I'm actually a bit torn about this topic.
I remember having my first suicide attempt when I was about 8 years old, I started having thoughts about it when I was 4.
They weren't "suicidal" because I didn't understand what that was at the time exactly, but I did have issues with seeing a point in existing.
Whenever I brought it up, adults would laugh at me trying to be "philosophical" and how "cute" it was to try think outside the box being such a young child - it hurt, as I was dead serious.
I was sent to school eventually, that's where things really took off as I was very different, my grades were way high except mathematics, I was hovering around average or below, this triggered somewhat of a gang mentality you normally see in prison, I stood out, so I had to be beat down.
After a year of this, I was held back a grade as I had gone quiet, I had stopped doing homework entirely, everything I used to enjoy was gone, I wasn't allowed to be me without ridicule or consequence, I hated the teachers for looking at me like a child when I tried to have a serious conversation with them at recess as I found the other kids to not understand the topics I wanted to talk about, I didn't want to play, I ended up just drawing by myself inside, when forced outside I'd spend the entire time speed walking around the school by myself or hide in the bushes to avoid people, I felt like an animal for being herded outside against my will, I hated the adults with their self imposed sense of authority over me as they had not earned my respect.
My mother refused to send me to a school for the gifted because she thought I would fall behind due to my year of bullying and being held back, so did everyone else, they never stopped to think that maybe I wasn't as lazy as it looked like from above, perhaps I has stopped doing homework and learning because of the trauma I had been exposed to, but because I was a child, my words meant nothing, I was cute for using big words.
That's when I became quiet and secretive, I couldn't count on anyone, I started faking stomach pains and headaches so often on top of the stress related ones I already had, that the government started bitching about me having skipped too many classes and my parents were damn near about to face a fine.
Teachers yelled at me each year and glowed with utter joy about being able to call me lazy and how it was a choice to not do homework, and when I finally did do homework and it was up at the quality I used to produce, I was insulted and accused of having my parents do it for me as it was too complex for myself to understand. I still remember that smirk on their faces, they loved calling me out and watching me sink into myself as I knew talking back was futile. My parents were sitting there, nodding, agreeing with them, I stopped talking to them too.
I stopped feeling anything, I became present but non existent if that makes any sense, I'd day dream each day at school and I became so good at it, it overlapped reality to the point it was lucid dreaming looking like augmented reality, I missed out on everything at school but I didn't care, my dream world was more important as it was so much better, when school was over I'd go straight to the computer and play video games until I'd be forced to have dinner.
I honestly think video games kept me alive more than anything, although I was interacting with fake characters up until I discovered online gaming, they were brilliantly put together, their language was wonderful so I taught myself English so I could understand them better. Of course my school took credit for teaching me English and thought I was savant for having such an aptitude for that and that alone, attempts of explaining my knowledge of other languages had people point out how cute and silly I was for thinking you can learn a language by yourself through video games and movies.
When I was 8, I finally had enough, I was disappointed in everything and everyone, I had witnessed so much hate, violence and ignorance, towards me and everything that was deemed different.
I took the old-ass Nilfisk (old wheeled vacuum cleaner) as it was perfect having a flat top and would put me up high enough for a hanging, I tied a rope around the solid wooden stairs we had, it wasn't long enough, so I had to tie 3 together to make the noose I needed to finish the job.
I put my head through and pushed the vacuum away, I felt a big, violent tug on the rope and for a second I couldn't breathe, panic did set in and I wiggled, until my poorly tied knots gave way and I plummeted to the floor, the rope caught something and my face hit one of the wooden steps and sent a baby tooth flying out of my mouth and caused damage to the tooth that was coming up underneath it.
Oh well. I kept that a secret, just like I had kept everything else a secret because nobody listened in the first place or I was dismissed for being so young.
Eventually I was sent to a counseling at school because nobody could get anything out of me, I thought this was stupid, I wasn't quiet until I had gotten tired of getting ignored, so now I was getting blamed for something they did, great.
The lady was nice, I felt like she actually listened so I made the mistake of opening up to her ruse.
She showed me lots of beautiful rorschach pictures, puzzles I had fun with. Later I learned her ways were highly critiqued for being outdated, but the damage was done and believed by everyone who read the outcome, because she's a counselor so she must know everything without question, right?
She ended up saying that I was very delicate, that I needed to be in foster care and everything was my mother's fault, that I'd end up becoming a self harmer and needed to be in a controlled environment or I would eventually snap and hurt myself or someone else.
Cue angry dad, he went up there screaming at the principal for having such an incompetent counselor who pulled answers out her ass after looking at a string of pictures in front of a child with a huge imagination.
The counselor ended up being so terrified of me/my dad that she dropped the other students she was "treating" and called it quits, transferred to another school entirely, stopped responding to communication completely as she was terrified of a lawsuit, my school never got a new counselor after this.
To be fair I missed the tea she made me each session and the fact she pulled me out of the classes I hated.
I was angry at the fact my dad was in arms about the danger of me being removed from my home, but didn't stand up for me anywhere else.
It's just more of the same and my mom kinda loses her mind and starts asking me to kill myself frequently as well as having bullies at school that prey on the fact I'm different, so Imma just fast forward a few years -
One day I made the mistake of leaving my art book open at home, I was 16 at the time, he walked up to me while I was sitting at my computer, gaming, he pointed at my drawing and for the very first time I felt he had actually noticed my art, with excitement I asked if he liked it, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Where did you copy that from?" As it was far too complex for someone like me to complete in his mind, I broke, I said I had drawn it myself, but he had already moved on to the TV so I was invisible again. Prior to this, I had been asking him to send me to a 3D graphics school because I wanted to make video game graphics, he had told me I wasn't good enough, so instead he sent me to a terrible art school around 18, that had barely any art classes and functioned more like a boarding school, full of classes I was burnt out of already, I ended up dropping out on my first day from a complete breakdown that had me finally say I just wanted to die. The teacher took me home and made me call a mental clinic, they harassed me for a while after I cancelled it, I eventually said I didn't need it, I had already had my run-in with my school counselor after all, and I felt like I was being forced to live a life that was just not for me, never once did I stray from the mindset I already had when I was 4.
Eventually I met a guy online in a video game and ran away with him, that turned out to be another horrible mistake, but I'm writing half a wall and I hate feeling like I am hijacking this post.
My reasoning is that, not all kids actually have anymore of a chance at life than an adult does, and if they do, sometimes they go completely dismissed because nobody seems to believe they can feel like they do, that's when they shut down and hide, just like us adults do.
My best moments in life as a child was actually when I played online roleplay games because everyone thought I was an adult and talked to me like one.
Everything else was a mess of pain of various types.
And today I feel just like when I was 4, nothing ever changed my mind, there's no reason for my existence, I could've exited a long time ago and have done far less damage to myself from the constant disappointment and pain I face each day.
The only difference is that I'm no longer too cute to feel the way I do.
I'm not saying that kids don't have a higher chance, but some don't, I never did, and I will always have a big chunk of resentment towards having been forced to live just because I was young and "had a life ahead of me" - now I've lived that life, I am not impressed and I wish I could have aborted myself before I was born.
Again, sorry for the wall of text.
