I feel like jumping down the school building

To my secondary counsellor who took my thoughts seriously. Thank you. Thank you for taking it seriously enough to call down professionals from the Institute of Mental Health to assess me. Severe depression was their diagnosis and they shared with me my options. But, how do I go for treatment with zero finances?  I wonder what would have happened to me if you had not given serious thought to what I told you. It was nearly the end of recess. “I feel like jumping down the school building” You looked at me shocked while I told you that grim sentence with a smiling face. It didn’t feel like much to me.

My whole life had been a series of half-hearted suicide attempts. Never really wanting to commit, but feeling like I had to because it was always going to be that way. All I have left of it are two arms filled with obvious self-harm scars and some scars here and there on my body. I never realised that talking about suicide was out of the norm. A taboo. It was the norm in my head. It has been a norm since I was in primary school.  My mum was toxic and poisonous at that time. Someone lost and reeling and simply trying to hold on without losing it herself. You told my mum about it and didn’t let me go till she came to pick me up. We went back home and she told me that I had humiliated her by sharing personal family matters with a stranger. In that moment, I hated talking to you. My mum constantly reminded me of how I shamed my family and I regretted sharing my thoughts with you.  Forward to a few months later, I felt better. I shut down and started being positive cause I thought things were getting better. If I shared my real thoughts, my mum will know of it and more shaming would occur. So I didn’t tell you of all the times I wanted to do it. I just said “okay”. “I’m good”. “I’ll be alright”. My favourite teacher told me that it was nothing. I just had to talk and it would get better. Maybe he was right, maybe not. I had no one to talk to who’d understand. So yeah, maybe it would have been better if I had spoken about my problems. But there was no one out there who could understand, who could help.  

Life has been a journey. I thank you my dear counsellor because you manage to instill the tiniest ray of hope into my mind which was enveloped in darkness. I go for therapy twice a month. My job brings hope to families. I have a diagnosis now. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) with bouts of depression, anxiety, and a whole lot of dissociation. I still wish I didn’t have it. I feel broken. But I’m okay with that. I’m used to it. I found that acceptance is the way forward from the reins of my past. It makes it a tad easier than denial.