National Suicide Awareness Day (My Personal Story)

As I discovered that today is National Suicide Awareness Day, I thought to myself that now would be a good time to discuss my personal struggle with this.

As I seem to start out every blog on here, I’ve known I was gay since I was a little kid. As a child though, I never really knew what to call it. There was no label available to me at this time because I didn’t fully understand what it meant. I just knew that I was who I was. I was a child of God just living without a care in the world.

I was fierce, even back then in my Barney outfit.

Let me start by saying that kids can be cruel. Sure I had times when I was mean or rude to other kids (i.e. karate kicking a kid in between the legs because he stole my swing, or pushing a kid off the slide because he was in my way). Everyone was guilty of it once or twice back in the day (some are still guilty of it now). But for me in elementary school, the cruelest thing I ever encountered were those who made fun of me both behind my back and right in front of me.

I was never beat up by kids at all. I never got into any physical altercations with other students. The harassment was often what they said and how they said it to me about my appearance and the friends I played with. I wasn’t on the basketball courts shooting hoops or out in the field playing soccer (both presumably with all boys). No. I was swinging on the swings, playing foursquare or tetherball, or even helping to create the most amazing rock club in the world! And as you probably can guess, the friends I played these games with were all girls (with the exception of a couple other boys who surprisingly have also come out as gay).

I remember always being so excited for the first day of school. I went shopping with my mom and bought new clothes (basically whatever was “in” at that time). I’d get off the bus, expecting nothing but good things and positive vibes for the new school year. What I got in return were whispers from other kids to each other on the playground, by the bathrooms, and yes even in my classroom. While I never fully could hear the entire whispering conversation, the only word I was ever able to pick up was “gay”. Every year it seemed from kindergarten through 5^th grade, there was always THAT group of kids calling me that name. When I got into 5^th grade it wasn't just “gay” that they would call me, but “faggot” as well.

My first day of school at ASU in 2011.

Like I said, kids can be cruel. I remember crying to my mom about it one day after school, so upset that these kids hadn’t a clue who I was, only that they knew I was the kid everyone thought was gay. When I explained to her about a particular group of boys in my class who would call me that name to my face, her advice was to turn right around and tell them that they must be jealous because I was hanging out with all of the girls that they had crushes on. Of course I tried this little snippet out the next day and was quite proud of my delivery. However, they preceded to cut me off mid-sentence, turn around and walk away as they all took turns saying things like “he’s such a faggot”, “what a girl”, “sissy”, “gay-wad”. (What the hell was a “wad” anyway? I never understood).

Whether it was the friends who were girls that I hung out with, my slight feminine mannerisms that caught people’s attention, or my supreme fashion sense and haircut (hard to believe my knee high white socks and slick bowl cut hair-do would cause such hatred), the teasing and name-calling on a constant basis had taken its toll on me.

When you hear it enough times in one day, multiplied by how many days are in the school year for 5 years in a row, it starts to get you down a lot. Every year I would wake up on that first day of school, hoping for a better start. But each year, the amount of time it took me to realize that it wouldn’t be as positive as I’d hoped started to get shorter and shorter.

I was getting ready to start 6^th grade at Edison and my mom was getting ready for her first year as a teacher at Adams. Helping her in her classroom and seeing how their school ran, I started to wonder if maybe I should go to a different school. I only had one year left. Couldn’t I have just sucked it up and taken the harsh words for a little while longer? Needless to say, I ended up spending 6^th grade at a brand new school with brand new kids. Being there in a new environment, free of all those hurtful words and stares and whispers behind my back, I was relieved. That’s not to say that there weren’t any mean kids like that at Adams, but it wasn’t as intense every day like it was back at Edison. Things were starting to look up.

But then I started junior high at Kino, going back to school with all of those kids from Edison who had tortured me with their harsh criticisms and name-calling, the same behavior that made me want to go to a completely different school in the first place. I figured that it had been a year since I had seen any of them. Hoping for the best once again on the first day of school, I went to Kino and faced the crowds again. First Hour, no issue. Second Hour, no name-calling. Third and Fourth Hour, still no problems or teasing. But when lunch came around as I looked for a place to sit and eat, I encountered a familiar face from the teasing days. I remember her (yes, it was a girl) walking with her friends towards me. She purposely bumped into me and yelled out “watch where you’re going faggot!” And just like a ton of bricks, all of those emotions, all of that pain I had tried to suppress from elementary school came right back to me.

