If you are currently reading this, I made the decision to end my own life.
Let's go back. The year is 2014. I'm seven to eight years old. My mother starts some issues and my father moves out, leaving me and my two older brothers. My mother is gone for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. But when she's home, it's not good. I fell victim to abuse and child neglect. After a few months, my father got me. It was too late. Despite me only being in the second grade, some post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had set in. I was now scared of my mother and had an extreme fear of abandonment, something that a second-grader should never experience. Fast forward. August 2019. Depression sets in. Anxiety joins it. I inherit bipolar disorder from one of my parents. I meet this kid in my grade. We become great friends. Fast forward. March 2020. We're both going through some stuff and we open up to each other. Fast forward. March 2021. I tell my friend of my problems and he tries to help. But there was something under the surface that I never told him. I never told anyone. I wanted to kill myself. I had access to hundreds of ways. But the easiest being a gun. There were multiple times when I was sitting there, gun to my head, about to pull the trigger. But something came over me that stopped me. God had saved me, that time. Now, 25 March 2021. Here I sit, gun to my head. Today is the day. And no one can stop it.
If you're reading this, my lifeless body lays on the floor. I have become just one of the many teenage suicides. Why? Because teenage mental health is overlooked, despite suicide being one of the top killers of teenagers.
Don't follow in my footsteps. If you are thinking of self-harm and/or suicide, please talk to someone you trust or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255).
I love you all and I'm sorry.