Funny emotions aroused in my stomach as I woke up on the 12th of September, 2025. I assume I was already awake and on my phone at the early hour of 6am. I must have fallen asleep quite a few times, because the in moments between 6am to 9am are blank. Even with the brewing mixture of anxiety and nausea that laid dormant in my stomach, I moved normally — I did my bed, took a shower, had a mug of coffee, took my medication and sat outside breathing in Gods work. It must have been at midday when I decided to act on the awfulness that I had been feeling — a feeling that was only a seed on Monday morning and had now shifted and grown into something I couldn’t bare to hold with my own two hands on Friday afternoon. I don’t know why I insist on holding things alone, and still have all the nerve to be surprised when I struggle to carry them. Mm. I spent quite a lot of my time pacing back and forth on what specifically would calm me down. Nothing did. I soon found myself in my bathroom doing my make up and playing music so loud that if my mother were home, she would’ve begged me to turn it off, all while drinking a bottle of white wine and popping pills as though they were sweets I had bought. I do this often. I drink and pop until I doze off into a deep sleep, except Friday was different. I dozed off and I didn’t wake up again.
I recall sitting outside with a panic so heavy on my chest it could have crushed me. “What have I done?” I thought to myself. “I didn’t even say goodbye to anyone. Nobody knows just how deeply I care. Who is going to sleep with my dog at night?” I continued in conversation. One phone call to South Africa’s suicide helpline paused everything in time. Moments later my mother was at my feet, frantically trying to understand what had happened and how she had missed it. I sat and cried until my chest eventually did explode.
My mother says that she picked me up and with the little strength I had left in me I pushed myself off. Instead of clinging onto her embrace, I pushed so gruellingly that I fell face first into the corner of a door and then, finally, Concilia was gone.
Time moved faster that day and my memory is still a blur. Doctors surrounded me doing what doctors do, and my older sister, younger brother, nephew, mom and dad all sat beside my bed with their breaths held tight, while they waited and prayed for my heart to begin beating again.
The day I was meant to die, quickly turned into a day that will haunt me until the moment that God gives me the green light to say goodbye, the proper way. This is my punishment — living with the consequences of a failed suicide and a fragile community. With a scar like the one I have on my face, I will never forget it. I’m not allowed to. One day when I think I have healed quite enough, someone will ask about the scars that cover my body and the memories of Friday, the 12th of September will burn me.
I do not feel much at all right now, but then again I have been trying and failing to take my life since I was eleven years old. I was in fifth grade when the little girl began to growl at me to set her free. As if I knew much about being held captive, I did. She doesn’t always growl, sometimes she doesn’t speak to me at all. She isn’t always as bad as the outcomes of my actions are. I cannot put all the blame on her, a lot of it is simply me just being me. I do not like when she is around, but I’m quite afraid when she is away, because I do not know what she is up to or when she will return. She always returns. I am currently paranoid over the fact that she is so mad at me for losing such an easy fight and when she does decide to return I am certain she will do more damage in order to silence me for good, to see herself free. As if she is the hostage and not me.
Four days later and I am overwhelmed. She’s punishing me from the inside out and I feel terrible. I don’t want to die, not really anyway. I have always had a relationship with pain, must’ve been my first love. Pain only makes sense to me when I’m the one in it. The way the blade peels at my skin, or the way I instantly float as soon as the pill touches my stomach, or maybe even the way I feel so intensely that I am often left misunderstood by those around me. Sometimes I dread the fact that I know as much as I do about love and pain correlating with each other, but without that knowledge I am little to nothing. My brain is the most amazing thing about me, but it often finds itself at the very beginning with no answers. It is lonely and I don’t deserve it, but I am not a victim either. I am sick. Maybe I was born sick, or maybe the children that refused to play with me on the playground caused it, haha, even better, my family is the root. The one room house with noise and a boastful silence that will never leave my memory. It crosses my mind often, all the things I wish I had but will never hold again — Steven & Raphaëlle. Names that makes my heart drop every time I hear them, and it’s not because I’m filled with sadness, but because I love them so dearly and I wonder if I will ever find a love as pure as the one I found in those friendships.
