Giving life a chance

By 16 year old female from Victoria

So everybody has their down days right? And everybody feels like something is just going to eat them away because they just don't know what to do at some stage. But sometimes things get worse than that. Sometimes you fall into a gigantic black pit that just seems to keep going and going. You just don't know what is going on, and somewhere on that long and treacherous fall you feel that, maybe it is ok.
 
For anybody out there that feels like that, don't let it grab you, hold you and sing you softly to sleep. The darkness in your mind isn't everything in the world. When you feel down, remember the good things in life.
 
My story is one of the many. Something that probably happens to a lot of people, but it doesn't make me feel any better about it.
 
Starting from the beginning...

I am a bit of a half and half pizza - costs an extra dollar fifty to buy me!  I am American-Australian (or Australian-American, as I don't mind which order I am referred to!). I have grown up in a country in which I have no family besides my mum, dad and brother. As a result, I have spent a large portion of my life dreaming about moving to the States. My dad has a huge family there. All those people wanting to love you and hug you and be around you. My family here isn't particularly close but my family over there is so into hugs and kisses it can be overwhelming.
 
When I was five I went to the States. It was fun. To me, then, it was just a holiday and a heap of tasty food. I remember thinking how amusing it was when the customs man told me "Welcome home, little girl" and I thought he was insane because I had just spent 14 hours on a plane going away from my home.
 
Over the next couple of years I went about childhood like everybody else. I forgot about my trip, except for those flickers of memory when people talked about travel. Yet I did feel left out at school...everybody else could talk about going to see their Aunty Susan and how she made the best apple pie, or how their cousins played football every Saturday. I hadn't even met half of my cousins...
 
When I was in Year 7, my dad and I went to the States for my cousin's wedding. I spent 10 days of my life in my country, with my family. It was the most amazing trip because I had forgotten what it was like to be loved just because you were alive, what it was like to be accepted without having to do anything. It was like I was family. That sounds pretty obvious, but there is no other way to express something so amazing. Before that trip, with all its revelations for me, the closest thing to a family for me had been my best friend's folks. Once I had been back to the states, I realised just how much it wasn't family.
 
I came back to Australia ten days later and my life had been turned upside down. I remember thinking how stupid I was to have thought what I had here was in any way family. I had so little. And I realised just how much those images in my head from when I was five were true. They were better than true. People out there loved me for no good reason. I had always had to fight for love, had to try so hard just to have somebody like me yet across the oceans were people willing to have me in their lives for no good reason besides blood.
 
If home is where the heart is...my heart was an awful long way away from where I lived....
 
The comparison of what I had here to what I had in America sent my down a spiral towards a very dark pit, where I could have my eyes open and only see darkness. I don't remember much of the time when I was depressed. I think I have shut it out because it hurts too much to remember.

I do remember that I didn't have many friends who understood who I was feeling. I had never been close enough to my parents or my brother to share how I felt with them. I lost all of my primary school friends in year 7, adding to the distress. My best friend at the time tried to hard to talk through everything with me but she wasn't in any position to help me as much as I needed help. She was great - talking to me, letting me come around to her house and just being super supportive - but she knew I needed more help. I never did go to a counsellor. I admit quite readily now that I really should have. Life would have been so much easier if I had.
 
I spent Year 7 and Year 8 contemplating suicide. It seems odd that the one thing in my life which had brought me so joy would crush me like it did. I guess that is a bit of the irony of life. I loved my family in America so much that everything here seemed so meaningless. I just wanted to go home to my family yet my parents wouldn't let me leave. I didn't know what to do - I loved my American family so much and yet they were taken away from me before I had a chance to really get to know them.
 
Everything pulled me a part...I couldn't take life. I never did self-harm because I felt like I was in so much pain emotionally that self-harming wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't help and I didn't want anybody else to know how I felt. I could imagine being more hurt than I was. I thought I could walk in front of a bus without it making any difference. I really didn't care if a bus did run over me - and I didn't care what anybody would think if I did die.
 
Then Year 8 finished. Something inside me said that I just couldn't go on in the same way I had. Part of the change was because I had really wanted to spend Year 9 in Utah with my family, but I hadn't gotten there. It seemed I was doomed to live here, so I might as well have made the best of it. I came to school on the first day of Year 9, and there was nobody I knew in my class. I sat down with some people who looked nice. They said hi and were so friendly.   
 
Those new friends gave me hope as the friends from Year 7 and Year 8 left me by the wayside. My friend who had helped me so much through my tough time found new friends - friends who were happier and less emotionally distressing to her. We went our own ways, but both of us are better off now.
 
I had found hope, and that hope pulled me through. I made the step towards a new life and admitted to myself that I wouldn't be able to go home for a while. But it was okay - I could go home later and enjoy Australia while I was here. I invested myself in my country and now...well I am alive to tell the tale.
 
It took me a long time to trust anybody - I didn't want to love anybody or invest anything in anybody until I knew that I could survive losing them. It took a long time, but now I love living here. I love life and I want to help everybody else.
 
To anybody out there who feels like life isn't worth living, I put it to you to find something however small to keep you going. Sit down and think about why you feel so sad, and for every thing that makes you sad think of at least one great thing about your life. Think about the people around you who care. Step into the shoes of those you love and those who love you. Think about how it would affect your community if you died. People would be devastated. Give life a chance, and life will give you chance.
 
If you are sad, if you are depressed or contemplating suicide - SEEK HELP!! Believe me, I would have been better so much sooner if I had had somebody to help me properly. I probably still would be friends with that girl from Year 7 and 8 too.
 
Don't be a statistic. You are important. You are loved by many more people than you think and anything bad that happens to you will be felt by more than you will ever know.
 
You may not know me, and I may not know you, but I care. For every person out there - just give life a chance. Try a new sport, join a new club, go up and talk to somebody new. You never know where life will take you but if a few right steps you will be in a land of green grass and sunny days.

For more information on depression and suicidal thoughts, take a look at some of ReachOut's stories and fact sheets...

• Depression - types, causes and symptoms (Fact sheet)
• Are you feeling suicidal? (Fact sheet)
• Are you worried about a friend who is suicidal? (Fact sheet)
• My call for help (Story)