“I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand back and, if possible, get a pillar between me and the train...A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.” Winston Churchill's words show that even the greatest people can be afflicted by depression. Mental illness is not new. Yet, we so often cling to the feeble hope, “Mental illness will never be a problem for me. I'm happy. I have a good life. I have no reason to feel anything out of the ordinary.” Unfortunately, we are proved wrong more often than right. I myself, at 8 years old, found myself feeling that something was wrong with me, but I saw the detrimental effects of my older sister's depression, and promised myself that I would never go down the same path that she did. I promised myself that I was stronger. I promised myself that I was safe. I was faced with the haunting danger of mental illness the day I received the call that my sister was being taken to the hospital. As a child, with all my life ahead of me, I wondered why anyone would want to take their own life. Was there not an inherent desire within each human being to stay alive? What, then, was wrong with my sister? When would she return? Would she ever return? I fell into depression intermingled with denial and anger. I despised myself for breaking the promise I had made. Was I really that weak? I wrote in journals, my only escape being in words that I scribbled in pages and pages of desperate paragraphs, trying to convince myself that I was merely fabricating things as a result of the trauma I'd experienced recently. Yet, at 11 years old, I had already written the words that I wanted to be spoken at my funeral. When I entered 3rd grade, my teachers would ask my what was wrong, and I would smile and respond that nothing was wrong, nothing at all. Yet when at home, I would often burst into tears for no reason. I would pull out my hair. I would stay isolated more often than not. I had no friends because I seemed distant and hostile to anyone who met me. I was a wreck, and yet I was determined to maintain a strong composure. After all, it was all in my head, right? Despite my best attempts, exhaustion became a state of existence. I couldn't focus, I couldn't find inspiration, and yet the memories of my mother's quiet weeping at night reminded me that I could not, would not, ever do anything to bring my parents any pain, even if it meant I shouldered more than I could carry. I believed I could shoulder everything. It was like dragging a mountain with me out of bed, to school, and back home. On the outside, I was the talented girl who lived a perfect life in a wealthy family. On the inside, I was barely holding myself together. Then came high school, the rampaging rhino that knocked the wind out of me and tested how very thin I could stretch. Freshman year crawled by, and my grades were less than impressive. Sophomore year arrived and I no longer cared. I was failing all my classes. All I cared about was keeping myself alive. I had found my limit, despite my attempts to stay strong. I wrote my will. I tried to find out which medications would be most likely to kill me. I mentally said goodbye to the people I loved. I wondered if anyone would ever forgive me. I had a meeting with my counselor, perhaps coincidentally, on the morning of the day I intended to die. I was unable to keep myself stoic, and she learned of my plan soon enough. I was sent to the hospital. I wasn't sure what to feel; relief? Anger? I wondered why they wouldn't let me do as I pleased with my life. Was it really too hard for me to accept, in my darkest moments, that there were people who truly loved me? My return home about a week later proved to me that more people had missed me than I had expected. I lived in an almost dream-like state, unable to grasp the reality that I still stood, very much alive, before the very people I'd said my goodbyes to. Had I finally found hope? How long would it last? The next few months were not exactly easy. There was no instant relief, or a magical morning on which I woke up feeling truly confident with my place in the world. The journey has been constant, and continues to this day. I cherish my life, and my greatest wish is to inspire those who have lost all hope; those who are fallen, like I was, into a state of such constant despair that they do not see the point of taking one more step. I hope to prove that a single step is all it takes, and while hopelessness is very real, it cannot control us forever, because in the end we are stronger than the chains that may try to hold us down.