who is reading this, you are too. I feel regret for wanting to take my life because I realise that there is more to life than my depression and my eating disorder. I feel regret because there are people who care, and I want to be there for them. I feel regret because my death wouldn't have fixed what I thought was wrong with me. I feel regret because I realise that I have a future, one where I will be happy. All of us have futures, even if it's hard to see right now, and we all deserve to be alive for them.

I'm not going to say that I am magically cured through my realisation that I want to live. I'm not going to say that I never have bad days or that I don't have an eating disorder or that now I'm not depressed. I am still depressed. The difference is that now I know that I am worth being strong for. I am worth fighting depression every day for my future.

The difference is that I am recovering for myself. I am not recovering because someone wants me to be better. This is going to be hard to hear, but no one can save you but yourself. You are worth your life and so much more. People do care.

But you have to be the one to help yourself.

If you are depressed or suicidal, please seek help. Needing help doesn't make you weak, it takes courage to fight depression. Needing antidepressants don't make you weak. Be gentle with yourself. Take this one step at a time. You are worth it.

Next year I will be sixteen and taking a high-school course in psychology. When I'm eighteen, I will attend university to study social work and psychology. When I'm thirty, I will be a foster parent. Right now, I am writing on Wattpad to spread awareness about mental illness. Now, I am taking my recovery one step at a time.

On my bedside table, I have a Nice Things Jar. In it are all of the good things that have happened to me since the beginning of the school year. In it is everything that has made me smile in the last nine months. When I have a bad day or a bad week, I read the notes I put in the jar to remind myself that the feeling will pass.

Everyone should have a Nice Things Jar.