I needed to do a lot of decompressing since Wednesday morning. I even managed to do this without crying too much. Before I try my best to be the journalist I need to be after this election, I just need to get this out of my system first.

Jump.

This wasn’t the first time my mind went to a dark and strange place at 2am, but this was one of the few times that I felt my heart drop to such a depth that made Marianas Trench look like nothing.

I felt my hope that I was witnessing the historical election of the first woman president in the United States slowly seep from my body. From 9pm til 2am, the fight and hope just drained from my heart with each different swing state going Red.

My one classmate announced that AP had just announced Trump as the winner and I had to immediately leave the room. I was just getting my thoughts together after yelling via snapchat when one of my peers exited the room in tears.

I didn’t need to hear the words, I just knew.

I can write elaborate expressions that could easily meet the word counts of long essays. I can find absurd ways to say simple concepts. In this moment, my mind broke. I could only think in simple sentences.

Leave.

Escape.

Jump.

Kill yourself.

I needed to get out. I needed to run. I needed to find a bridge. I needed to jump. In that moment as I straight up sobbed into the wall and fell to the floor, all I could think is how death and going to hell (since some people believe I’m gonna end up there because I’m queer) would have been better than this feeling. My suicidal thoughts in the past were nothing like this. In the past, I almost killed myself because I thought it’d be better off for the community. What made this different is the fact that I thought it’d be better off than someone else killing me and becoming a hashtag.

As an aspiring journalist, I respect your opinion and will fight the world if they tell you how to think. So go ahead. Call me extreme and unreasonable. Tell me to get over it. Tell me it doesn’t matter. That’s fine. You are entitled to your interpretation of the absolute fear of an anxious, young queer person.

I was afraid of this new presidency resulting in such ignorance and hatred in this country that made the revolting hatred that took place in the UK after Brexit look like nothing. I was afraid that by the time the sun would rise, more people would become so bold that they’d go after me. I wanted to run and end everything myself because I wasn’t going to let some other person end my life.

If it wasn’t for my classmates come bursting out of the classroom, I would have quickly pulled myself off the ground. If they didn’t immediately wrap me in a hug and held me together as I sobbed in fear of my future, I would have burst through those doors and ran to the closest bridge. In that moment, my world fell apart but it taught me so much.

The biggest thing I have learned in that moment and have reaffirmed by the people I surround myself with? I am not alone.

There is such good in the world. My classmates proved that this world is good. My friends have flooded my inboxes with love and support (and an offer of a place to hide if America really does endanger me and I find myself in Calgary) ever since the early morning after the president was announced. I have never expected so many hugs in my life. I have never dreamed of people just genuinely caring about if I survive.

To every single person who has shown me kindness since the election’s results were announced, I owe you everything. In that moment, y’all showed me why I want to be a journalist. In one of the hardest moments in our life, we reached for love. We are so much better than the outbursts of hatred popping up around the country. We deserve to tell these stories. We deserve to tell the truth.

I owe you all my life right now. I have every intention to live Michelle Obama’s words: When they go low, we go high.

If there is injustice in my life, I will hold back as much as I can. I will keep myself in check. I will never forget who I am. But I will not let this injustice continue. I will make damn sure that people know that this cannot continue. I will report on anyone who DARES to threaten my existence or anyone else’s. I am meant to be a part of the force that keeps record of the world we live in. I am meant to help the people I live with and educate them on things that they need to know. If there is injustice in the world, I will report on it to the best of my abilities.

I will be the best reporter I can be or die trying. Y’all see something beautiful and worth caring about. Even if I forget or slip up, I have confidence that there are enough people out there that will help me catch my breath and move forward.

I never want a single person to feel the way I did finding out the results of the election. I have every intention to do my job as a journalist to help us move in the direction that will let me be one of the last people who ever felt scared of their country because of a new president.