Content Warning: This piece talks about suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and self-harm.

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When I was fourteen years old, I tried to kill myself. I sat down on my bed, pills in one hand, phone in the other. I sent my final message to my friends.

I’m sorry, I love you. 

Then I started counting: one pill, swallow; two, swallow.

But my friends saved my life that day. 

I met Jasmine in grade six. Jasmine was suffering from severe social anxiety, and I was struggling with what I now know was PTSD and depression. We clicked instantly and quickly became best friends. Then one day, I walked into the classroom, and she wasn’t there. I didn’t know who I would talk to. I didn’t have any other friends, but I thought she was just sick and that I would see her tomorrow. I can survive one day on my own, I thought.

But the next day, she wasn’t there again. And she was missing the next day too. I didn’t hear from her the entire week. On the Friday, her mom phoned and explained that Jasmine was having trouble coming to school. I tried to get out of my shell and talk to people, but I never felt like I fit in. 

One day, I was called into the guidance counsellors office. It was a big room with several offices that always seemed devoid of light. The room felt cold and lifeless. Jasmine was sitting in one of the cheap plastic chairs. She looked nervous, but I was just happy to see her. The guidance counsellor explained that it would be easier for Jasmine to come into school if I stayed with her. So, I did. We started doing our schoolwork in that small, cramped room. But I didn’t care, I had my best friend back.

By the beginning of grade seven, Jasmine was missing school again. I couldn’t shake the feeling of not being good enough. I spent hours reading on Instagram and Tumblr I found people who felt like me: depressed. I learned that some of these people hurt themselves and wanted to die. 

I didn’t tell anyone what I was feeling. It was my secret, and I intended to keep it to myself. But one night, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my parents. My mom said something that set me off, and I just snapped. I snapped at her, I snapped at my dad, and then I ran into my room. They followed.

I didn’t mean to let it slip, but I shouted, “I’m acting like this because I want to die!”

Looking back, I’m sure that’s the last thing they expected to come out of their 11-year-old child’s mouth. My mom took me to the doctor. We sat in the waiting room, and the fluorescent lights highlighted the worry on my mother’s face. 

“What’s the problem today?” the doctor asked.

“Drew told us that she wants to die. Is there something we can do to help?” my mother replied.

The doctor brushed it off and said not to worry since I was getting into my teenage years. She said to come back if things got worse.

That was it. We were shuttled out the door and didn’t speak about it again. My doctor wanted to see worse? I promised myself that if I came back to see her, I would make sure she got what she wanted. 

 A couple months after that doctors visit I started to cut myself. No one was home as I made my way from my room into the kitchen. I was shaking badly as I grabbed a knife from the cutting block, and I held it to my wrist — I couldn’t make myself do it. I chickened out. The next day I was sitting at my desk and saw a pair of scissors. I grabbed them and pushed the blade into my skin, but still, I didn’t have the nerve. 

Several days later, I had just stepped out of the shower. Humidity still hung in the air as I wrapped myself in a towel. I opened one of the cabinet drawers and found a safety pin. That seemed safe enough like it wouldn’t do any permanent damage. I wrapped the safety pin into my fist and hurried to my room, scared that somehow my parents would be able to sense what I was about to do. I shut my door tightly. Over and over, I scratched with the sharp end of the safety pin until I saw blood. Endorphins rushed through me; my head felt light for the first time in months. 

I became friends with Heather in grade eight. Every day for lunch, Heather would come over to my house, we would eat leftover tacos while sitting at my kitchen table. Heather’s home life was hard. She was struggling with depression that her parents didn’t know about. My cutting had escalated from safety pins to razors. All the media I consumed was about suicide, depression, and self-harm. 

I came home from school one day to my mom asking if she could talk with me. My stomach sank, I didn’t know what it was going to be about, but from the look on her face, I knew it couldn’t be good. I climbed into bed, holding my knees. Waves of nausea racked my body as she reached into my backpack and pulled out several bloody paper towels. She asked what was happening. My secret. I froze; I couldn’t look at her. But she looked at me and whispered, “Have you been hurting yourself?”

I broke down in tears. I saw a look of fear and anguish flash across her face before she shut it down and hid it away so she could help me. I promised her I would never do it again. I tried to promise myself that — it only lasted for a couple of days. 

Things didn’t get better after that; they only got worse. I went back to my doctor, and my slashed-up wrists were enough for her to agree that I needed help. She prescribed Prozac. I took it every day, but it only made me feel numb. I felt like I was watching life happen to me instead of living it. One night in the middle of winter, I decided that if this was living, I wanted out. 

I sat on my bed and wrote out a note.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I hope you remember me when I was happy.”

I didn’t want to die; it just felt like it was something I was supposed to do. From everyone I followed online, it seemed like the next logical step. If you’re depressed, you try and kill yourself. Sometimes it felt like everyone I knew was suffering with mental illness. Social media just perpetuated this feeling.  It seemed like my whole generation wanted to die. I watched all my friends suffer, only for those feelings to be perpetuated by social media. We were stuck in a cycle we didn’t know how to get out of.  

