Confessions of… someone who stopped pretending

 Confessions of a is an anonymous column that looks to unearth viewpoints from unique individuals at Massey University. Each week we will give the spotlight to someone new, so If you think you’ve got an interesting story to tell, please get in touch with Editor@massivemagazine.org.nz  

CW: Mentions of suicide.

Confessions of someone who stopped pretending

It wasn’t until I was lying in the hospital bed in April last year that I started thinking about everything that had happened and all the choices I’ve made in my life to end up here. I can’t blame the mental health system for failing me, I can’t blame my family for not loving me, I can't blame the trauma that I went through. But as I was laying on that hospital bed, I realised that if I was still trying to kill myself in my 20s and that the system had failed me ever since I was a child, I wouldn’t be the only one. 
 
The mental health system doesn’t listen to kids, they treat kids as if they don’t matter and they’re dumb, because they’re a kid.  Everybody talks now about how the mental health system is fucked and how we need money, no, fuck that. Money doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t know what the issue is. We have no shortage of people coming into the mental health sector, quantity has never been the issue, it’s the quality. The people working for the mental health sector, not everybody, but enough of them are absolute shit, they shouldn’t work with kids. They don’t listen to them, they make you feel like you don’t matter, they make you feel that because you are a kid, you don’t know right from wrong. And because the people that are supposed to help you make you feel worthless, you don’t get better, but you learn to pretend. You perfect the art of pretending to be okay, and shoving down your problems, because you realise a hard truth, people don’t care if you’re okay, they just can’t be bothered dealing with you if you aren’t. So you pretend. 
 
I don’t want people to go through life pretending. I don’t want kids to be taught to shut up. I don’t want kids to learn how to shut down and pretend. I don’t want people to end up like me. 
 
So I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I stopped asking “why me”. I began asking what I can do about it, how can I fix it, and I made the decision to study social work so that I can help prevent kids from ending up where I was. I can’t fix the entire system myself, but I sure as shit was going to try. 
 
I used to wonder why I was born into abuse and misery, until I realised that I had to be. In order to help kids avoid ending up like me, I had to experience it first-hand. 
 
Changing your mindset is not easy and I am not going to pretend it is. It takes a lot of practice, self-sacrifice and cutting a lot of people from your life. You still have bad days, but you still hold onto the hope that now you are in control of your future, and you can shape it into whatever you feel like. But ask yourself this, are you making the decision to better yourself and future generations, or are you making the decision purely based on feeling sorry for yourself? 
 
Nobody can help you if you aren’t ready to help yourself. Are you ready?