Member-only story
Trigger Warning: the obvious. I was suicidal as young as twelve years old and this isn’t a light read.
Hi there. I am alive. And this is me. The real me. For all my honesty online, I have never shared this story. To date, my family and only two of my friends know. So believe me when I say this comes from the depths of what is left of my heart — enough, clearly, because it is still beating.
For years, it has been too easy to pretend to be the successful, confident leader who has a dozen awards attached to her unique name. The kudos and the resume lines were, after all, the parts that people wanted to see, even when I told them that roses have thorns and that I’ve had to hold the stem until it bleeds for those flowers to grow.
But I once made a promise to a raggedy teenager looking out a high window in Geneva, Switzerland. “One day,” I said, “if I’m successful enough, I’ll tell your story.”
She reminded me of this promise in a letter she wrote to me years later. She said, “To Isvari, if you’re still around: I assume you’re now the woman who has it all. Remember you were once a girl who had nothing. Know that she gave everything for you to have it all.”
So I don’t know if I’m successful enough. I don’t know if the world has changed…
