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I want to kill myself today. That WhatsApp message from my little brother, Arman, buzzed in my crossbody purse just as we lined up for lunch at the Mandarin, a popular buffet-style restaurant in town. It was Thursday, August 1st, 2019, just after 11 a.m. in Eastern Canada. Due to the time difference, it was already evening in Kazakhstan. A cold wave rushed through my body, freezing my thoughts. My heart stumbled, then shattered into a million pieces. I forced myself to stay c

We grew up in a family which did not celebrate birthdays. Not in the sense we know about these days. Nobody sang a birthday song, there...

I awoke at 5:15 a.m. on the day my only brother took his life. That moment is forever etched in my memory. There is a 12-hour time difference between us, and when I checked my phone that Sunday morning, I saw messages from Arman. They were full of sadness, a glimpse of the deep pain he had been carrying. And then—silence. “My story is very complex”. I would repeat these words often to the psychologists and others to whom I turned to during my months of personal crisis. This l