The Other Side Of The Boulder: Story 56

When Everything Changed

Lockdown in 2020 is when my mental health problems truly started. I was 11, I had not long started school and suddenly I was stuck in my room with nowhere to go. For a while I held my head up and said:

“It’s only a few months!”

Days turned to weeks. Weeks turned to months and months turned to years. After a few weeks of being stuck in my room, I developed anxiety about leaving and depression. I hadn’t seen anyone for weeks other than my family. I hardly spoke to my friends and I didn’t complete any of my schoolwork.

The depression took over my life. It was like I was driving in a car and somebody else took the wheel. I felt powerless. I felt ashamed.

I Went Home And Never Went Back

After the lockdowns when we were back in school I was scared. I was being bullied, harassed physically and sexually by the boys and I couldn’t cope with it.

I was supposed to go into year eight but instead I went home and never went back.

Sat in the kitchen talking with my mum when I was having a bad moment and she helped me a lot

That was the day I truly realised I was hopeless. I felt like nobody could help me, nothing could change. The same pattern of waking up, sitting in bed and doing nothing, going nowhere. At this point lockdown was far gone.

I Wanted To Escape Everything

Age 14 was my first suicide attempt. It didn’t work but I wanted it to. I wanted to be with my friend who took his own life in 2021. I wanted to escape the pain. I wanted to escape everything.

“I couldn’t see an end to anything. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for me.”

My mum somehow convinced me to stop and so I did, but instead of trying to take my life I started self harm. I truly thought that my mental pain would go away if I caused myself real pain, but it didn’t.

So I kept going. Every time I felt angry or sad or like the world was about to end, I hurt myself and for one moment the pain went away and then came crashing back down tenfold.

It Didn’t Help. It Never Did.

My mum told me to use an app she had read about, the ‘I Am Sober’ app. It was my lifeline for 2 1/2 years and yes, there are days where I still slip up and there are days where I use the app.

“I learned that my anxiety and depression and my panic attacks were okay.”

Today, I’m 18

Cut to today, I’m 18. I’m still depressed and very much anxious, but…

I’ve got help.

I go to counselling. I talk to my mum. I talk to my friends and most of all – I write.

I write poems when I’m having a big emotion or I read and I sing and I scream and it helps. When I write a poem, it’s because I don’t know what’s happening, my head is full. It’s like I’m drowning in these emotions I don’t know what to do with.

But the moral of the story is that if a boulder blocks your way, chip at it slowly or fast, but no matter what, there’s always something good at the other side of that boulder.

I feel much better about life now. I definitely found my reasons to stick around and I’m feeling much more positive since I got help.