I 20(M) was ready to kill myself at an early age due to family living in a “typical” Chinese household with tiger parents. I was convinced that my life would end at the age of 18 max since I felt like I had nothing else to live for any longer than that and was ready to kill myself on my 18th birthday, the only thing keeping me was my desire to live a normal high-school life at least. My parents never showed any care or affection towards me. I was always the “failure of the family” in their eyes who was always told I no hopes of an academic future even though I had 96% averages throughout high-school busting my ass just to at least try and live up to their high expectations.

I started giving up in school by my senior year about to hit 18, getting involved with drugs, gangs and violence eventually getting myself involved with the police along with some of my other classmates who were going through similar experiences as I did. The school put me through a program at the police station after school to talk to a police counsellor about my actions and my intentions. The first session I was forced to bring a legal guardian to watch over and I was forced to bring my mother with. Eventually the conversation started being lead by my mother talking about how I was a disappointment and that she was already thinking about throwing me into the streets at the age of 17. The conversation escalated into an argument with my mother and the police counsellor eventually telling her to her face that she was a bad parent and things got extremely heated and having the police escort my mother out of the facility mid session leaving me there alone inside. I was told I wasn’t entirely at fault for my actions and was given an option to live on my own with help through funding from the police. I declined, yet thinking over it now I’m not sure why. (I think I was just scared of being in an unfamiliar setting at the time but I’m not entirely sure) Coming home from that session I was given a kids help phone number and the counsellor’s private cell phone number in case anything escalated at home due to what happened earlier during the session. I came home to my eldest sister who was 26 at the time asking me how it went. She was the only one in the family who cared about my well being, explaining what happened and opened up to her being the first time I opened up to anyone in my family for the first time, showing her my arm revealing cuts of self harm to her as she gave me advice to go with her to see her personal doctor. She then went up to my second sister 24 at the time and told her about my arm. The second sister only replied with saying that she didn’t care whether or not I killed myself.

Eventually my dad came down to speak with me. I had somewhat of a language barrier with him as I couldn’t full express my emotions to him due to my inability to speak Cantonese fluently but I could understand what he was saying pretty well. He told me he just wanted to know if I was capable living on my own and expressed that he only cared if I was able to be okay in the future. He cried in-front of me during this which was the first time I ever saw any tears from a father I thought had a heart of steel even though he didn’t cry at his own father’s funeral that we attended when we were there. After a heartfelt conversation I hugged him and he went to bed. Hearing this I was distraught and didn’t know what to do and genuinely felt like a failure to my family as my father was the only person in my family I showed a bit of respect to prior to this day.

Alone in my room during this night I downed 3 bottles of nyquil medicine trying to see if I could possibly put myself to sleep not caring about the health risks. I eventually ended up holding a knife to my chest thinking about all the times my mother told me she would have been happier if I was never born and how the only reason I am alive was because my father wanted a son since I am the youngest. I thought about my father in the moments of his tears and I also thought about my only person I considered a true “friend” at the time named Melissa who I would text everyday as I was not able to see her at all due to going to different schools in different cities. I decided that my life may have not been worth living for myself but for Melissa and for my father at the time, put down the knife and went to sleep. I slept for exactly 36 hours.

As time went on I started living my own life, dropped out of school and started pursuing fitness and gaming/streaming. I currently am a coach for high-school sports teams and also a coach for a sports team representing our province that attends nationals yearly (I live in Canada) as well as a fitness trainer. I cut off ties with most of my family and decided I would live life my own way and shouldn’t dictate my actions based on others expectations instead of my own. Surprisingly I have grown to have pretty high expectations of myself now which lead me to grow a lot in the recent years. I am now content with where I am but not satisfied as I know I can achieve much more. Giving me the biggest boost in confidence was going back to visit my high-school recently talking to one of my favourite teachers who was one of the only teachers who knew fully about my situation at home and showed empathy towards me as he knew what it was like himself (I live in a predominantly asian area). My view on life has changed and I distribute who and what I value differently than I did back then and has lead me to live on longer than 18. And I definitely plan on living past my current age 20 :)