Sonder: Youth Mental Health Stories of Struggle & Strength | Page 105

One day I will be happy
By Chloe McNamee
I remember listening to a middle school acquaintance talk
about how her dad died. I remember feeling sad for her, but
I also remember thinking that those types of things only
happened to other people. Little did I know that my brother
would kill himself a year later. When my brother died, I didn’t
know what to do with myself. I went to school the very next
day because I didn’t want to think about what had happened.
At school, I didn’t want to be weak and cry so I dug my nails
into the palms of my hands as hard as I could. I stayed in denial
like that for several months after his death. I did my best to
not think about it. If I didn’t think about it, then it means it
didn’t happen. This avoidance led to self-harm. It took weeks
for me to get up the courage to bring a blade to my skin, but
once I started I couldn’t stop. It became like an addiction that
I couldn’t control. Everyday was an excuse to cut. Soon this
wasn’t enough. Suppressing my feelings was leading me to
become even more self-destructive. My anxiety was at an
alltime high and I didn’t feel like I could function anymore. I
began to take an overload of pills in the hopes that my anxiety
would fade away. I did this for two weeks before deciding that
things couldn’t ever get better.
One morning before school, I overdosed, not caring if I lived or
died. A week later I was admitted to Children’s Hospital where I
received treatment and was diagnosed with social anxiety and
depression. Things gradually got better as my middle school
years came to a close. I started to finally acknowledge my
brother’s death and got on medication for my anxiety. However,
this didn’t last.
The summer before freshman year I started to track what I ate.
I became obsessed with being fat. I felt like the only thing in my
control was my weight and how much I ate. For the entirety of
freshman year, I isolated myself and focused all of my attention
and energy on food. In class I would calculate and recalculate
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