Jordan Giraldin

Jordan Giraldin (12), a sweet and friendly senior at SJHHS, is like any other student awaiting the arrival of graduation. However, she may have not gotten to experience the anticipation of graduation if she died two years ago when she tried to commit suicide, the second leading cause of death in American teens.

For Jordan, her troubles originated in elementary school, where bullies verbally abused her

so much to where she herself became a bully. As a result, the kids became too scared to pick on her.

In middle school, she stopped fighting back and things escalated even further when her long-lasting depression was elevated by a group of girls in one of her 8th grade classes, who constantly bullied her to the point of tears. After turning many people against her and making her and her friends outcasts at Ladera Ranch Middle School, the girls (as well as her prolonging toxic relationship with her mother) made her depression and self-hatred increase severely.

Jordan confidently responded, “I hated it. I hated them, I hated myself, I hated school. I just had a lot of built up hate in my life. Me and my mom fought a lot–a lot–and my sister had already moved out, so I felt as if I had nowhere and no one to turn to.”

She began cutting in sixth grade and increasingly cut going into seventh and eighth grade after her parents had brushed off her visits to the school counselor as a cry for attention, and she eventually became addicted to it.  She sometimes carved scarred words like “useless” and “fat” into her skin as a semi-permanent reminder of how she viewed herself.

“I first saw [cutting] on tv, and I didn’t really understand it. Then I realized it really worked for me, and made the emotional pain hurt less, even though I hated myself for it. I thought it was something I could control, but then it started to control me.”

She seemed to get better when she entered high school and became an active member of the drama department, where she found a group of friends who could keep an eye on her and provide a support system. Contrary to her beliefs, things were actually only getting worse.

“I had stopped cutting mostly, with a relapse every once in awhile, and then I got into a relationship with a guy my sophomore year, and he was really verbally abusive.  He would always tell me I was fat and that I needed to workout, and I would always just say ‘Okay’.”

So she stopped eating and started smoking cigarettes to make herself feel full, which encouraged her cutting addiction even more and plummeted the already low self-esteem she had.

“I hated myself so much and the way I looked. I would turn my shower on super hot so that the mirror would fog up and I wouldn’t be able to see the reflection while I got undressed.  I also had a standup mirror in my room, and I turned it around to face the wall because I couldn’t bare to see myself.  And when my parents forced me to eat food, I would just throw it up because just the idea of [it] made me sick.”

As the relationship with her ex progressed and after much destructive thought and several drafts of suicide notes, her eating disorder and depression worsened to the point where she finally tried to overdose on pills.

Luckily, Jordan woke up the next morning with a sort-of hangover sickness, feeling enraged that she didn’t actually kill herself, and went on her way to school.  

At school, she confided in her friend Kaylee Bashor (12), who then reported what she heard to the drama teacher, Ms. Beilstein, a trusted adult with experience handling suicide.  Through Beilstein, the news spread through the administration to the sheriff’s department and, most frightening, to her parents who were unaware of the previous night’s situation.

When her mom returned home from work, she questioned Jordan about the legitimacy of what the school had told her, and, when Jordan verified that she had tried to kill herself, Mrs. Giraldin “just sat there and started to cry.”  

After a sheriff-mandated hospital evaluation and seeing multiple physciatrists, Jordan was diagnosed with not only depression but Type 2 Bipolar Disorder, which mainly causes the chemicals in Jordan’s brain to sway her mood towards the depressive extreme more often than the manic extreme, the opposite being Type 1. Finally, Jordan was provided with an answer as to why her life felt so miserable.

Now under medication and having many coping mechanisms for cutting under her belt, Jordan is better than ever and is very glad she stuck around to see her friends and family, play with her nephew, and dream about eventually starting a career, for she loves to be helpful and kind to others.

Many students at SJHHS have come to her as an outlet to talk to when they feel depressed or suicidal, and Jordan is very eager to share her story with others if it means creating someone else’s happy ending.  

“I didn’t even leave a note because I honestly didn’t think anyone would care that I was gone.  I thought that they would be genuinely happy because I wasn’t their burden anymore. Now I know that this feeling is temporary and it will pass. Just take it one day at a time and you’ll see how far you’ve come; I knew I could hold off on this because I had already done it.”

She advises other students that “people who are suicidal are not cowards but are very confused, scared, and they feel like they’re alone, but it’s really important to remember that you are not alone, and there is always help and people who care about you. Just ask for help!”