TW: Mention of suicide and sexual assault.
I’ve always had a very vivid imagination. I could imagine the white hot pain of a bullet burrowing itself into the palm of my hand, feel the cold edge of the razor on my wrists and choke at the water filling my lungs as I imagined my many deaths.
My life has never even been that bad if we’re being honest. I grew up very privileged, I have a very loving family and friends that would burn the world for me. At first, I’d simply imagine running off to an imaginary world. A portal would open in front of me and I’d be transported to a realm I’ve been cultivating since I’ve been conscious. There, I’d be free to do whatever I wanted, I could be who I wanted and love who I want.
The very first time I genuinely considered suicide was two years ago when I realised I’d been raped. I felt so ashamed for not realising what had happened sooner. It wasn’t in a dark alleyway, I wasn’t drunk and it wasn’t a stranger. It had happened in the safety of my bedroom while I was sleeping next to the first person I’d ever dated. I awoke in the middle of it and in my inexperience, I believed him when he said that he thought I was awake, that I must’ve been sleep talking when I “consented” and that we might as well finish since he’s already halfway there. A man has his needs, of course. I couldn’t do anything, I watched him violate me as I stood silent, paralysed, feeling him going in and out, hearing his animalistic grunts in my ear and wincing at his sweat dripping onto my face.
I’d never felt more disgusting in my life. I thought the only way to rid myself of his evil was to end my life. I went over how I’d do it many times. Maybe I’d slit my wrists or jump into the Seine. Perhaps I could swallow all of the expired pills in my cabinet and wash them down with some beer. I never actually did it. I’ve always been great at stepping outside of my own shoes in order to analyse a situation objectively. I knew that my feelings came from trauma, that I’d wake up one day and feel human again.
The second time I considered killing myself was after getting into a friendship-ending fight with a close friend. I had introduced her to a childhood friend of mine who told her lies about me. Despite proving my innocence with ease, this girl said she believed my friend because she’d known me the longest and my efforts to prove my innocence simply made me look guiltier. I lost people I thought were forever friends that day. I was so distraught, I considered getting drunk and throwing myself into the sea. The worst part is those girls aren’t even friends anymore the liar admitted to everything— I learned that two months ago when I came across a mutual friend of ours at a concert.
The third time is somehow the most serious and ridiculous one at the same time. It was the first time I actually called the suicide prevention hotline. I had just received the worst grade of my life for a midterm that I had given my soul to study for and my TA had only written “Shit” on my paper. I sobbed for hours, partly because of the grade but mainly because all the effort I had put in to study had been wasted. One of my best friends from uni was with me and she had also gotten a very disappointing grade. We went to a café to calm down but all I could do was watch as my tears dripped into my disgusting, fishy, low-grade matcha latte. Then, we decided to walk to a prettier part of Paris when a bird took a fat shit on me then on her. I was so mentally done with the entire day that I didn’t even bother wiping it off my coat, neither did my friend. I felt like a complete failure.
I’ve been at university for almost 2 years now. I repeated my first year, then passed into the second year with pretty good grade and here I was royally fucking it up all over again. It was two AM, I was still sobbing about my grade, rereading my paper, trying to find comments that I may have missed but no, there was only one word on my paper and that was “Shit” accompanied by red pen scribbled all over my paragraphs. I hate law school.
It was the first time I ever thought it. I’ve always loved my classes, I loved learning new things and knowing that a piece of knowledge would allow me to help someone in the future, that’s always been one of my goals but at that moment, I hated everything and genuinely wanted to die. I thought that I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the burden of failure, I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for this but I was terrified of telling my parents who had spent a fortune to send me here.
I decided to get out of my bed and make myself a cup of tea, the water tasted like limestone. Funnily enough, that was my final straw (never mess with a girl and her tea). I wrote some letters, put my shoes on and called the suicide prevention hotline as a final warning to the world. They. Put. Me. On. Hold. The entire situation was so ridiculous that I just started laughing. I realised in that moment just how much my life was in my own hands. No one would come to save me, it was up to me to figure this shit out. Listening to the Four Seasons by Vivaldi, I laughed for a good five minutes before understanding that my call wouldn’t be answered. I hung up the phone and sat with myself for a good minute, I was really about to kill myself over a shitty grade and shittier cup of tea. I took my shoes off and called my friend, I was still crying but it was from laughter now. She asked me why I was up past my bedtime, chuckled for a bit after I told her why, and told me it was never that serious, that she was here for me if I needed an ear, shoulder, or both.
