When I was in 4th grade I tried to kill myself. Looking back it was quite stupid the method that I had chosen, drinking as much pinesol as possible, to finally end it but at the time I really believed it would do the trick. I was being pushed back into a corner that I could not escape, and a part of me maybe didn't want to escape at all. Though the reason of why I wanted to kill myself is considered by my therapist as not my fault, there were times where I was the one that initiated it. As wrong and horrible as I knew it was, a part of me didn't want to end it. A part of me enjoyed it though I was disgusted and ashamed of myself. That guilt of what I was doing, with who, and the feeling of what I was doing was too much and I wanted all of it too stop.

I had told the girl who I was closest to at school what I had planned to do, and she had gone and told my teacher.

Whether I'm happy or angry that she told my teacher is still a thought that runs through my head more than ten years later. It has changed overtime to a range of emotions though the last several years have been of pure contempt. Anyway my teacher had interviend and my initial reaction was sheer terror. You see, my family isn't one that believes in mental issues. They believe that everything that I have done, that I am, is something that I choose. That my suicidal tendencies isn't a real problem, but me deciding to quit and take the easy road. And at the time, I had agreed with them. I couldn't complain much at the time, I went to a good school and I had a good home. Besides my family's "there's no such thing as depression" attitude home life (at the time) was not bad. I wasn't really particularly close to anyone at the school but I wasn't a total outcast either. However I remembered begging my teacher not to call my father, knowing that he would see it not as me having a problem with myself but rather seeing it as me having a problem with my family. My family more particularly my father believed that whatever problem that was happening within the family (which it was) should only be kept with the family itself. It is not to be shared with anyone outside of the house, and if possible not to be shared with anyone unless serious. I had pleaded to my teacher that I promised not to do anything as long as she didn't call my parents for I feared them more than I feared death at the time. She said that she had to, but she did fulfill my wish to not call my father and had only requested my mother to come to the school.

I remember being terrified seeing my mother walk into the door, but also a strange sense of hope came from it. Maybe I can explain what was happening, maybe she would finally understand what I was going through. Instead that didn't happen. I remember my teacher explaining what had happened, and the look on my mother's face is something that I will never forget. It wasn't that of shock or sadness but that of impassivness and impactience. It was as if she didn't believe that I would have really done it, either that or she just didn't care. I had every intention after getting off the bus of going home and ending it all, and the look of her face had only reenforced myself to committing the act.

I believed if she, my own mother didn't care, than what was the point of it all?

But it wasn't her that saved me, but rather my teacher. Though my mother was sitting by my teacher cool calm and collected, it was my teacher who was begging me not to do this. It was my teacher who was the one in tears saying how much it would hurt her if I was to go through with this and it was my teacher who had got up from her seat and held my hands while making me promise her not to do this when I went home. It is impossible to explain just how much that meant to me at that moment, that someone cared that much. Til my dying day I will always be able to remember her face as clear as if it just happened. And I promised to her that I wouldn't do it.

I don't know whether or not to thank her or to hate her...

I have seen and done so many great things that would not have been possible without her, but at the same time I have been through so many periods of hurt and devastation and dispair. For every great moment in my life I can mention about a dozen that would displace them. Only time will tell if what she has done benefited me in the end, even though now I feel as if that is not the case. But we shall see how this all goes.