Edited by Alloe Mak

Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation

My therapist says that “I didn’t think I’d be alive this long” is something she hears a lot these days. As I rapidly approach my 20th birthday, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to still be alive. At the peak of my suicidal ideation, I made a severe but fair promise to myself: I had to live to 16, but after that, I could kill myself whenever I wanted. Since then, I’ve considered it my lucky number. It promised an escape, or just some autonomy. Dying was like the blinking exit sign that promised relief from everything I was feeling and couldn’t deal with. However, the promise came with a clear and secondary downside: the last four years of my existence have somehow become a blessing, a curse, and a cosmic fluke. As someone whose symptoms went largely unnoticed, it’s easy for me to write the whole experience of wanting to die off. I’m not sure what to do with the time I’ve got now, and it’s strange to reckon with the continuation of a life that once seemed so impossible to live. This piece doesn’t answer those questions, but it does delve into the fact that even though years have passed, I still find that I can only process my emotions when I am alone. 

I spent a lot of time hiding from myself and my feelings. I still feel a bit untethered in my own existence, and I’m occasionally unsure if things were ever really that bad. I’m learning how to reckon with the fact that I am here, in Toronto, and that I am alive. Mostly, that reflection happens on my own. I harbour the same recluse tendencies that I did when I was 13. I like to shut out the world, watch movies, and process things on my own time. I think that because I spent so many years pretending to be okay, taking off the mask only became possible when nobody was around to witness my complete collapse. I am unbelievably stubborn, and despise not being able to keep up appearances. I have always done what I was supposed to do and refused to succumb to the symptoms of my depression, no matter how bad it got. I got good grades, made friends, did sports and theatre, and held down a job. I kept myself busy, and still do. But in the quiet, late moments where nothing could distract me, I often felt the weight of it all. Depression is hard to deal with, but it’s even more difficult when you live a kind of double life. Any time I would articulate how I was feeling or how much I didn’t want to be alive, it was labelled as dramatic or attention-seeking. Despite everything, I knew that whenever I came home and shut my bedroom door, I wouldn’t be judged. I could lie down somewhere soft, take stock of how I was doing, and listen to some music that reflected how I felt. During my early teens, that mostly meant emo music, which I’m sure many people in my life can attest to. To this day, everything feels more manageable from behind a closed door.

Even though things aren’t as bad and I no longer live at home, the wall colour of my childhood bedroom still makes me sad to think about. It was a shade called firefly yellow, and despite the muted tone, it looked much cheerier than I felt. Unfortunately, being surrounded by a happy colour did not lessen my symptoms. It felt strange to feel so miserable in a place that looked cheerful, and I think it epitomized the way I felt when I wasn’t in my room. Because my parents never caught on to the fact that I didn’t want to be alive, I felt that everything outside my door became a kind of performance. I would pretend to be okay and tamp down my feelings for hours until I could finally emerge into the proverbial green (or in this case, yellow) room and collapse. Playing a character in your own life is unbelievably exhausting, and it’s been most of the past few years to try and unlearn that behaviour. 

It should be noted that I don’t feel like killing myself much anymore. I’m medicated, I’m in therapy, and I live the kind of life that a younger me would dream of.  Almost everything in my life has changed, but after long hours of class or work, I still retreat into my studio apartment and often don’t leave until I absolutely have to. Though I no longer feel like there are two versions of myself, it’s hard not to fall into the habit of isolating myself completely when I feel down. During the warmer months, I try to move my time for reflection outside. I sit in a park or wander around the residential streets in my neighbourhood, forcibly making space for my emotions rather than confining them to the walls of my overpriced home. Even in the most dire of moments, I’m glad to have lived past 16. Perhaps that’s why it’s lucky.