Why not start this site off with a bang, and head straight into one of my most vulnerable moments. I don’t seem to remember a lot of high school in detail, mainly due to suffering from debilitating mental illness. The timeline is REAL fuzzy. As such, I can’t give you a date for when this happened, but I assume this was around Year 10.
I don’t know why, but I guess I had come to the decision that I wanted to kill myself. My illness had this funny way of controlling me, placing directives within my brain without the lines of rational reasoning that usually follow (if that makes any sense). So I was killing myself, but never once did I comprehend what I was doing or why. My head was empty, which in reflection is pretty scary to think about. Once this ‘goal’ has been planted within my head, it was all I could think about. Maybe two years earlier, I had placed a box of ibuprofen in a secret place. Due to the accessibility, I decided to use those pills to end my life. I did run into a problem, my throat would get tired after swallowing 9 or so pills at a time. Over the course of 2-3 days, I sat on my bathroom floor and tried to get as many pills in before I started to retch.
I don’t remember where my parents were, or what they were even thinking. I was so engulfed within the throes of my illness that I had become isolated from the entire world around me.
I didn’t really notice anything at first, but I think I started experiencing symptoms the day after. I remember sitting in my high school math class, with this radiating pain in my upper abdomen. As of now (with my basic medical student knowledge), I have a hunch that I was maybe experiencing hepatitis or pancreatitis. It was a pain unlike any I had ever felt before, insidious and … frightful in nature. It came in waves. I told nobody about it. What a STUPID move, because I could have died so easily. Fortunately, these pains subsided and I survived. To be honest, I never really thought about it after either.
If I could diagnose myself, I think I was experiencing symptoms of some sort of psychosis. As I said, I felt controlled by some external force. I don’ t think I wanted to die necessarily, I was compelled to complete this ritual with no comprehension of the reality of the ending.
For a while after, I had trouble swallowing pills. This is quite standard for people who attempt suicide this way.
I think you shouldn’t ever pursue this. Wanting to kill yourself is NOT NORMAL in any capacity. As humans, we are genetically wired to prioritise survival, any subversion of this instinctual tenet could be indicative of an underlying disorder. Please, if you find yourself considering suicide, understand that you may be experiencing some kind of ILLNESS. And quite often, illness CAN be treated.
I think of the poor child I was, keeled over my desk trying to withstand the pain, and I wish to tell her that she was sick, and that her sickness could be fixed. During those times, my high school friends never really asked me about my suffering, despite it being written on my face at every moment. This is a reality which is shared by many, and I want to tell you that you must appreciate your own strength and tenacity. You are so strong to have enough hope to continue on to the next second, minute, hour or day.
End.
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