I still struggle with suicidal ideation at times, especially when I’m going through stressful times but I always remind myself that it’ll surely pass. Sometimes I just want get away from everything and escape life for a bit, maybe go on holiday and lie about who I am for a few days.
I got my final grades back in January, I was on FaceTime with my parents when the grades dropped. I was convinced there must have been a mistake in the grading (there was and it got fixed but the grades are still shit). I wish my parents didn’t have to see me that way. I genuinely went insane. I threw myself on the floor and sobbed, hugging myself one second and pulling at my hair the next. Cursing and yelling at nothing and everything. My mother was crying and begging me to take deep breaths while my dad was telling me that my grades weren’t that bad, that I could still pass my year if I got passing grades from the remedial exams. I cried so hard I passed out and when I came back to consciousness, my mother was booking plane tickets to Paris to stay with me for a week. That really snapped me out of it to be honest. All the stress I had been holding in since the start of the school year left my body and an odd calmness washed over me. I brewed myself a proper cup of tea and watched as the tea leaves danced in the water, my parents’ voices turning into a blur as each leaf sunk to the bottom of the cup.
That night, my parents told me that they’d stand behind me no matter what, that if I wanted to become a lawyer, whether it happened in four years or seven didn’t matter. I felt a million times better after hearing that. My parents always knew me as this lazy student that didn’t try as hard as she could back when I was in high school. I guess it was true, I was getting good grades without really trying so I was quite lazy but of course I knew this wouldn’t work when I came to university and had been trying to prove that I had changed ever since. I put so much pressure on myself to prove that I’m hardworking now even though my parents know that, I know they do because I tell them how much I love my studies and how excited I am for certain classes all the time. They’ve seen me study and know how much I want to succeed, honestly everyone around me knows this.
That’s the part that made it hurt more, I started to wonder if my love for my studies was reciprocated. This is something people in my university complain about so much, we all feel as though we are graded quite randomly. A paper you write can be a 8/20 with one TA and a 14/20 with the next . It’s incredibly disheartening and one of the reasons why my university is getting sued for discrimination and biased grading. I’ve tried changing universities several times with no success and have accepted that I’ll have to graduate from here one way or another. These experiences have heavily impacted me mentally, to the point where I’ve really had to sit down with myself and think about whether my sacrificing mental health is worth getting this diploma.
I’m here to tell you that it never is. I’ve decided to stay in law, though I’ll be trying to switch universities until the end of my studies and won’t apply here for my master’s. Death is permanent and not an escape. I don’t want to cause pain to those around me and honestly want to see where my life goes, I don’t think anything is ever serious enough to impose in such a permanent measure on yourself. Part of the reason I realised this is by thinking how ridiculous it would be if the thing that took me down was my studies. I chuckle at it every once in a while, I refuse to give this fuck-ass university no one has ever heard of the glory of taking me out. I will live a life full of love and happiness, with all its ups and downs. I will succeed at certain things and fail at others, I will fall in love and get my heart broken, I will write my book, travel the world and visit my friends. And I will do it until a million times over.
While I used to hate life from November to January, I love it now. My situation hasn’t changed, finals are upon me and I’m more stressed than I’ve ever been but I have an internship in Brazil planned for August, I’m going out partying with my friends once I finish my finals and I can’t wait to go to the beach with my sister in two months. I’m going to play with the cats in my grandmother’s garden, trade books with my grandfather and fight with my sister over the last green plum. I’m going to complain about the heat and feeling of sunscreen on my skin, then miss it all when winter comes. I’m going to live life to the fullest for as long as possible.
© 2026 C. H. Gökdemir. All rights reserved.
Cece: Unfiltered 
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