I Am Still Here

Original post

One of our stories for Voices of The North Slope, we will hear from Lorene Paniġak Kaleak from Pt. Lay!💛🖤 Quyanaqpak Lorene for sharing your story. This is her story titled: “I Am Still Here” “September is Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, and this year, I don’t want to speak only about statistics or wear a ribbon and move on. I want to speak as someone who survived. I was only twelve years old when bullying became so heavy that I began believing the world would be better without me. Twelve years old. I was still a child, yet I was carrying emotions I didn’t know how to explain. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, I felt exhausted. I convinced myself that disappearing would somehow make life easier for everyone around me. At fifteen, I was still fighting that battle. At sixteen, I was still fighting. At seventeen, after family problems and losing my great-uncle to pancreatic cancer, grief became another weight added to everything I was already carrying. There were moments throughout those years when I genuinely believed I wouldn’t live long enough to see adulthood. But I did. I lived. And now I’m eighteen years old. I’m in college. I’m working toward a future that the twelve-year-old version of me couldn’t even imagine having. Sometimes I still think about her, the little girl who believed she was a burden, who couldn’t see beyond the pain she was experiencing, and who thought everyone would be better off without her. If I could stand in front of her today, I wouldn’t be angry with her for struggling. I would tell her about everything she hasn’t seen yet. I’d tell her, you’re growing up. You’re going to graduate. You’re going to go to college. You’re going to discover that there are people who love you more deeply than you realized. You’re going to hear your family tell you they’re proud of you. You’re going to laugh again, and one day, that laughter won’t feel forced. And most importantly, I’d tell her, you’re going to want to live. That is something I never thought I would be able to say. Today, I don’t want my life to end. I want to see where it goes. I want the stable future I’m working toward. I want to accomplish the things I’ve dreamed about. I want to become someone my younger self would look at and realize, We made it. I know now that the thoughts I once had were not predictions of my future. Pain convinced me that there was nothing beyond it, when in reality, there were entire chapters of my life I hadn’t lived yet. My family loves me. They’re proud of how far I’ve come. They remind me that my life matters, my presence matters, and my voice matters. And I’ve finally learned to believe them. So during Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, I want to use that voice for the person who hasn’t reached their better chapter yet. Please Stay. Not because everything will magically become perfect. Not because healing happens overnight. Stay because a painful chapter should not get to write the ending of your entire story. Tell someone. Reach toward the people who care about you. Let yourself be helped. Give yourself the opportunity to meet the person you can become. At twelve, I couldn’t imagine being eighteen. At eighteen, I’m grateful that I get to wonder who I’ll be at twenty-five, thirty, forty, and beyond. There is so much of my story that hasn’t been written yet. I am not ashamed of the girl I used to be. I am proud that she survived long enough for me to become the woman I am becoming. I was twelve, I survived. I was fifteen, I survived. I was sixteen, I survived. I was seventeen, I survived. Now I am eighteen. I’m in college. I am building my future. I am loved. I am proud. But most importantly, I am alive. And after spending so many years believing I wasn’t supposed to be here, I can finally say this and mean every word: I am still here. I am a survivor, And I will keep surviving.”