I sit there alone in my room, the clock reads 3:29 a.m. Even though I know I have to be at school in the slowly approaching morning, I sit there. Wide awake, feeling hopeless, feeling emotionally drained, feeling like everyone and everything in the world is against me.

This is not the first time.

As I sit there for the next four hours, I wait minute by minute for my mom to wake me up from my pretend-sleep, my mind slipping into another plane and turning against itself.

Finally, she comes and I grudgingly get up. On the ride to school, she asks me, “how did you sleep?”

“Fine.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

She doesn’t know that I’m lying through my teeth.

As I walk into school, I take a deep breath and put on my happy-go-lucky persona. It’s what I use to trap the pain that I’m suffering for reasons I don’t know.

Any time I would start to open up and ask for help from friends, I received the same cliché statements.

“It gets better…” and “if you kill yourself, it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

They only made me feel worthless.

The thought of suicide was always on my mind. Not that I wanted to do it, I just had this unhealthy obsession with it. I thought about it 24/7. I thought about the about the people that went through with it, how they were not suffering anymore while I still was. I asked myself, why haven’t I done it?

After six months of suffering in silence I had had enough. I needed help. I sought refuge from a friend who didn’t make me feel worthless, who didn’t give me cliché answers to a serious problem. They helped me realize that no, life doesn’t get better, but you can make it fun to fight.

This is the first time I have told my story in depth; following the events that unfolded last week, I feel every single one of my readers needs to know that they are not alone in this battle. Now, a year after I got help with my struggle, I try to help people step out with their problems and receive help, whether it’s professional or not. Even with the slightest glimmer of hope you can change someone’s whole outlook.

Don’t suffer in silence.