I WAS 12 AND WANTED TO DIE

Melody King was just a child when she wrote her parents a suicide note

- MISHAAL KHAN

As my pen hovered over the sheet of paper, I didn’t quite know how to express exactly how I was feeling. But, at that moment in 1995, I was adamant about something - I wanted to die. In my bedroom, surrounded by posters of PJ and Duncan and my homework on my desk, I was writing a suicide note to my parents. I was just 12.

I had dealt with a lot leading up to that point. Throughout my childhood, although I had struggled to make friends, and while I desperately wanted to fit in, every day I found myself alone in the playground. When I started secondary school in September 1994, things only got worse. While I wasn’t outwardly bullied, I was excluded from every group and didn’t have anyone I could call a friend.

An only child, I was always close to my parents, but I never told them how lonely I was feeling.

And then, that same year as I started secondary school, my uncle – my mum’s younger brother – took his own life. He was only in his 20s and we had all been very close. I had never felt grief before and seeing my family so unbearably bereft was a pain like no other.

But I hid that pain, focusing on my family and not wanting to burden Mum or anyone else with how I was feeling, I chose not to share the anguish I was going through.

I knew my parents loved me and would do anything for me, but when I was 12, things got too much to bear. I waited until I knew Mum and Dad were asleep and spent a few minutes writing a suicide note addressed to them, telling them I loved them and that it wasn’t their fault. Then I tried to take my own life.