I tried to keep my mind occupied. I joined drama and was a part of the school play. I so desperately wanted to convince people that I wasn’t gay. I wrote poetic love notes to girls, I had a “girlfriend” for about a week, I kissed another girl backstage during a rehearsal. I was on a mission to prove that I liked girls despite what everyone was saying and despite what I knew was truly me deep down inside. But drama and acting that year in seventh grade unfortunately didn’t do much to fill that void and keep my mind off of things. That girl who bumped me that first day of school along with several other students from Edison were joined by countless guys from gym class who were on a quest (I felt) to make my life a living hell. The whispering behind my back when I entered the room continued. By the end of seventh grade, I was just emotionally tired from it all.

When I started eighth grade, I was content with the idea that kids were still going to be cruel. I was starting to give drama classes and acting another try, but it wasn’t helping me right away. Given the fact that I often had the house to myself for a while when I’d get home from school, I would drink whatever alcohol I could find in our cupboard. Nothing too heavy or too much, but I had just enough to numb the pain. I started “friendships” with some older kids who used to hang out after school and smoke, so of course I tried numbing the pain there too. But nothing was doing it for me.

I know it’s silly to say that it was name-calling and teasing that made it get this far, but it really did in my case. Family members and friends would always say to just ignore it. But having to deal with it for almost 7 years, it was hard to ignore.

One day I came home, alone in the house again. It was a pretty rough day at school from what I can remember. I remember two other kids that day writing a note in class, passing it back and forth to each other when it accidentally landed on my desk. I kept it and went to the bathroom to go read it. All they were talking about was how gay I looked with my hair, how much of a girl I acted in gym class, what a faggot I was for wearing whatever it was that I was wearing that day. That note kept being read in my mind. When I got home that day, I went to the kitchen crying. There were some dishes in the sink; one of them I could see was a big knife. For a second I stopped crying. I looked at the knife and just froze. There was no hesitation. In my head I thought that this was going to be the only way out of this misery for me. So I picked up the knife and put the tip of the blade next to my stomach. Goosebumps went all through my body. Was I really going to go through with this? In that moment, yeah, I was going to. In my head I started to question why this was happening. Why after all the times I prayed to God to let it stop that He would keep it going on. I was only 13 years old. I pulled the knife back away from me and got ready for it. As I prepared to stab myself in the stomach, I heard the garage door unlocking. My dad was never home that early. I panicked and threw the knife into the sink as fast as I could. I wiped away those tears that had started pouring down. My dad came through the door like it was any other day. He saw me there, said hello, and went to his room.

My dad on his 50th birthday.

I literally stood there in shock for what seemed like an eternity. I was seconds away from taking my own life. It had gone that far. The teasing, the bullying, the name-calling, the harassing, call it whatever you will, it had reached its breaking point. My dad went back outside to work in the yard and I broke down and went to cry in my room. I remember crying out prayer after prayer, half of the time not even recognizing what I was saying. It just seemed to flow right out of me without hesitation.

That moment of self-realization about what I had almost  gone through, it got me thinking that things needed to change. All of those times when people would tell me to just turn away from all of that negativity and ignore it, it was easier said than done. But I knew that I needed to turn to something positive and channel all of those feelings into something constructive and safe. Luckily THAT is when theatre started to become a huge part of my life.

In both 8^th and 9^th grade I found relief in comedies, acting like a goofball on stage. I was able to escape myself and all of that ridicule by becoming someone else, even if it was just for a short amount of time. Soon when I started 9^th grade, I was getting heavily involved with church in the LIFETEEN program. My faith in God was strengthened. My life wasn’t meant to end that way and that soon.

When I left Kino, I made the decision to get a boundary exception to attend Mesa High rather than going to Westwood with everyone else. I was at a brand new school with people I had never met before. I immediately got involved and became Sophomore Class President. I was placed into the advanced drama class. I was making friends left and right and things just seemed to get bigger and better during the rest of high school. Not once during those years did I ever feel that hatred. I never felt uncomfortable walking by groups of people, scared that they would begin to whisper. I was surrounded with amazing friends, inspiring teachers, and an overall great high school experience.

Today being National Suicide Awareness Day, I am reminded of those feelings on that day so many years ago when I almost took my own life. I remind myself and pray that no one ever has to go through something like that. Kids are still cruel in school and things like this still happen, but if my story and experience can help reassure anyone out there that things do in fact get better, then I’ve done my job.

UPDATE: Back in December 2013, I put together a performance of coming out stories including my own for a piece I called "OUT! A Diverse Identity". I reenacted my suicide attempt through a mime piece while excerpts from this blog post were read aloud.