A study from the North Carolina Medical Journal called “The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health” reports that suicide rates in kids 10- 24 have increased by 54 per cent since 2007. The research suggests a link between rising cases of mental illness and social media use, but ultimately concludes that more research needs to be done.

After writing the note, I began dissociating as I sat down on my bed and swallowed several pills. I folded my note and put it in my hoodie pocket for my family to find in the morning. I fell asleep, hoping I wouldn’t wake up in the morning. But I did. I wasn’t confused or groggy; in fact, I felt fine. But I knew I should probably tell someone. So, I texted Jasmine. 

When I told her, she freaked out. She asked “Why? Are you okay?” 

I told her I was fine. And I did feel fine. Trying to kill myself was like an outpouring of my emotions, and once those emotions were out of my system, I was back to being numb. She didn’t believe me; she was scared I was going to do it again. She said, “If you don’t tell your mom, I will.”

I was angry with her. Why did she have to tell my mom? This wasn’t a big deal. But fine, I’d tell her. 

That afternoon, my mom picked me up for lunch. I was nervous sitting in the car beside her. I didn’t want her to worry because I didn’t see myself as someone worth stressing over. My hands were sweating, and I could feel the bile rising in my throat. I looked over at my mom and told her I tried to kill myself last night. That same look of fear and anguish flashed across her face. She asked me why, but I didn’t have a good reason. I couldn’t find the words for what I was feeling. 

Shortly after that, I went back to my doctor and was prescribed Nova Sertraline, a different kind of pill to treat depression, and my mom found a therapist for me. Slowly I started to feel a little better. I wasn’t cutting myself every day. Plus, I had my friends, and they had me. 

I sat down on my parents’ bed, slowly convincing myself that I should get in the shower. But before I did, I checked my phone. I opened a message from Heather. It was a picture of her neck with a noose around it. The caption said that she tried to kill herself earlier. My heart immediately sank, and I felt sick to my stomach. I called and texted Heather, but I didn’t get a response right away. I had no other way of contacting her. I remember my mom walking into the room and showing her the photo. She hugged me as we sat on her bed, waiting for a reply. 

A few minutes later, I got a text from Heather. “Sorry to worry you! I’m okay now, I promise.” 

I didn’t fully believe her. Heather regularly pushed her own emotions aside to focus on making others happy. But when those cracks broke open, I saw she was in just as much pain as I was. I knew pushing her for details right away wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I waited.

In the middle of the summer, days before we started grade nine, Heather and I were lounging in my room in the basement. I told her that I still had my suicide note tucked away in the back of a drawer. 

“Let’s burn it,” Heather said. I wasn’t sure I was fully ready. Hanging on to suicide notes is like having a backup plan if things go south again. But I remembered my mom’s face when I told her and Jasmine’s worry. 

“Fuck it, let’s do it,” I replied. 

I grabbed the note and tucked it inside my pocket, then we ran up the stairs to the kitchen and found a lighter. Standing in a grassy patch of my front yard, with the sun beaming down on us, I watched as Heather ignited the lighter and that flimsy piece of paper went up in flames. I felt free. I never would have thought to get rid of it without Heather. She held my hand as I burned that part of me that wanted to die. 

We sat down, running our hands through the grass to wipe away the ash on our fingers. For the rest of the day, we were two young kids having fun, talking, and laughing. 

Grade nine came with a lot of changes. Jasmine came back to school. Finally, I could see her every day. She was happy to be back and ready to socialize. Sometimes I felt left behind. I walked behind her and the new friends we made in the hallways, I wasn’t sure if I would be her partner for group projects, and I wasn’t sure if she was even going to be in school the next day. She was getting better, but she still just couldn’t get out of bed some days. 

I had also started therapy. I learned that I was depressed and was dealing with PTSD as a result of abuse at the hands of my childhood horse riding coaches. Being in treatment made me confront the abuse I had suffered. It made me realize why I felt so small all the time. 

Confronting all those memories left me fractured. Not every day was bad, but when the bad days came, they were awful. January 14^th, 2014 was one of those days. I was in media production class filming a project with Jasmine and another one of our friends when I started to dissociate. I wasn’t there at all. I could feel myself going through the motions, smiling at the correct times, laughing when they laughed and participating in the discussion. But everything felt hazy, like my vision was blurred. I couldn’t focus on anything. It felt like I was floating just outside of my body, watching my life play out but having no control of the outcomes. Jasmine knew me well enough to tell when I dissociated. She kept shooting me worried glances.

Thoughts about dying started to creep into my head. I felt like I wanted to die: to sleep forever. I lived with these thoughts frequently and had only acted on them once before. Things got worse in gym class. Sitting on the floor with my legs crossed and the gym teacher blabbering on, I could only hear myself.

God, you’re so fucking pathetic.

