“I used to get called a ‘pig’ on the bus. I was pulled out of school for 8 weeks. Rumors started. Everyone thought I was crazy. I heard a group of girls talking about how I should have never come back.”
‘I remember being told, ‘You’re lucky I’m with you, because you’re really fat.’ I was always just the smart girl with a pretty face, I was never the total package.’
‘My parents knew I suffered abuse. ‘It is not that bad, she will get over it.’ I was alone. Because they doubted me, I started to doubt myself.’
“After another traumatic pregnancy, it hit me like a truck. I loved her so much, but I kept looking at her and thinking, ‘how could you?’ I always thought if I had a baby girl, I would make sure nothing happened to her, like it did to me. But the moment I held her, I realized I couldn’t keep that promise.”
‘I asked to borrow his Walkman. He said, ‘Sure, if you let me touch you.’ I could hear him breathing heavy in my ear, and I was frozen. He told me not to tell.’
“All of a sudden, we heard my uncle’s car pull up. He opened the door quickly. There was a smashed lamp on the floor. He looked at me and asked, ‘What is going on?’”
‘By age 9, I had thoughts about my own funeral. I wondered who would attend. Mom would find my Barbie dolls with notes like, ‘I want to die.’ Not at all normal for a child to be saying.’
“I remember telling my parents, ‘I love my life.’ That would soon change.‘ I lost the majority of my friends due to bullying. ‘I couldn’t even kill myself. I’m a failure.’”
‘His little voice begged me to wake up. ‘Don’t die, mommy. Don’t die, mommy.’ His hug, his kiss and his tenderness, lying next to me for hours as I sobbed.’
“Another fight left me to sleep in the guest room. My middle child, my baby boy, crawled into bed with me as my head throbbed and I couldn’t’ stop the room from spinning. Again. My loudest rock bottom came like a whisper – It was his touch.”
‘It’s fine. It’s fine.’ His words replayed on a cruel loop after he left. I sat on a table in a dark room, bleeding and trying to make them mean something like comfort. This stuff did not happen to ME.’
“He told me to follow him to a section of the warehouse I had never been in. There was nothing necessarily violent about it, but it was forceful. My ‘no’ was not an angry scream, but it was repeated several times.”
‘When I was 12 years old, my older sister died by suicide. She was my whole world. This year alone I’ve had over 20 suicide attempts.’
“I had Bell’s Palsy. I was severely bullied. I would go around at lunch asking to sit with people, and every group would tell me no. I would sit by the trashcans and get food thrown at me.”
‘I got out of bed, got dressed, and left my apartment with no intentions of ever returning. I then pulled out my phone to request an Uber to a bridge in my area.’
“I began walking onto the bridge, passing a sign that held the suicide prevention lifeline number on it. ‘They can’t help me,’ I thought.”
‘I cost my parents thousands of dollars in medical bills because I was not ready to admit my problem’: Woman overcomes severe eating disorders after finally admitting sexual assault
“When I was 13 I was sexually assaulted and hid it from my family. I gained more than 100 pounds to hide myself from the truth I didn’t want to believe. I was so bitter and angry for so long, but I survived each version of myself, and I’m better for it.”
To The Person Who Feels Suicidal But Doesn’t Want To Die
“Suicidal thoughts aren’t black and white, your feelings are valid, and there are people here for you. You are not alone.”
