On Saturday evening, a boy from the community middle school committed suicide. It's been censored respectfully on social media, with limited amounts of publicity as the family, the peers, and the community mourn. However, it did happen, and everyone knows about it.

Suicide is a very serious epidemic these days. Utah leads the country in youth suicide rates, but stories from neighboring high schools never quite hurt the way local ones do. I have distanced myself considerably from suicide since my exposure to it, but this tragedy brings to the surface memories that I long to forget. However, I feel it is not only important to share my story so others may be influenced by my past, but also so I can remember remember what it is I have endured.

Before I begin, I would like to caution that nothing in this narrative is said with the purpose of condemning those suffering from suicidal ideation or anything similar. It is not being written to undermine the tragedy of this past weekend. It is only to remember those who have survived such illness, myself included, and to motivate those who currently are victim to it. My story is rather lengthy, but it is necessary to understand the depth of my attachment to this recent tragedy. Names in the story have been changed.

My first experience with suicide was in third grade, when a family member was put on a new medication that had life-threatening side effects. They were rushed to the urgent care after they expressed thoughts about the knives in the kitchen, and was there promptly rushed to the Emergency Room. They was admitted to the psychiatric ward for a week, where he/she was immediately taken off the offending medication and monitored for stability. They returned home within a week, and it wasn’t until several years later when I could fully comprehend what had happened to that relative.

In fifth grade, I found myself cyber-fighting with a peer. It rose in tension until the girl threatened me, claiming that she had a knife by her and would not hesitate to use it on herself if the drama continued. For the second time in my life, I did not understand the significance of what her words meant. She didn’t either, fortunately, and our parents were able to intervene quickly before any damage could actually be done.

Starting in Grade 6, I was very quickly introduced to peers that turned to me for help from their dangerous family, friend, and even self relationships. I was starting to understand the critical nature of these statements, but I could not yet understand how to help them. I simply did what I was taught by school, church, and family to do: include them in my activities, listen to them when they needed me, encourage them when they asked me, and never shirk my attempt at savior-like duties. I had no adults I felt comfortable around to tell, and I assumed they would not understand.

Come seventh grade, my own mental health took a toll. It was a combination of environmental issues, educational struggles, and a long line of similar mental health issues in my maternal family history. It became increasingly harder to balance these sick people in my life, but I could not yet realize that they were truly sick. I could not yet realize that I was truly sick either, until it threatened to consume me.

Ninth grade is when true tragedy struck. On September 18, the day before my fifteenth birthday, my best friend Billy told me he had made an attempt at his life a few weeks earlier. He had contacted adults, however, and was on his way to recovery. It was not my burden this time to save his life, and yet I took it as a personal insult to my friendship capabilities. Then, the next day, the day of my fifteenth birthday, one of my friend’s boyfriend contacted me asking for her parent’s number. After I questioned the motive for this, he responded with the news that Tonia was about to try to kill herself. I was shocked. I was petrified. I was agonized. I had no idea, and I had no personal reserve to fight this battle.

Throughout the next several months, I was plagued with crying spells, painfully long days, equally hard nights. I skipped classes to prioritize weeping with my school counselors, Mr. Wiltbank and Mrs. Webb. I quickly lost interest in my passion for music, as well as my dedication to piano, guitar, theater, and eventually choir. Fortunately I was able to keep my grades up, but every other foundation I had built quickly and efficiently crumbled. I never entertained the idea of suicide, however. I was, for whatever reason, blessed with a mental illness that did not demand that form of self destruction, but that does not mean I did not self destruct.

I skipped musical theater auditions for my sophomore year in favor of lying in bed, a decision that has both positive and negative consequences to this day. I picked fights with my closest friend. I grew too dependent to my then boyfriend. I grew apart from Billy, Tonia, and my own sister. I removed myself from my position as President in my school’s Hope Squad. It was only when my doctor prescribed me Zoloft, and then Celexa two months later, and then Venlafaxine four months after that, that I slowly rebuilt my life to what it is today.

Ultimately, my dedication to help those who struggled was nearly the destruction of myself. I was confused, I was traumatized, and I was angry. I went through intense EMDR therapy, and lost approximately all of the people I thought were close to me. My boyfriend, one of the only semi-stable relationships I could claim at that time, splintered into thousands of shards of glass, each one cutting me in different ways. My desertion of all things music ripped a hole through my connection with Mia, and my need for self rehabilitation destroyed my friendship with Billy. I pulled away from anything that made me uncomfortable in order to preserve both my own newfound sanity and to liberate my now-despised sense of responsibility for the world’s well-being.

In hindsight, there are many positives interwoven with the negatives described above. Through therapy I discovered my passion for writing. Through my heart-wrenching breakup I gained one of my closest friends, hard learned lessons about friendship/relationship abuse, and a newfound strength that I had previously thought to be impossible. Through the destruction of my friendships, I’ve found an independence that I adore and new relationships that do require myself to sacrifice my health.

However, I will never forget the impact suicide has had on my life. I suffered several bullying campaigns that wound up with me sitting next to a police officer, providing screenshotted evidence of threatened violence. I endured hysteria-filled, nightlong panic attacks that I have only vague memories of. Because of suicide, I’ve become the independent, intelligent, passionate young woman I am proud to claim ownership of. Because of suicide, I’ve rebuilt my foundation immune to outside forces.

Unfortunately, it is also because of suicide that I had to experience and now remember my past. It is because of the recent suicide that thousands of students, family members, acquaintances, and community members are left searching for answers that do not exist. I was fortunate enough to never encounter a successful suicide attempt in my middle school years, a fact that now thousands of students cannot personally claim.

I hope by sharing my story, it invites another to share their own. I believe the only way to rid our community of this epidemic is to be completely transparent, to recognize and communicate the intensity of depression and the havoc it wreaks on one’s mind. I believe the only way to prevent suicide is to become open to suffering in a new way, one that paint glistening white hospital walls and fragile, impersonal survivor stories. I don’t yet know how to accomplish this, but I hope that as a community, by sharing and listening and caring for one another, we can come closer to preventing this tragedy from ever occurring again.

If nothing else, I hope we can find a way to educate sufferers that this, like all colds, all winters, and all stomachaches, recede from existence as quickly as they came. I hope to teach the students that pain may be, and oftentimes is, persistent; but so are the countless teachers willing to extend deadlines, the friends working to understand why you cancel plans every other day, and the ex-boyfriends capable of putting aside differences to provide friendship.

In the wake of this familiar‒yet shattering‒tragedy, I hope that we can come together not as separate political parties, as separate religions, nor as separate generations, but as sufferers from the same existence. There are no words that will soften the blow that mental illness has on all ages, genders, races, economic statuses, political affiliations, religious beliefs, and histories. There is only right now, and there is only safety that we must bring to those who need it. There is only the strength that we must teach to those who search for it. It is only if every citizen, every leader, and every person dedicates themselves to the task of prevention that we will ever truly achieve it.

Let my story be a motivator to share your own. Let my story be a lesson to protect yourself. Let my story be a call to action, a demand for more adult relationships, uncomfortable conversations, and necessary leadership. It is only then, in the wake of this familiar trauma, that we can prevent another.