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WARNING:

Mentions shooting, depression, suicide and self-harm - please take care!!!

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I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure I have some form of depression. I might not ever know, because my mum refuses to take me to the doctor to ask him if I do. She says, "I'm too young to have depression.". Her being a nurse, I'm surprised she doesn't know that you can have depression and other mental illnesses at very young ages.

I'm sure I have depression, I have all the symptoms for it. I can barely sleep, my appetite is deteriorating, I almost always feel put down. I feel like I'm never good enough or that I'm an annoying person and that I should really just not exist. I know I should be more positive but it's so hard when your whole family just seems to always be nit-picking you, always be calling you stupid and laughing at you. 

Whenever I get yelled at I either hide in my room or in the bathroom. I know it's unhygienic but I just lie there for a bit as I cry. When I stop crying I just stay there for a bit while sitting up or leaning against something. I am suicidal because of the amount of stress and other stuff I have flying around. 

I "attempted" suicide once, when I was maybe 10 or 11. I didn't tell anyone about it until recently. I just held up a knife when I was crying and thought about plunging it into my chest for like two minutes before putting it back into the knife rack in our kitchen. I used to self-harm, I don't know if I would continue. I did it when the pain became way too much for me to handle, so it was only twice. Once with a stick (I just ran it along my wrist until it hurt to touch my skin) and once with scissors (I didn't draw blood, the scars healed quickly). I advise people to not do it and then do it myself. I'm hypocritical, I'm sorry for that.

However, I know it's not good for you. If you struggle with this I completely understand your emotions. It's so confusing and headache-inducing. Everything in your mind is screaming at you to die, there's no comforting voice in your head anymore, it's just the little devil who had been feeding on your sadness and stress and had slowly become stronger. That's how I would describe it. The little nagging voice just evolved into a screaming bully who tells you to hurt or kill yourself, it would be a relief to you and everyone around you. 

The bad vibes around having a mental illness in society are pretty bad. Not every mental illness makes a person turn into an axe murderer that might come for your family. There are so many sweet and loving people out there trying to overcome their depression, anxiety and more, just to be let down by the outside world because of what people portray in the news. 

Yeah, the news is a great place to gather information but I feel like some newspapers make it too clear that the attacker has some form of mental disorder. This makes others fear those with mental illness because they've been so used to seeing "an attacker with x disorder shoots victim" and so on.

People suffering from mental disorders don't need the added stress on them. I know it. Some kids in my classes just joke about having depression and other mental illness, but it's not a joke. People shouldn't ever treat it as if it was. 

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Kids Helpline (Australia): 1800 55 1800

Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14

Suicide Prevention Helpline (America): 1800 273 8255

Hard of Hearing? Suicide Prevention Helpline (America): 1800 799 4889

Don't do it, please. You are loved. You are not alone. Stand another day. Keep breathing. I am proud. 

-JustAnotherTem

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