I don’t know where I read this – but somebody – somebody famous, I think, once said that if you are thinking about killing yourself, to go to a different country, see the wonders, travel, and then decide. Chances are, you won’t anymore.
I thought about that quote as I stood at the Cape of Good Hope, in the Southern-Western-most part of South Africa. An edge of the world, if there ever was one: birds swooped above the crashing waves of the sapphire sea, the sun just setting over the surrounding mountains. Powerful cliffs meeting endless sky. I thought about that quote as I stood at the Cape of Good Hope, feeling sadder, more helpless than other. I have walked the earth and not once has the void been filled. Suicidal ideation seeps into my brain, whispers, tantalizingly, of stillness: finally.
I am 21. I earn a good income – well above minimum wage – with job security and opportunity for advancement. I get good (no, I’ll say it – excellent) grades at University, now drawing to the finish line of an undergraduate degree at one of the best schools in the country. I have secured a highly desirable internship in my field every summer since I started school: first, as a Policy Assistant at the Ministry of the Environment, then with the Girl’s Empowerment Network in Malawi, and finally, now, at the Health Systems Trust here in South Africa. I have a great many number of good friends. Amazing friends, loyal friends. My relationship with my family is not bad. I am 21. I have a long way to go, but I am well on my way. And I have traveled the world.
Is it a problem of gratitude? Am I not thankful enough for my blessings? That can’t be it, surely not – because I am fully aware of how lucky I am. How wonderful this life is. Especially in comparison to the plight of many others – who do not have the sort of opportunity, support, and stability of being in a war-free country. A Canadian passport: passport to the world, to free health care, to good education, to a social security net, to a special kind of freedom that comes from being raised unafraid because there is nothing immediate to be afraid of.
I am grateful. But I feel like a shell of a person. Don’t tell me how good I have it. Don’t tell me about how much I’ve accomplished. Don’t shame me, cajole me, or offer your words – your useless, stupid words – which I have to smile at in order to convince you that I am “okay” so you’ll get off my fucking back. Depression, they tell me, is a product of the chemicals in your brain telling you to feel a certain way. Fix those chemicals to fix yourself. Is this what they mean by “find balance?” Find balance not in your soul (what’s a soul, anyway?), but in your neurons?
As I sit here, at the pinnacle of a wonderful life, I want to die. Perhaps the truest thing I’ve heard from “them” (whom I keep quoting today), is that sadness is not depression. They are right. Whatever I have, whatever you call it, I carry inside of me, in everything. In everything, I am sad beyond all measure. I am tired. And sometimes, it’s true, I think of dying.
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