When I try to divide my life into periods, I never struggle.
Because in every stage of my life, I see myself looking out through a window.

Before I started school, during those innocent years, I used to watch the neighborhood from the window.
I watched other kids playing joyfully together.
I was a child unaware of everything.
All I wanted was to have fun — yet even back then, I carried a vague sadness and helplessness inside me.
A strange voice in my head kept saying: “I need to grow up quickly!”
But growing up didn’t make things better.
In fact, everything got worse.

The next stop in my life was primary school.
It was when I began to understand reality just a little bit more.
I remember my first day at school. I remember the next three years too…
I never really had close friendships.
I was introverted, quiet, and a little timid.
Again, I was watching from a window — the school window this time.
I especially remember watching the other kids being picked up by their mothers. I envied them.
What I envied was the emotional bond between them.
They would hug and walk home hand in hand.
I still remember the classroom activities, snack breaks, the cafeteria, the lessons…
Even now, whenever I pass by an elementary school, that same deep sadness returns.
Because I still haven’t moved on from it — from the childhood I never truly got to live.

Then we moved.
I was in middle school now, but in a different school, a different neighborhood.
This time, the kids weren’t the kind of people I felt I could connect with.
The area was rough, and so were the students.
Despite that, I somehow made friends —
a group I would later deeply regret.
This was also when I had surgery after a medical complication.
I began failing classes.
And I slowly walked into what would become a miserable high school experience.
I remember how suffocating middle school felt.
Just like in primary school, I couldn’t build strong friendships.
I still couldn’t talk to people.
Was it me? Or was it them?
During this period, I hated myself.
I thought I was ugly.
So I shut down.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
And because of family pressure, I couldn’t even go outside alone.
I was 17 when I first took a bus by myself.
How deeply that set me back in life.
And then… I began to feel life — slowly and in the most painful ways.
It damaged me. A lot.

Every recess, and especially each morning when I first arrived at school, I’d stare out the window.
And I’d sink deeper into myself.
That was when life began laying the first stones on the path that would lead to my suicide attempt.
I listened to sad songs. I cried often.
During summer breaks, I would dream constantly —
dreams of meeting celebrities, of becoming rich, of becoming famous.
Most of the time, I was on the balcony at home.
I’d make myself coffee and pray all night.
Even then, I was just watching the world from the balcony window.

The next phase of my life —
I think of it as “the calm before the storm.”
Although, not realizing the storm I was living in made me forget it was even a storm.
Four years.
Four painfully slow years where I desperately tried to save myself by clinging to hobbies.
My Instagram pages… TikTok accounts… YouTube channels… websites… crypto experiences…
Each one required effort. Each one became a memory.
Each one carried a piece of hope.
I made different prayers for each.
I even had a gaming channel where I completed entire games, and a podcast channel.
I can’t forget them.
The girl I thought I loved…
It was just me trying to soothe myself.
I couldn’t scream at the mirror what I truly wanted —
that I wanted to be a woman.
So I repressed it. And that repression swallowed me whole.
Back then, the window I looked through was no longer a school window.
It was the window of the school shuttle,
the view from the steps I sat on during gym class,
the route I stared at while crying on my way home after working as a waitress.
I watched the buses go by.
Each one carrying a different life.
And even in all that pain — I was still hopeful.
That view, those stairs, the buses…
There was a tiny flicker of hope in my depression.

The next stop: test prep.
I was at a cram school, preparing for the university exam.
This time, I stared out the cram school window.
I thought about every regret I had.
Over and over.
I replayed every moment of my life.
I wanted to die, again and again.
I wanted to escape.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even succeed at dying.
The days on the calendar began falling away, one by one.
Without realizing it, I was getting closer to the day I would attempt suicide.

Then came the psychiatric hospital.
I cried while watching people from its windows.
I stood on its enclosed balcony and looked at the sky.
I screamed inside:
“How pathetic I am…”
I couldn’t do anything. Just sat there.
I read the messages scratched onto the walls.
The cries of those who had come before me burned my heart.
After those days filled with pain, I left the hospital with a thousand false promises.
None of them were kept.
I was deceived.
Again.
And again.
There were moments I lost touch with reality.
One time I was on a bus, and people were staring at me like I was broken.
Those were some of the darkest days of my life.

Later, I ended up at a university clinic with a psychologist.
Sometimes I’d speak while watching through the car window or from their office.
That psychologist — the one who pushed me closer than ever to suicide —
was a pedophile.

And now?
I’m still looking out the window.
Nothing has changed.
Except for the days I convinced myself it had.
But really — nothing changed.
I’m still here.
Still waiting, in some corner.
Still unseen.
Still the forgotten, broken one nobody cares about.