“Sometimes I’d start crying in class for no reason. Then when...

“Sometimes I’d start crying in class for no reason. Then when I got home from school, I’d just go straight to my room. I couldn’t even talk to my mom about it because I’d just start crying. People would tell me: ‘Just get up, exercise, and take a walk.’ But none of that helped. Things got so bad that even the school was watching me. I started bawling during a chemistry exam and I ended up in the school psychologist office. I remember thinking: ‘I don’t care if I ever see another chemistry exam again. Or my friends. Or my mom.’ And I started to get this feeling that I was definitely going to do it. I was going to lock myself in my room that night and take a bunch of pills. The only thing that stopped me was imagining my mom finding my body. That was three years ago. That time seems so far away now. I found a great therapist. I learned so much about myself. There’s so much that I want to do now. I want to travel. I want to get married. I want to have kids. There are so many poems that I haven’t written and songs I haven’t heard. So it’s terrifying for me to think that I came so close. My problems were small back then. They were teenage problems. But I came one step away from not being. And I had made the decision to take that step. I’m afraid that I can go back to that place again. And next time, my problems will probably not be so small.”

(Bogotá, Colombia)