Awe, poor thing, someone was a little mean to you four years ago, and you still can’t get over it.

You’re disgusting.

You’re worthless.

You deserve to die. 

You. Deserve. To. Fucking. Die. 

I agreed with those voices. I did deserve it, and everyone would be better off without me. I didn’t help my friends; I only brought them more pain. They were tired of me, my family didn’t care about me, my mom was too busy with my sister. If I was dead, no one had to worry. I decided after school I was going to kill myself. It felt different than the time before. I was ready to die; there was absolutely no fear, just excitement. 

I got out of gym class and packed up all my things. I saw Jasmine in the hallway, hugged her, and told her that I loved her. I think she knew then what I was planning on doing because she looked scared, and we were not usually affectionate with each other. I got in the car and spent the whole car ride home, dead silent. We pulled into the garage as a fight broke out between my mom and my sister. I can’t remember what they were saying, but my sister was crying. This further confirmed that my mom was too preoccupied with my sister to care about me. I walked through the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, then I slipped my pills into my hoodie pocket and walked downstairs. I could still hear them bickering. I remember thinking to myself, God this all feels so easy to get away with.

I sat down on my bed, pills in one hand, phone in the other. I sent my final message to my friends.

I’m sorry, I love you.

Then I started counting. One pill. Swallow. Two. Swallow. It was methodical. The number slowly kept rising, and I felt giddy. I didn’t just want the pain to stop; I wanted everything to stop. 

Heather got off the school bus that day at the top of her street. She felt her phone buzz from the message I sent her, but she didn’t check it until she walked into her foyer. 

Jasmine got my message in her room, and she immediately burst into tears. Making phone calls was one of the triggers for her anxiety. Overwhelmed with fear, she was frozen. 

Heather opened my message and saw countless others from our friends, asking her if she had heard from me. She collapsed in her front hall and started crying. 

My phone buzzed over and over again with calls from Heather. I sent her to voicemail each time. I didn’t want to stop, and I didn’t want anyone to try and talk me out of it. But then I heard my mom’s footsteps above me, rushing to the stairs. I heard her voice talking on the phone, and I knew Heather would be on the other side.

My mom called out to me, and I could hear her voice breaking with fear.

“Drew! What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer. But now, I felt panicked. I didn’t want to stop swallowing pills. So, I tipped the bottle to my mouth and poured as many of them in as I could.

My door was locked, and my mom was banging on it, pleading with me to just let her in. To stop. To live. I could hear the fear in her voice. The pounding on the door got louder. She kicked down my door, and I locked eyes with her. That moment is etched in my brain. All the anguish that she kept hidden from me over the years was fully unleashed on me. My heart broke for her. Guilt overwhelmed me, and I started to sob. 

She was yelling at me now, asking why, how, why again. But my throat was closing as tears streamed down my cheeks. I couldn’t look at her again; I couldn’t see the anguish I caused. She grabbed me and held me tight. I was no longer dissociating, and I felt everything. I felt the pain I was in and the pain I was causing everyone else. Because my family and my friends did love me, they always had. I just didn’t love myself. 

Jasmine phoned shortly after my mom kicked down my door, and my mom was reassuring Jasmine that she had me, that I was going to be okay. 

We got in the car and drove to the hospital. I wanted to sleep; I was exhausted. I just wanted to close my eyes for a moment. But the fear in my mother’s voice broke through as she begged me to keep my eyes open just for a little longer. 

I made it to the hospital. They kept asking me if I wanted to hurt myself or if I wanted to hurt other people. Over and over again, which I remember finding quite insulting. But they assured my parents that I hadn’t done any real damage, and they didn’t think I needed to be admitted to the psych ward. I was sent home within two hours. 

Heather and Jasmine saved my life that day. 

When Heather’s parents found out I tried to kill myself, her dad asked if she still wanted to be friends with me, since I might succeed the next time and then she would be heartbroken.

I stayed home from school the next day. Despite her father’s warnings, Heather came to see me. We hugged and I was quiet. I still felt ashamed. We sat side by side at my kitchen table and sorted rubber bands. It was a mindless task, but it felt good to do something and be together. 

Several days later, my grandparents were over at my house for dinner. My mom monitored my pill consumption, but I hadn’t taken my medication since I got out of the hospital. My mom told me I needed to try. I wasn’t sure how it would feel to swallow pills again. I was shaking, and my throat had closed, but I managed to get the medication down, and then I started crying again. My papa came up to me and hugged me. 

He looked me right in the eyes and said, “Never, ever do anything like that again. You can’t leave us.” 

I buried my face in his chest and felt his body rock with sobs. We held each other tightly for a long time. That was the only that I ever saw my papa cry. 

Heather, Jasmine, and I are still best friends. Jasmine and I have worked together at a dog daycare and gone on road trips all around the province. Heather and I just moved into our first apartment this January. And we are happy. As for the days when we’re not? Well, we have each other.