Editors’ note: this narrative contains graphic depictions of suicide and self-harm that could be triggering for some individuals. If you are having thoughts of suicide, or are concerned that someone you know may be, please reach out to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or text HOME to 741741 for support. Additional resources are available here. Reader discretion is advised.
35,876 feet. The deepest known part of the ocean. And a trench I had been drowning in for months, as the tides of my subconscious steadily pulled me under until my metaphorical asphyxiation was inching toward an attainable reality. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
I felt my thoughts trying to escape, attempting to materialize into words that could cry for help in my anger and fear that I would lose to the desires born in the profundities of my muddled mind one night on my common room couch.
Instead, I was reminded I was alone. Alone in my hopelessness. Alone in the fight between my life and death’s seemingly sweet freedom.
I’m no stranger to this dilemma, this heavily stigmatized pursuit of liberation from constant everyday suffering. College didn’t leave me toeing this crag, wondering how close I could get to the edge before the sediment beneath me gave out, crumbling down the ravine, taking my body with it. Rather, I was abandoned on these rocks years ago.
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Thirteen. I sat criss-crossed on the rough-textured carpet of my bedroom, staring at my flushed face in the mirror just four feet away. There’s nothing here for me. No one is here for me.
I thought about letting death slowly suffocate me, a dark vignette subsuming my vision. Would my blood vessels constrict or my skin shrivel until I was nothing more than a shred of a soul abandoned?
Before I could answer, the front door lock turned. The sounds of high heels, loafers, and rustling pea coats echoed down the hallway and slipped under the crack of my door. No time now. I brushed the tears away, spun into my desk chair, and resumed my calculus homework.
“How was your evening?” my mother asked dryly as she walked into my room seconds later, the scent of Barberesco lingering on her breath.
“Oh, just worked. The usual,” I responded with a smile, swallowing the lump in my throat. Thank god for their perfect child.
She nodded in satisfaction and walked out, leaving behind a trail of Byredo Mojave Ghost. My eyes lingered on the spot where I had just been sitting. I turned back to my homework. I never would have actually done it.
I’d never actually do it.
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Fourteen. I lay on the limestone of the foyer, tears slipping from my eyes and down my ears as my father’s voice shattered my being.
“You’re just like your mother.” Words that cut deeper than anyone outside our home could fathom, their implications understood all too well. The ripples of my self-deprecation turned to crashing waves, pulling my frail body into the rough coral below, scraping my already weakened skin. How could he insinuate I was like the very person I had vowed never to become?
“Stop. Please. Please stop,” I begged between sobs. If I’m just like her, then I deserve nothing.
“Just like her,” he scoffed. His indifference to his hurting child only deepened my apathy for my own life. His footsteps receded as he left me in a puddle of despair and headed upstairs.
I recalled the keen paring blade, the serrated bread cutter, the honed edge of the nakiri. I lay on the floor for hours, my thoughts oscillating.
By 3 a.m., the house was quiet. The steady stream of cars outside the dining room window, whose headlights had illuminated my limp arms and legs as they passed, had dissipated. The once cool floor was now warm from my body heat. Suddenly, the world felt peaceful. I was numb, but it’s all going to be fine.
I’d never actually do it.
;
Sixteen. 5,303 miles weren’t enough to escape these feelings.
Isolated with my toxic family in the Mediterranean, caught between bruschetta and osso buco, the waves of impulses were stronger than ever. Nothing I do is good enough. I’m no one special. No one wants me. I wondered whether the weight of the ocean or a bathtub was best to swallow me whole. Would my parents regret their years of loathing if their morning coffee was accompanied by my lifeless body? Or would I just float, unnoticed?
After dinner, I went on a walk alone: across the property, back to our villa, and a few circles around the pool. But even as I stood there, gazing at the enticing embrace of vermiculite and Portland cement, a part of me recoiled, a whisper of doubt remained. Not today. Not like this.
I’d never actually do it.
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Eighteen. The thoughts left for a few months—from January to August, before starting college, I had hoped that everything would get better. But after heavy familial expectations of excellence left me still feeling unworthy, the darkness returned.
The week before Thanksgiving. Olivia Rodrigo’s “enough for you” on loop, the lyrics lacerating my chest. I walked from the Yard to the Charles, each step heavier than the last, thinking I could jump, and it would all be over. Let the mud of the riverbed swell up and absorb me like a sponge does water.
I only made it to the crosswalk before Memorial Drive—the corner of Dunster and Leverett House. I couldn’t step further. I was afraid of what I was capable of. You’re a coward if you jump. You’re a coward if, after all this time, you don’t.
