I was never the type to actually harm myself physically. My mother had firmly drilled it into my head deeming it a selfish act that hurt other people. The reason for this, the reason she was so adamant on pushing this idea on us, was because when my brother was seven, he tried to kill himself. He thought nobody liked him, that nobody loved him and boy was he wrong. It's a memory I have long since deleted from my mind but as I've been told, when we had walked in on him – I'll spare the details, I had burst into tears. My mother nearly fell apart. It hadn't helped that our parents divorced only a couple years earlier. It was just us three, my mom, my brother and me the few years before my mother remarried. And when that happened, we'd been so hurt by it. Even now, if he had actually gone through with it, despite sibling rivalry and all that comes with it, I couldn't imagine a life without him. A few years later a friend of my brothers; a nine year old boy took his own life. This further showed me how wrong it was to want to end ones own life. Watching his family collapse under shock, sadness, hurt, it tore me apart. Why would someone want to do that? How could someone do that.?

But, over the years as I got older, the grasp of depression sinking its claws into me, I started to get the other side of it. The selfish side, the lonely side. I felt like no one, no one knew what it was like. I knew it wasn't right and I had just enough willpower to refrain from cutting myself or worsening it through the use of drugs and alcohol. But, I know that unlike many, I am fortunate to have a loving family, that I have a stable home life. For those who don't, for those who've suffered worse than I have, I don't know how to tell them it's wrong.

I have a friend who was raped when he was younger, by someone who, according to our justice system, couldn't be charged due to being a minor. He is probably the most awkward person in the world, but by far he harbors the best qualities a person could find in a friend. He wanted to kill himself, attempted it a few times. And he asked for my help when he was feeling depressed. When I was telling him it was going to be okay, that I was there for him, that suicide wasn't the answer… I honestly felt as though I was lying. Because deep down, I so much wanted to just disappear. Life was too much… and I was so bored with it.

Now, he is in therapy and his thoughts of suicide have dwindled. He is getting better, but for some reason, I can't seem to. I fell like I'm stuck in the neverending whirlwind. I can't disappear on my own simply for my commitment to my family and while I'm not physically suicidal and I have the mentality to believe that it's morally wrong, it still doesn't mean that I like being alive. I am not a happy person. I just hope I can move on like my friend has. And I hope that everyone else who's going through it, no matter how extreme, can pull themselves up and find a reason to move forward. We are alive to live while we can. There are options that don't entail giving up.