- I didn't know anyone else was going through it,
I thought it was just me, feeling this way.
I started to have these dark thoughts
when I was around nine.
And I remember sort of that, this darkness,
this dark tunnel and not a shed of light
that came with this thinking.
And I had no idea why I was thinking it.
And as a child at nine years old, especially in that time,
there was no answers, there was no knowledge,
there was no awareness.
So, there was no understanding in my own mind of why,
why am I thinking these ways?
Why am I waking up and not wanting to be here anymore?
Why am I refusing to fuel my body with food?
Why am I refusing to sleep?
Just refusing to live.
Yeah when I even tried to relay what I was going through,
it was seen as an imagination,
especially at that very young age.
A lot of things are sort of labeled as imagination
and something that, you know,
and also I was expressing all these emotions
as well of anger and sadness.
And from then on, I pretty much shut down
at talking to anybody,
telling anyone what was going on in my own head.
At that point, I locked myself out
from the world of anyone around me knowing anything
about what was truly going on in my head.
It wasn't until after my 21st,
when I experienced just an absolute explosion
of bottling up everything.
And the last thing that I remember is total numbness
before I woke, basically woke up in hospital.
And that feeling was just immense fear
of what just happened.
You know, I felt pain, I felt...
Hurt.
I felt just in a state of fear
I met someone that changed my life.
He became my psychologist,
and he showed me just a whole new light
to what support, compassion and kindness feels like.
He gave me a reason to believe
and hold onto the hope
that there is a better life that you can heal,
that this doesn't have to be my life
where I'm bottling everything up
and going through consistent depressive episodes
and anxiety, and that there is just no way out of it.
He helped me down the path
to realising that I can live and be happy.
That experience, the moment
that I actually just let it all out,
and do what, these sessions were needed,
I felt those really heavy weights
just lift off my body.
Not even just my shoulders, my body, I felt lighter,
my mind felt lighter.
It's like all these years of holding onto all this pain
and trauma, were finally starting to lift.
I started with small things, really small things,
but they were actually big things in reality
because they started off the process.
Like I'd just get out of bed.
That was the start of it getting out of bed.
And then when I felt that I could continue to the next step,
I'd make my bed.
Even if I got back on my bed, it didn't matter.
The fact that I got out of bed,
and I made it, was an accomplishment for me.
Especially me being outside and just breathing
and remembering that I'm safe
and reminding myself that it's okay.
And I thought, well, this's happened to me.
This is a part of, this is a part of my life.
This is my story.
I'm gonna use it.
To benefit and to try and help guide others as well.
It definitely has led me
to this path of wanting to be a school counselor,
and wanting to be that person for others that I never got.
And be in that place that caused me the most trauma,
be there for other children so they know,
that they're heard and that I believe them,
and they're validated.
And that that's not just their imagination.
This is not just something that they've just thought up.
This is, this is how they're feeling.
And that's fine, that is okay.
I would definitely relay in the best way
to anyone that you can truly get through this.
Even at the time where it feels like you can't,
and trust me, I've felt many times
that there is no way that I'm gonna survive
through those huge mountain climbs.
But that's the thing is that through this journey,
you shock yourself when you actually can and you get up,
and you use the hope, that bit of hope
that I was talking about that fight,
and you just push yourself through it.
Even if you fall down, it doesn't matter.
You will fall down.
You'll just need to sit down for a while and that's fine,
it's in your pace, but you keep pushing through for you.