I survived my suicide jump: My spine is split in two and I am disabled for life… but here’s how I finally found happiness

In March 2018, 16-year-old Valerie Eng jumped from the edge of a tall building hoping for her short life. Miraculously, she survived.

But the injuries she suffered from the crash on the concrete left her with horrific, life-changing injuries.

Her spine ‘broke in two’ and she suffered multiple open fractures in her feet and back. At the age of 16, she was now permanently dependent on a wheelchair.

Now, six years later, the Singaporean shares her story in one powerful interview charting her recovery from the event that ‘destroyed my whole body’ and how, from the bleak darkness, she found a reason to live.

In the interview, Eng, now 24, describes the moment she regained consciousness after her fall.

The first thing she remembers is being in tremendous, immediate pain. She described trying to move, desperately trying to find a position that was less painful, but she couldn’t.

She remembered feeling the pain and thinking: Ithis is how life is.”

In the years since, she has undergone several surgeries to repair her feet, toes and back, but her spine has never fully recovered. She has limited range of motion in her legs and is wheelchair bound.

Eng has struggled with her mental health since high school. She has visible self-harm scars along her forearms, where she used to cut herself daily after school.

She said Home base Asia these destructive tendencies, and her eventual suicide attempt, stemmed from dealing with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

BPD is a comprehensive diagnosis. According to the researchers, it is often accompanied by strong mood swings, feelings of shame about oneself, impulsive behavior and difficulty maintaining stable relationships. New York Presbyterian.

Research shows that approximately 70 percent of people with borderline personality disorder will attempt suicide at some point in their lives.

Starting in 2014, when she was in high school, Eng’s BPD caused her to have psychotic episodes, where she would see faces on the walls and barbs in her skin, which were “overwhelming.”

Although she was academically talented and performed well in school, she felt isolated.

She said the school did their best to support her, but their efforts fell short.

‘I would like to [the school was] I was very scared for me because they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t want to hurt me, but at the same time they didn’t want to [me] to hurt another student,” she said.

This led her to switch schools shortly before her attempt.

She called this the ‘lowest point of my’ [her] to live’.

After her jump, her mental health did not immediately improve. She said she had several “successful” suicide attempts in the years that followed.

Looking back, she said it was because she was frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t die.

She missed the things she used to do, such as playing tennis, which became more difficult and expensive because she was dependent on a wheelchair.

And it made her lonely to see her peers going to college while she was in the hospital and falling behind in her studies.

But eventually, after her spine deteriorated and she began to accept her disability, she began to see glimmers of hope.

The support of her family, friends and doctors led her to a new philosophy: that life is worth living. Before her suicide attempt, she had ‘never really had anything hopes or visions for the future.’

When she decided to accept her condition, she remembers thinking to herself, “If I can’t walk, I can’t walk.” And I’m not going to fight it, because it does my body more harm than good.’

She started to give herself permission to enjoy things again and Eng’s therapist told her to constantly check in with herself and ask, “what do I need?”

A friend, who is a psychologist, also recommended that Eng continue writing poetry, a hobby she picked up in the hospital while recovering.

This epiphany made Eng realize she had something to look forward to when she left the hospital: she had a sense of purpose, which is the key to living a happy life.

Even simple things, like her grandmother’s gardening, can be enough, she said.

An estimated 703,000 people die by suicide every year International Association for Suicide Prevention. The number of attempts is likely much higher, but it’s difficult to know because these attempts often go unreported.

Since 2011 Kaiser Family Fund reported that the suicide rate in America has increased by at least 16 percent – ​​with 39,518 suicide attempts in 2011 and 49,369 in 2022.

According to the IASP, people with depression are twenty times more likely to commit suicide than non-depressed people.

Now Eng dreams of going to college, playing wheelchair tennis and one day opening a bookstore, saying her hopes for the future drive her.

She said, “Just having that dream, even if it’s unattainable, even if you don’t get it, you lived for something.”

Psychology supports this idea, as research has shown that people with a purpose in life live longer, make more money, and are healthier than those without a purpose Anthony Burrow, a Cornell psychologist and director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research said.

And a goal doesn’t have to be a lofty one; it can be something as simple as wanting to be a good parent.

‘The goal is not something big, ethereal. It’s something you can carry with you and articulate in clear, specific and simple ways,” Burrow said.

Even with a newfound purpose in life, things aren’t easy for Eng now, she said. She is still actively learning and adapting to life as she grows older.

But things are getting better. She has documented her efforts to raise money to purchase a special tennis wheelchair in 2020, and has practiced extensively.

“Playing wheelchair tennis after the incident makes me feel very strong because it reminds me that even though I have lost so much, I can still regain a part of myself,” she said.

She also used the time she spent in the hospital to catch up on her studies, and took a number of exams needed to qualify for university.

She survives and enjoys the time she has.

“I guess that’s what life is, just being content,” she said.