When my teacher (who knew I had gone through dark times due to an unusual amount of personal adversity) asked me for suicide prevention tips to help fellow students, I revealed when I was 8 years old, I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t see the day I turned 13. I had never told anyone about it until my teacher asked me that day. I felt it wasn’t important to tell my parents. It was just something I carried with me. My teacher was shocked and moved and asked me to make a film with how I had moved into the light from those dark times as she knew I was optimistic and productive now. She tells me I am fourteen-going-on eighty.
When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand the weight of the thoughts I had. You only know that something is weighing you down, and it’s confusing and impossible to explain. On the outside, the clock kept ticking. School mornings, dinners, loads of homework–just ordinary days. But it felt like I was stepping on glass. As the years passed, something strange happened. The days I thought I’d never see arrived. Without realizing it, the future I thought I had thrown away unfolded in front of me.