The walk back to the Yard was harsh in its silence. My AirPods sat loose in my left jacket pocket as I swung the keyring of the empty case around my finger. The hum of car engines, the ringing of graduate student bicycle bells as they crossed the Charles, and the faint conversations of passersby tethered me to earth rather than life after.
I spent the rest of the night making small talk and laughing with my roommate—a whirlwind of BerryLine mochi, abandoned essay drafts, and the latest campus gossip—a surface-level charade to conceal my internal tumult, the tsunami of individual pain and darkness.
“Goodnight,” we both said.
I’d never actually do it.
;
Three months later. I was ready to truly let myself finally sink into the soft sand of death’s welcoming waters, eagerly awaiting my arrival.
I planned the perfect day—the perfect last 12 hours.
Avocado toast with an over-easy egg and raspberry balsamic vinaigrette to start my morning. Lunch with my childhood best friend, followed by bundt cakes and French pastry making. Finally, an evening of lemon drop tea and “The Polar Express,” each ready to offer one last glimpse of life’s warmth as edibles dissolved into my bloodstream. A comforting 90 minutes.
But I ended up falling asleep just as the locomotive sped down Glacier Gulch.
When I woke, it was 4 a.m. The screen that had been playing the movie hours earlier was now black. It’s too late now. I’m too tired.
I made my way from the living room to my parents’ bed and spent the rest of the night nestled between them. Even though they rarely gave me the comfort I needed, in this moment of ultimate weakness, I reverted to my childlike dependency. I was scared to be alone with myself—with my thoughts.
Because I really would have done it. I really was going to do it, and that was more terrifying than life itself.
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Twenty. I’m doing better now. But sometimes, I still ask myself: if everything could be over in a second, would I do it? Some mornings, as my hand reaches for the prescribed Lexapro on my skincare turnstile, my thoughts flicker. I could skip my 20mg, let the medicine slowly trickle out of my system, and allow my emotions to consume me completely. Will the sound of the ocean that echoes in the back of my head eventually flood my brain until I hear nothing but emptiness?
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Twenty. I still refuse to divulge the true trauma of my past to those in my life. I’m afraid of what they might think of me or do after learning of my history. Who wants someone like that in their life? And I know it’s unfair to burden someone with such a mess, especially one still being cleaned.
Still, I’ve reached out a few times to the people I trust most, though only with seemingly shallower worries: an inclination to drop out of college, an inability—yet lingering desire—to forgive the people who gave me life, or feelings of profound loneliness. I’m often met with disbelief—some variation of the same overarching responses: “But everything seems perfect,” “How does this happen every few months?” or “You’ll be fine.”
But what they, and most, don’t understand is that this pain often endures in silence, buried within those you least expect. The stigma surrounding these conversations leaves so many feeling alone in their fight, afraid to admit to thoughts of self-harm.
Over the past five years, I have lost two friends to suicide and watched my roommates mourn loved ones who were similarly bested by their battles with mental health. Every time I read a campus announcement with hollow condolences or see an Instagram post filled with perfect memories, I can’t help but wonder—if these conversations weren’t so taboo, would we still have some of those lives with us today?
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Ultimately, while I believe there is strength in navigating this journey quietly, in solitude—strength in wanting to learn and live through it internally—there is also considerable power in admitting the need for help. Sometimes, acknowledging internal agony is the first step toward remembering that life still has something to offer, even when it seems like it doesn’t. More importantly, it’s the silence surrounding this epidemic that leaves so many floundering in the seas of despair until the weight on their chest becomes too heavy, submerging their fragile souls.
This narrative is my way of loosening the constraints of societal conventions for the sake of others. Not that my struggles should be taken as a form of assurance, but rather as a gesture of solidarity—a reason to keep pushing forward. The semicolon symbolizes resilience, a reminder that anyone can overcome.
As I reflect—both in this piece and in my daily fight against the now-dormant demons that once crucified my mental health—I remind myself of how far I’ve come, how long I’ve resisted those impulses because of a faint pull to survive. I remind myself that there is more beyond my home, more beyond this campus, more that I have yet to discover. And while I exist in anticipation, it is the smallest moments—dinners with friends, time spent composing my thoughts alone, even the excitement of new clothes—that guide me to another day. The big things, the littlest things—they all matter.
Holding on isn’t about never having those urges again—it’s about believing there is always more waiting to be lived and letting such conceptions fuel the desire to persist.
Written Anonymously for the Independent.