If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "988" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org. I was 14 years old and I had decided to die. I was sitting on my bed in Dublin with a blank page in front of me, working up the nerve to write goodbye to my parents.
I had been bullied for years. A week earlier I had received an anonymous Valentine's card and let myself believe a girl I liked had sent it. That morning I found out the card had been a joke, and the whole class had been in on it.
By that evening, I was ready to leave the world. The note began, "Dear Mom and Dad, I am so sorry." I told them it was not their fault. I told them they had been wonderful parents to a broken kid.
Every sentence made me feel braver about what I was about to do. I wrote, “I love you so so much.” I looked down and saw that I had written something I hadn’t meant to—a question for myself: "Is this how much you love them?" I froze. Something split open in me.
One voice, the one that had run my mind for months, kept talking. One decision and the pain stops forever. A second voice entered, though, and it refused to be quiet.
You cannot do this to them. The pain would end for you. I pictured my mother standing over a coffin, wailing.
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