Forster secondary school student, Jazmin Ewers is one of an estimated 41,000 young Australians aged 12-17 who have made an attempt to end their lives despite a range of prevention strategies and investment from government.

Research has revealed suicide rates among young Australians are at their highest level in a decade.

Jazmin has come to the Great Lakes Advocate in her attempt to encourage her peers to reach out, that it is okay not to be okay and not to feel ashamed.

The 16-year-old high school student’s story is not unlike that of so many young people today – the victim of sustained bullying, forced to change schools and from a broken family.

But, at the same time, Jazmin  has the enduring love, support and respect from her 81-year-old grandfather, who has been her sole guardian for six of the past 12 years.

A widower, his devotion to Jazmin hasn’t gone un-acknowledged by the teen which was one of the triggers for her first attempt at suicide.

“I have always tried to stay strong for my Pa,” Jazmin said.

When her grandfather was forced to have a life saving lung operation in August last year, the realisation Jazmin could be without any real family hit home.

“It has always been just me and Pa. I don’t know anything else.”

While many in the community have offered to care for Jazmin if anything happens to her grandfather, she doesn’t want to be a burden; she doesn’t want pity.

“You just can’t walk into a family.”

Christmas 2017 was another period of tension and deliberation when Jazmin’s almost unknown siblings and birth mother wanted to spend the festive season with her.

“Every Christmas has been just me and Pa.”

For the past four years the two have spent the Christmas holidays on a ‘family’ cruise.

Jazmin also identified that an argument with her much loved Pa triggered depression and dark thoughts.

“He is all I care about.”

Her last attempt – resulted with a confronting stint in ICU – was enough for Jazmin to realise, it’s okay not to be okay.

“This was nothing like my previous times. I was genuinely scared, I was dropping in and out of consciousness, tubes/lines going in and out of my body everywhere, not knowing whether I would be okay.

“Our society labels depression, suicide and suicide attempts as attention seeking, selfish, crazy acts and this isn’t okay. This isn’t true. Depression is a serious illness and nothing to be ashamed of.

“The bottom line is that depression isn’t a figment of the suffer’s imagination. It’s an illness caused by a combination of chemical imbalances and flawed mood regulators in the brain, which is hardly within the suffers control.”

“Express your emotions, tell people how you feel, rant to somebody just let it out. Yell help if you have to. Just please don’t hold it within you like I did and put on a fake front because I promise it’s not somewhere you want to be, it’s painful, draining, being to the point where you think taking your own life is better then being here is destroying, and being on death’s bed is no fun what so ever.”

Jazmin is reaching out to everyone in the community urging young people to seek help.

In the past two weeks Jazmin has made some great leaps forward building her own blog, Recovering Corner.