2 out of 11.
That's how many of the "warning signs of suicide" I displayed before I tried to kill myself in February of 2010.
What's interesting is that, looking back at my journals from my sophomore and junior years of high school, my sophomore journal is full of thoughts of suicide. I mention it almost daily. In my junior year it never shows up. There's no cry for help. There's no swirly "I want to die" forever ingrained on the thin pages of paper.
My junior year is when I attempted suicide. My junior year, a week before a choir concert, past the stress of exams, and after seeing a therapist who told me, and my mom, that I was "fine", I swallowed every pill I could find. I crawled into my bed, goodbye notes to everyone I loved neatly stacked on my nightstand, and I cried silently.
I was incredibly lucky. I survived. But, just like with every story of suicide you hear, the warning signs I unconsciously displayed weren't noticed until after I sat in a midnight ER vomiting up pills at 16. Part of the problem, is that I was smart enough not to give away my possessions, or be vocal about wanting to die. In all honesty I didn't even have an internal, suicidal dialogue until the night I made the choice.
I don't blame my parents. I don't blame myself. I don't blame God. At 17 I had absolutely no idea what mental illness was. I didn't know what depression was. I didn't know that when I was hyperventilating in the bathroom between rehearsal numbers for the school musical I was having a panic attack.
I come from an educated family. I went through the teen health classes in elementary, middle, and high school. I lived in an affluent community. No one talked about mental illness. No one ever conceived that my moodiness was more than hormonal mood swings and "part of growing up".
Maybe, just maybe, if somewhere in my life, before that February night, someone had talked about mental illness, or depression, or social anxiety, things would have been different. Maybe if that therapist had asked me more than what I wanted to major in, she would have seen past my rehearsed, expected answers to the shattered, hurting teenage girl who was barely functioning.
I will never know if my suicide attempt was preventable, but I do know that others are. Talk to your kids. Explain mental illness. Don't let them rock back and forth, silently begging God to kill them, because they don't know that they are ill, not broken.
Awareness is free. Everyone can dispense it and everyone can access it. So please, learn. Learn so that these beautiful kids with incredible futures live to see them and to change the world.