I wasn’t always this way. Overtime I began to lose strength, but there was a time where even if she growled, I would growl back. I am funny, I am intelligent, I am delightful company, I am a good friend, my art skills are out of this world, I try my best as a daughter, I don’t litter and I am one heck of a sister. I miss myself, all the time. Who would I be if the first time I picked up the blade someone noticed and got me the help I deserved? Would I still be this incredible? Maybe a bit more sane, but I think incredibly boring. Isn’t my writing something worth reading? What would I write about if I wasn’t a rigid broken toy? Nothing. I would probably be in school studying something sooo boring and working a normal job. I guess everyone’s a bit of a mess inside, this experience is not unique. Well maybe this one is, but life generally isn’t. Everyone has something going on. I’m drifting away from the fact that I should be dead, but instead I am laying on my bed in a room filled with all the things I want. I have an illness in me that refuses to stop taking from me… even after all that I have given. Four days later and nobody knows what to do with me. Shame buries me every time they look at me or ask if I am ok. I do not know what to say nor do I care to tell the truth. I would do it again. How could one be so selfish? How could you take away a life that isn’t even fully yours, but instead a gift; a gift given to your mother and father by God Himself? Where did it begin? Will it ever end? I am sick and I fear that even though I aware that it is bad, I am so deeply intertwined with it that we will never part. Trust that I am no pessimist, but with a brain like mine it is easy to get lost in the sand. I have dry bones and more often than I would like to admit they show their teeth. Teasing me and cracking with every step I take. There is no voice in my head that tells me to kill myself, just a vision of a young lost girl waiting. Maybe it’s the same thing. What is she waiting for? Why won’t she move? It is much easier to tell her about God, healing, love, friendship, green grass and rain, than it is for her to live in it. Will I find God in this pain? Will He drag me out how He always does or simply just stop?Does He love me any less because of my sins? What will our conversation be for the dinner that comes with Judgement Day? Will the young girl be ok? Is she okay? Will I grow into a woman that is present in her life and not a participator of some phantom torment? I don’t have any answers to any questions you might be asking yourself, but today is day four and I should be dead.
This is absolutely nuts, I refuse to stay this way forever. As a child of the most High, I may be in distress now, but I will not be this way forever. Today is proof of that. I am finally getting what I deserve or maybe rather what my spirit has been fighting for all along. A break. My body is fighting back, and I have to rest.
I am in my bedroom laying on my queen sized bed, covered in my cotton sheets. Rose, my dog lays in her Italian made bed snoring with all her might. I am warm. My windows are big and the stars are beautiful. My family has been asleep for hours now in their rooms, dreaming of a life they wish they had or are happy to be living. I’m comfortable, physically. & maybe that is the problem because inside, I am torn. I’m sorry for hurting you, if anything I wish I could take all of it away and throw it into the abyss… there I go trying to control things again. I admit that I cannot carry this by myself. I haven’t eaten anything and kept it down in days, my head slowly splits open with every minute that passes by and my stomach hurts. My body is fighting back, and I have to rest. The same body I should be taking care of and loving is the same body I tried so aimlessly to throw away. I wonder if I have broken Gods heart. I sure have broken mine and possibly more. God, He worked so hard to put me together, 9 months and an entire week extra in the womb, careful with every detail and soft with every touch, yet I do struggle to find it in me to love myself. I don’t love myself and my heart aches, as that is all I want for myself.
People describe me as someone that is worth being around, so deeply loved, smart and radiant in the way I look and carry myself. Life isn’t bad at all, I promise I’m grateful. I must be a fraud, walking around wearing some ridiculous mask. Everyone knows it, but it’s too much to uncover, so we all leave it alone and let Concilia be. I wonder if the same people that watch me and are in my life would notice if I went away, if I went completely mute... I hope that by the time I return home, I am better and not forgotten. Please don’t forget me. I have to rest. I have to rest. If I do not rest, I will not make it.
On the 12th of September, 2025 at 12:48 PM I attempted and failed suicide, once again. I broke unwillingly and totally, was forced down and then politely asked to take a breath and I am now alive. Worried. Strange. Never ever the same. Everything slipped through my fingers just when I thought I had some control. I was doing okay and smiling more, but you’re never in control, remember that. Not as a threat, more of a gentle reminder that you do not live this life alone and there are people around you that pay attention. Your life is precious and I do pray that one day you learn to love to live it. Please try, for the sake of singing birds and blue skies, try.
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