Trigger warning: Mention of suicide

Quarantine was where it all started.. it was just the little things such as missing my friends, the none human interaction or maybe it was just not me being my social butterfly self, thats a lot for a fourth grader to take in at 8-9 years old. I therefore started living in my head, it went from thinking about what life would be like without this virus or how i would have been so much happier than sitting in front of a screen all day. It then got worse i got these intrusive thoughts that no one really liked me because i was into things they weren't into, i wasn't allowed to play the online games my classmates would play as soon as a class was over. I then got too afraid to speak up for myself in class, i secretly did the things my friends told me to do. I felt very alone and i would try and vocal to my friends but when your in the fourth grade you dont really understand what depression is therefore my work and grades suffered, at the end of fourth grade i failed every single class. I was then moved to a pod school away from all my friends, i went insane. There were about four people in my 5th grade class and i spoke to none of them. I began to make friends up in my head to subsequent for the ones i lost and that made things even worse i became suicidal. I would get irritated VERY easily and i would have breakdowns almost every other night and i just hid it under a smile. My grades got better but my mental health was decreasing i wouldn't sleep, i would barely eat and i couldn't vocalize what was wrong, and whenever my parents would ask i would say to most simple words "i am fine" when clearly i wasn't. At the end of grade 5 i came out with zero friends, bad mental health and good grades which i prided and worked myself so hard for. When grade six rolled around it was time for my national examinations and i put all my feelings aside and just worked extra lessons after extra lessons i was tired. I think i was probably at my lowest i felt like i was suffocating and at this point in time i lost the one friend i made in two years i would cry till i fell asleep. I then turned to music that was my safe space but it wasn't a person. I longed for a best friend, i remember praying for one almost every night. After my exams were over i was back to not being occupied with something to keep my mind off this sadness business, also i was waiting for my results to see which school i would be spending the next seven years at. I was petrified moving from a class of six to forty-five ,but i thought my worries weren't that big of a deal because i kept reminding myself children were starving, people were dying of sickness and why do my problems matter ? So i put it in a little box and forgot about it. Mind you i still havent healed myself from depression and things kept piling up.The summer before grade seven was my what i like to call "healing summer" i went to a new country and now my favorite place in the world Moorlands Camp that camp made me find my bestest in the entire world and the most amazing friends i could have ever made. Let me tell you when i left i found myself crying in my bedroom for 2 days straight , that place brought out the life in me and for the first time in two years i felt like myself, i felt like me.. when grade seven started i began to feel like i was back a square one because all the friends i made at camp went to other schools and here i was alone all over again. For the first term i was sort of juggling friends but deep down i still felt alone. But on one fateful day on the 11th of january 2024 some girls from my old school that i last saw in grade 4 invited me to sit with them and two other girls and then our conversations made me laugh and smile alot more than i usually did. To summarize everything our group now has 10 amazing people and i love them to death. I am here to remind you, you can get through it and even though i still have my days and i still have a long way to go but after two years of hardship and suffering. I am proud to say that i have ended that chapter in my life with the bestest friend i could have ever asked for, the best friend group ever, friends that care about me, a better well-being and state of mind and most of all a good relationship with God to be honest i am still working on it and i know i have a long road ahead of me but i know i can and i will get through it. Just know that you matter and its ok to not be ok but never suffer in silence like i did because the outcome isnt always the best. Just a simple prayer can change everything

-Anonymous