Life Beyond Suicide as a Teenager.
[Music]
suicide
what does that word mean to you
for me i think the 14th of april 2018
the day i attempted suicide
i’ve come through that chapter in my
life and i’m finally ready to share my
story
i would love if this inspired or helped
someone
but i’d be happy even if it just made
you think for a second
i didn’t like what my life was like in
my second year of secondary school
i didn’t have many friends and i felt
distant from my family
i hated it and i turned that hatred on
myself
i hated my hair my voice my body pretty
much everything about me
and on the 13th of april 2018
i got a bad test result that’s it
such a mundane thing and i’m sure every
one of you here has gotten one
but to me it just felt so big
and that combined with my severe
self-image issues
just got bigger and bigger in my head
until i broke i decided i was going to
kill myself
and so the following day i took a
handful of pills and went to sleep
it was the worst decision i’ve ever made
and waking up the next morning was the
best thing that ever happened to me
i was hoping that if i did wake up i
would be
fixed whatever that means
it isn’t that easy it isn’t just the
snap of a fingers and all better it
takes time and it’s hard
so i started
my aunt told me something that i’d like
all of you here today to try
she told me pick five things you like
about yourself and two things you don’t
when i first did this i couldn’t even
get to five things i liked
but i could definitely think of the
things i didn’t like
and it got better i could think more and
i can think of more and more things i
liked about myself
and i’m not going to say i started to
love the bad or something cliche like
that
my aunt told me change the parts you
don’t like
and i’m not saying go around changing
your personality to fit in with a group
of friends
but for instance i didn’t like my leg
hair
and she said just shave it
and i felt so empowered i finally had a
choice and i could choose
to help myself
obviously i wasn’t better because i
liked myself more i went to therapy
i went to two government and charity
funded organizations called lucina
hampieda house
they helped me so much
i was on the wait list for lucina four
months
and i left after only two months and
that’s okay
it’s always okay to leave therapy
whether
the therapist might suit you or you just
aren’t ready
and from then on i worked on and with
myself
and look of where i am now i’m happy
genuinely happy and this story
my story is not a sad story
because i’m here today
so this isn’t happily ever after
but it is happy thank you
[Music]
you