I recently went to see a therapist because of all the emotional weight I’ve been carrying—from heartbreak, to the loss of a loved one (Paul), to getting fired multiple times, to getting kicked out of my own childhood home. My dad suggested I go because he saw the signs: when I talk, he can barely hear me; I seem tense; my knee is always jittering when I sit still; sometimes my hand gestures are sharp and drastic. He didn’t know I was suicidal, but he knew something wasn’t right.
The truth is, I never told anyone that I’ve been struggling with suicidal thoughts. But it’s been there, lingering, since I was 16. It’s been with me in moments of extreme stress, moments that made me feel small, ashamed, or like I didn’t belong. And when the therapist asked me why, I couldn’t even put it into words. Not because I didn’t know, but because it’s not just one thing—it’s everything piling up.
A Lifetime of Accumulated Weight
This didn’t start recently. It stems from childhood—from never really feeling like I belonged. From early on, I was made to feel like I wasn’t enough. I struggled academically, and the school system didn’t just make that clear; it made it humiliating. I remember the “Remise des prix” at the end of the year when the smart kids were celebrated on stage while the rest of us—the ones who struggled—sat in our seats, feeling like failures.
I remember taking extra classes—Logopédie, Gestion Mentale, extra math and French lessons—while my friends got to hang out after school. And yet, no matter how hard I worked, I was still labeled as lazy, unworthy, an “academic criminal.” The teachers reinforced it. I was put in the front of the class with the “stupid” kids so we wouldn’t cheat, as if failure was in our DNA. I was once singled out for not pushing my chair under the desk, given a behavior warning while everyone else got away with it. It wasn’t just unfair; it was personal.
I reached my breaking point in school. I walked out, deciding I was done. That’s when my gym teacher, Monsieur Déranger, found me. He didn’t just ask what was wrong—he took me for coffee. He spoke to me like I mattered, like I had value beyond the grades, beyond the labels. That small act of unconditional kindness stayed with me for life. He was my saving grace at a time when I felt completely unseen. Just like my best friend Paul. The one person who understood my struggles, who didn’t expect anything in return, who simply cared. And now both of these people are gone. I never had the opportunity to thank them both when they were alive.
The Shame of Not Thriving
After university—where I finally felt like I belonged—everything went downhill. I was depressed almost immediately, struggling to find that same sense of purpose and excitement I had back then. I wanted to become an independent entrepreneur, but after a decade of trying, it hasn’t worked out the way I envisioned.
The shame of not making it has been crushing. The frustration of trying different paths—coaching, coding—only to feel unfulfilled has grown with every passing year. Now that I’m 30, it feels like life is mocking me, like all the dreams I once had were foolish.
Life has taught me some harsh lessons:
- You can’t have multiple aspirations; you have to pick one.
- People will disappoint you; even those who mean the most can be stripped away.
- You are alone in this.
I’ve carried this burden for so long that it feels impossible to lay it down. I’ve struggled in relationships because I don’t feel like I could ever truly satisfy someone, not when I carry this much weight.
Paul understood that. He had dyslexia, and he always felt like an outcast. He knew what it was like to feel different, to struggle in ways others didn’t understand. That’s why he cared so deeply about mental health, why it was his movement. And now, the world has lost him. The one person who truly got it—gone.
The Answer to WHY
So when the therapist asked me why I’m suicidal, I froze. But I know the answer. It’s not just about Paul. It’s not just about school, or career failures, or heartbreak. It’s about the weight of everything—the years of struggling, the relentless feeling of never quite belonging, the shame of not thriving. It’s about the exhaustion of carrying this alone.
I’m not actively suicidal, but I struggle with deep emotions, loneliness, and the pressure I put on myself. Losing Paul, feeling disconnected, and carrying everything alone can make things heavy at times. I don’t want to die—I just want the weight to feel lighter.
*** This is the CHATGPT written version ***
*** My Raw version ***
A therepast asked me WHY I am suicidal, where is it coming from? Can you pint point it?”.
