What it feels like…

By Kisavi Jayawardena and Shamindri De Sayrah

*Trigger warning* 

Another day. Just another day. 

I can hear the sound of my parents shuffling about in the next room, and a hint of sunlight colours up my room. It’s morning, time for me  to get on with my life, even though all I really wanted was for the sun to go back down, and for this morning to stop. 

I pulled myself out of bed and began my day. Pasting a fake smile, the mask that everyone knows all too well. Although it was just another normal day, there was something different about it, something different about me. Yet, I keep going as if nothing was wrong. 

I got dressed. Short sleeves? No, they’ll see my scars. I put on a sweater. I leave home. No one notices. 

I reached school. My tormentors await. The bullies who make my life miserable every single day. They greet me with their predatorial, hungry eyes and their malicious comments. Giggling and snickering at me. I look down. I keep my eyes down. Starting at the white tops of my grey sneakers, I don’t dare lift my gaze. I keep my hands tightly in my jeans pocket, and I feel my palms begin to sweat. I feel my heart rush and the walls of the hallway close in on me. They come closer and closer. And I feel suffocated. 

The gang of bullies push me against the steel-grey lockers, and with a bang I drop my books. I reach down, only to have my books kicked away and trampled underneath their muddy shoes. I feel Cole pull the collar of my shirt, but I don’t dare look at him. I keep my eyes down, and watch them raid through my backpack and rip out of the pages of my books. 

I don’t move. I don’t look up. I stay hunched. And I stay quiet. I want this to stop. I want them to stop. I didn’t want to befriend them, I just wanted them to let me be. All I wanted was for them to leave me alone. I felt him harshly pull at my hair, before bathing me with his drink. And with that he lets go and they leave. I can’t do this anymore. 

– Grey will. 

My books. My bag. My clothes. Were all ruined. And no one helped me. But this wasn’t out of the ordinary. No one ever stopped it. No one ever intervened. They all saw. Or rather, they all watched. Some cheered on while others rolled their eyes, insulting me and calling me “weak”. No one cared. 

– Grey world. 

I picked up the remains of my stuff and rushed to the girls bathroom. Washing off the Fanta from my shirt, I sighed. This would never stop. Not just in high school. This was how the world was. People were selfish and no one cared. We were selfish. We were all just bystanders in each other’s tragedies. And I hated it.

– Grey reality.

I hated how we’d all become distant. How we could afford to be so cruel to others. But this was how the world worked. One had to lose for the other to win. Always. And I’d been tagged the loser my whole life. I lost, and I lost and I lost everything. I lost myself. 

– Grey identify. 

I knew that graduating from high school wouldn’t be enough. I’d go on to university only to be a loser there, and grow up to be a loser at my job. I’d shuffle through four years of university, only to end up at a dead end of a job, where I’d work to pay off my university debt for the next ten years. Only to work the next twenty years of my life to pay off loans for a house and buy a better life for myself. Even then, I’d still be the name. I’d still be me. I’d still be a loser, in a house, drinking away as I stare up at my empty ceiling. And it’ll continue on. I’d work, only to come home and drink to fill up the emptiness I felt. Until I’d eventually drink myself to death, slow and monotonous. My life was destined to be this way. And I was destined to be this way. 

– Grey future. 

That’s when it hit me. There was no real ending to this vicious cycle. I was destined to be the loser, so everyone else could win, and feast off of me. It had been that way when I was a kid, it was this way now and I knew it would be that way when I grew older. There was no real ending to this monotonous cycle. 

– Grey truth.  

I watched the thin, dark-brown hands of the clock creep its way around the hours. Around and around, the hours passed by, each even slower as the one before it. The clock stared blankly at me, filling in the grey classroom with its ticking. I felt the walls close in on me, and the room began to shrink. 

– Grey walls. 

The ride back home was nothing unusual. People walked by. Buzzing and bustling through a swarm of men and women in office attire, casual wear and uniforms. They all looked sick to me. Each with their own set of problems, with their plastic smiles. We all wore masks. We were all fake. And we were all suffering. 

– Grey society. 

I couldn’t do this anymore. It was just all too hard. Living, existing. Some might say I’m a coward, some would say I was weak, but I’m only human,  and I had had enough. I’d lived my life in fear. Fear of upsetting my parents, fear of upsetting my friends, fear of upsetting my teachers, fear of upsetting everyone. Fear. I had lived in fear. Cowardly hunched and hidden away, I stayed silent. I had been living behind the comfort of silence and a fake smile. I couldn’t bring myself to speak up, not today, not yesterday, not ever. I had chosen to please others, by not wanting to trouble them I’d hidden every part of me, and played along to the role I’d been cast. 

I had lived my whole life trying to please everyone, masking every piece of me. I had been pretending all along, and I hadn’t even realized that I’d  lost myself along the way. And I no longer felt like I knew me. I hid my emotions because I didn’t want to be too much. I hid my pain because I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I hid and hid and I never spoke up for the fear of being an inconvenience. 

It finally came to a point when I felt like all was lost. I decided once and for all “this would be the day”. I picked up a razor I kept hidden away, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, my hands shook. The past 17 years of life had gone by with me poking and cutting at myself, trying to please everyone. I had fallen into a deep hole of self pity and depression. And with the fear of not wanting to hurt others, I’d buried myself. And I soon realized, how could I have given up on me?

But I’m still here.

I’m still here, breathing and alive. I had fallen, but I knew that I could climb my way back up. I could fight this and I could find me. It wouldn’t be easy, as the only way I could go was up. And that path was the toughest. But I knew I had to try, because like climbing up a mountain, I’d fall and stumble, but I could rest and get back up. I’d been given a second chance. And I wanted to make the most of it, with one small step at a time. I could colour in my life. I would be the colour in this grey world that I lived in. 

I was the yellow amongst the grey. 

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Yellow Ribbon – Suicide  Survival

The use of the colour yellow on World Suicide Prevention Day stems from the death of Mike Emme in September 1994. According to Yellow Ribbon.org, Mike, who was just 17 years old, owned a 1968 Ford Mustang which he had restored himself and had painted bright yellow