In March 2018, 16-year-old Valerie Eng jumped from the edge of a tall building hoping for a short life. Miraculously he survived.
But the injuries he sustained in the crash into the concrete left him with horrific injuries that changed his life.
His spine was broken in two and he suffered multiple open fractures in his feet and back. At 16 he was permanently dependent on a wheelchair.
Now, six years later, the Singaporean has shared her story in a powerful interview charting his recovery from the event that ‘destroyed my entire body’ and how, out of the grim darkness, he found a reason to live.
After her first suicide attempt at age 16, Valerie Eng was in and out of the hospital to undergo several surgeries on her spine, legs and feet.
In the interview, Eng, now 24, details the moment he regained consciousness after his fall.
The first thing he remembers is feeling immense and immediate pain. She described how she tried to move, desperate to find a position that was less painful, but she couldn’t.
She remembered feeling the pain and thinking, ‘don’tThis is life.
In the years that followed, he underwent several surgeries to repair his feet, toes, and back, but his spine never fully recovered. She has limited movement in her legs and is in a wheelchair.
Eng has struggled with his mental health since high school. He has visible self-harm scars along his forearms, where he used to cut himself daily after school.
She said Native Asia These destructive tendencies and his eventual suicide attempt arose from dealing with borderline personality disorder (BPD).
BPD is a wide-ranging diagnosis. It often includes severe mood swings, feelings of shame about oneself, impulsive behavior, and difficulty maintaining stable relationships, according to New York Presbyterian.
About 70 percent of people with borderline personality disorder will attempt suicide at some point in their lives, studies suggest.
Starting in 2014, when he was in high school, Eng’s BPD caused him to have psychotic episodes, in which he saw faces on walls and spikes on his skin, which were “overwhelming.”
Although she was academically talented and did well in school, she felt isolated.
Eng lives with borderline personality disorder and initially had difficulty accepting his new disability. But the support of friends and means like poetry have helped.
She said the school did everything it could to support her, but its efforts were insufficient.
‘I feel like [the school was] very afraid of 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] hurt another student,’ he said.
This led her to change schools shortly before her attempt.
She called this the “lowest point of my life.” [her] life’.
After his jump, his mental health did not immediately improve. He said he had multiple “haphazard” suicide attempts in the years that followed.
Looking back, she said this was because she was frustrated at not being able to die.
He missed doing the things he used to do, like playing tennis, which became more difficult and expensive because he was dependent on a wheelchair.
And it made her feel lonely watching her classmates go to college while she was in the hospital, falling behind in her studies.
But eventually, after his spinal condition worsened and he began to accept his disability, he 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’I never really had any. hope or any vision for the future.
When she decided to accept her condition, she remembered thinking to herself: ‘If I can’t walk, I can’t walk. And I won’t fight it, because it does my body more harm than good.”
She began giving 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 Eng continue writing poetry, a hobby she had picked up in the hospital while recovering.
With this idea, Eng realized that he had something to look forward to when he left the hospital: he had a sense of purpose, which is key to leading a happy life.
Even simple things, like your grandmother’s gardening, can be enough, she shared.
Before his suicide attempt, Eng said one of his favorite activities was playing tennis. Since he left the hospital, he started learning to play wheelchair tennis.
Eng said fighting his disability did his body more harm than good. The only way to improve his condition was to accept it.
An estimated 703,000 people die from suicide each year, according to the International Association for Suicide Prevention. The number of attempts is likely much higher, but it is difficult to know since these attempts often go unreported.
Since 2011, Kaiser Family Fund reported that The suicide rate in the United States has increased by at least 16 percent: 39,518 suicide attempts in 2011 and 49,369 in 2022.
According to the IASP, people with depression are 20 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-depressed people.
Now, Eng dreams of going to college, playing wheelchair tennis and opening a bookstore one day, and she says her hope for the future is what motivates her.
She said, “Just by having that dream, even if it’s unattainable, even if you don’t get it, you were living for something.”
Psychology supports this idea, as studies have found that people with a purpose in life live longer, earn more money, and are healthier than people without a purpose Anthony Burrow, Cornell psychologist and director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. saying.
And purpose doesn’t have to be a far-reaching goal; It can be something as simple as wanting to be a good father.
Eng raised money to buy a custom wheelchair to play tennis. Practicing makes her feel strong, she said.
‘Purpose is not something grand and ethereal. “It’s something you can carry with you and articulate clearly, specifically and simply,” Burrow said.
Even with a renewed purpose in life, things are not easy for Eng now, he said. He is still actively learning and adapting to life as he grows.
But things are improving. He has documented his efforts to raise money to purchase a special tennis wheelchair in 2020 and has been practicing frequently.
“Playing wheelchair tennis after the incident makes me feel very strong, because it reminds me that although I have lost a lot, I can still recover some parts of myself,” she said.
Additionally, he used his time in the hospital to catch up on his studies and took some of the exams needed to qualify for college.
She is surviving and enjoying the time she has.
“I think that’s life, just being content,” he said.