My dad said I should go see a therapist, because when I talk, he can barely hear me, he said I seem tense, my knee is always jittering when I am sitting still, sometimes I make punchy drastic hand gestures when I talk. All this has been a continuous build up, which stems from childhood, not ever really feeling like I belong. But along the way, I have had also good experiences where I have felt like I am good at something, where I feel accepted and feel like I am thriving. This has been my time at university, the best time, and the time I first met Paul. After uni, it went down hill, I was depressed quite quickly, and never got that zest and bliss of life like I had at uni, but rather constant struggle and survival. Looking back at my 20s I would say they weren’t happy, the only time was uni, the rest has been struggle, the feelings of being ashamed of myself for not making it, not making my dreams of becoming an independent entrepeneur come true. It has not worked out the way I wanted it, the way I visioned it, the way I dreamt. That sparkle that I had when joining the Beepurple entrepeneur group at Uni, gave me hope, excitment. But things haven’t turned out that way, after 10 years, I’m still not there. I have tried to be an independent coach, a full time coder, but have been disilusioned by all of these experiences, never satisfied, never being fully fulfilled by any of these occupations. As the years went by the shame and the frustration grew. Now that I have turned 30, I feel like life has stuck its middle finger in my face, like F you for dreaming, for hoping, for all of that idealistic crap. Life taught me along the way that its chaos, you can’t have multiple aspirations, you can only focus on one, people will disappoint you, some people that meant so much to you will be stript away, you’re alone kid. So along this journey my dad said, go see a therapist, I never told him I was suicidal, but he knew I needed to go. I never told anyone that I was often suicidal, but that’s been ever since I was 16, ever since when put under stress, those feelings of when I was 12 year old teachers humiliated me in class, not because I misbehaved, but because I wasn’t doing well academically, because I couldn’t speak up or defend myself, because at 12 years old my self-esteem was extremely low, from years prior during primary school of being among the last in class and making it clear to us “last in class kids” that we didn’t deserve to go on to the podium at the end of year “Remise des prix” when all the bright smart ass kids would walk up stage and get given gifts and handshakes, and we had to sit there and take it all in, making us feel like a bunch of underserving retards, unworthy of any kind of recognition because, to them, we were just lazy students who didn’t work hard enough. I remember all the extra curricular activities I would take during lunch breaks and after classes, “Logopédie”, “Gestion Mentale”, “Maths”, “French”. A friend would ask ‘hey walter wanna go hang out after school’ I would answer ‘no man, I need to go to Gestion Mental’, like if that was a normal response for an 11-12 year old kid. I’ve constantly had to do extracuricular work to try to just survive, yet I was still perceived as lazy, unworthy, an “academic criminal”. I remember very well when once at the exams, the teacher put all the smart kids at the back at the class, and the “stupid” ones at the front to make sure we would not cheat, and I remember very well, the math teacher put me right in front of her desk, as though I was ‘THE ONE’ to watch out for, even though I spent half of the year doing extracurical math lessons during lunchbreaks. I believed I could pass because I put in so much extra time, I felt confident for once, and then the results came in, and I got a despicable 30% mark, at that point, I knew there was no more hope. I was broken inside, I was a target, and once during a geography lesson, I wasn’t paying 100% attention and doing drawings on my paper, the teacher clocked up on that, gave me a behaviour warning, then after class, students rushed out without putting their chairs under the table, half way in the hallway, I hear the teacher scream “Walter come back here!”, I came back to the classroom and he said “What about your chair?” “Give me your ‘journal de classe’. “, he took my journal and gave me minus points for bad behaviour, I looked around and could see that none of the other kids had cleaned up their chairs. At that point, I knew that this was personal. I walked out of the class, looked at the classmates already entering the next classroom, my stomach turned, my throat became tense, I was trying not to break down into tears, I could no longer bear this pain, this unfairness, this injustice. I made a decision, F this place, I headed towards the exit, I had to walk up a long filght of stairs before exiting the school. Whilst I was walking up, my gym teacher crossed paths with me, “Walter where are you going???” I looked at him, stood still, then crumbled and burst into tears. I explained the unfairness of what just happened with the geography teacher. He said, its alright I’ll have a word with him — then he said “Why don’t we go have a coffee sometime during the lunch break”. The following week, he took me out to the Petit Sablon in this lovely bistro full of pictures on the wall. We sat next to the window. I had an orange juice, and then he started asking me questions like “Have you got any girlfriends?” I said no, he said “But you’ve got a beautiful smile, I’m sure you’ve catched some girl’s attention”, “What do you like doing Walter?” I explained that I like Sport and Art, then I don’t recall the rest of the conversation, he then took me into this old church explained the history, and then we went back to class. That event marked me for life. The essence and the significance of it, deeply touched me. When I was stript from all dignity, when I couldn’t have felt any lower, any more upset, my gym teacher, Monsieur Déranger, showed up, gave me a piece of humanity, but most importantly, gave UNFORGIVING KINDNESS. Monsieur Déranger was my saving grace at that time in my life, and I shall never forget him. I still cry today from that event. Monsieur Déranger is like Paul. Paul is Monsieur Déranger. Both of them have marked me so profoundly and I am eternally grateful to have had them in my life.
But coming back to what I was saying, because I have had to work 10x harder than any neurotypical person, its given me a sense of unfairness, a curse for life. At least that is how I feel about it. Uni was the only time I felt like I could “manage” life. During school, I had bolemia for 4 years because I was trying to control and cope. My romantic relationships seem impossible because I don’t feel like I could ever romantically satisfy someone because I hold the burden, the guilt, of having to work 10x harder than a normal person. Me and Paul shared the same struggles, he was dyslexic, and told me he always felt like he couln’t fit in, he was an outkast. The suicidal ideation is because I don’t feel like I am thriving, I feel ashamed of myself constantly. And this I have carried for a very very long time, since I was 16. Now Paul is gone, the one person who I felt like we could relate but no matter what we’re in it together, we shall support each other, and MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS, that was his movement, he deeply cared about helping men get through struggles. This person, that the world so desperately needs, is gone.
So when the Therapist asked me “WHY” I am suicidal. I simply couldn’t even put it into words. I was stuck. but I am very aware of the WHY and its not simple, but its clear to WHY.
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