So I’ve just come across this website and I’ve been reading some peoples stories and the heartbreaking experiences that people have been through and are going through right now. And it kind of makes mine seem so trivial and insignifcant but I guess every person and their situations are different. But even so, I want to share my experience, in the hope that it will make a difference, even if it is only to one person. Because suicide is not the answer, even when it seems like there is no other option.
I guess for me it all really began when I was about 12. Before that I was your average child. I was healthy and active, I had friends, I loved going to school. Everything seemed, well, “normal”. Then I started fighting with my mum. I don’t really know what started it, or who was to blame if anyone. All I can really remember of it now is my mum screaming in my face, telling me that she hated me and that I was the biggest regret of her life. Sometimes she would hit me, either with her hand or with her shoe. I can still remember the pain so freshly now. I would run to my bedroom at the first chance I got. I would count the steps of my stairs as I ran up them in my head, counting down from 14 to 1, otherwise it felt like the staircase was never going to end and I was never going to get to the sanctury that was my bedroom. I’d slam the door behind me and sit with my back to it immediately and put my feet against the chest opposite, pushing my back as hard against the door so that my mum couldn’t get in. I would just push as hard as I could, closing my eyes, screaming trying to make it all go away. It soon became routine that I would go straight to my room after school to avoid confrontation, I wouldn’t dare come out until my dad got home when I knew I was safe.
I quickly began to question who I was, I assumed that I must be this horrible, horrible person for my mum to hate me this much. In no time at all I had learnt to hate myself, I couldn’t even look at myself. I felt unworthy of life. And then one day, I don’t know what put the idea in my head to do it, but I cut myself.
I just picked a pair of scissors from my desk and started running the blade softly along my arm. At this point I was crying my eyes out. It seemed somehow calming. Then I just suddenly and quickly swiped it up my arm, pushing down as hard and violently as I could. I gasped at the pain and then just looked at my arm. The blood began to seep out. I just sat there for a while and watched it. It sounds so warped now, but something about it just seemed so beautiful. I went over the same cut several time with the blade, going faster and deeper until I couldn’t do it anymore. My arm was stinging and throbbing so much but it was such a high, such a relief. It was like I felt better having punished myself. I felt so at peace. It was almost euphoric.
Very quickly this became habit, to the point where I was doing it almost everyday and usually more than once in a day, maybe 3 or 4 times. Eventually my arm was covered in cuts and scars. People began to notice as summer came and it became harder to hide under big jumpers and coats. I had to come up with excuses, usually on the spot which were rubbish and so clearly not true but people didn’t ask any further. At this point however my parents were still completely oblivious somehow.
About a year had past and I had come to accept that cutting myself was the only appropriate way to punish myself and that it was what I deserved. Then my parents told my brother and I that they were splitting up. I didn’t see it coming at all. The news hit me like an oncoming train. My brother, almost impossible to read emotionally, didn’t seemed fazed in the slightest. I was in bits. The cutting became more violent, more dangerous. My arm was hacked to bits, it was now a covered canvas.
My mum moved out and our relationship deteriorated even more. I pretty much stopped seeing her and my dad knew I wasn’t coping but he didn’t know what to do, and he was finding it hard to cope himself. They knew by now that I was self harming but didn’t say anything. I eventually told them. They didn’t really know what to do. My dad hid all sharp objects, scissors,razers etc but I soon found them and carried on. I started cutting my legs so I was less obvious. But one day my dad walked in on me. I was just lying on my bed with a leg covered in blood, the razer blade lying next to me.
I eventually got helped from friends and a counsellor. By now I had been cutting for 3 years and it had become my addiction. It was so hard to stop, it was my only way of coping. But when I left school and started college things changed.
I was in a new environment with completely new people, doing what I wanted to do. No one knew my past, no one was judging me. It was a fresh start and it turned my life around. I started college in September 07 and it was probably the happiest year of my life. And then I met a boy. I actually met him on my first day of college, he was in my drama class. I remember thinking he was good looking and that he had nice shoes but he seemed like a bit of an arrogant twat. But as it happens, I fell in love with him some months later, the following April. Our drama class went out to celebrate finishing our exam and we just spent the whole night chatting and having a laugh, I just saw a totally different side to him. It got to about 5am when a group of us walked back to a friends house. It was pretty cold by this time and he gave me his hoodie. Back at our friends we slept next to each other and I had such bad butterflies that I couldn’t sleep. The next evening he asked me on a date, to which I said yes and that was that. We dated, we became official, we fell in love. It happened so quickly but it was so beautiful. We loved each other with every bone in our body. We had planned everything, our wedding, our kids names, where we were going to live, what pets we would have, literally everything. Whilst this had happened my dad had re-married and I grew to deteste my step-mum. We argued all the time and eventually my mum suggested I moved in with her.  She only had a one bedroom flat but it was better than living in the prison that was my current home.
But then one day, my whole world came crashing down. September 15th 2008 to be exact. Before we had got together he had been into drugs for about 4 years. Had I known this before we had got together I would have never even gone there but by the time I did find out I was so into him and it seemed like it was a rare occurance, when in fact it was much more frequent. He would get high at least 3 times a day, it was crazy. But it was too late, we were both in to deep. He said he would give it up as he knew how much I hated it and he stood by his word for four months. I was so proud of him, he had given up despite his family and all his friends taking drugs, it was everywhere and he managed to resist temptation. All for me. Because he loved me. And I loved him. He was my hero. Then one night we had a fight, it was over something really really stupid, I don’t even remember what it was about thinking about it now. He put the phone down on me and turned it off. I couldn’t get hold of him all night. I was sick with worry. Something didn’t feel right. He rang me the next morning. I was walking to the station to go to college and he told me we had to talk when we got to college. I asked him if I had taken drugs the night before. He was silent for what felt like an eternity. I screamed the question at him again down the phone. He said sighed and said yes. I told him it was over and put the phone down. Upon meeting my friends at the station I broke down. The love of my life had just gone and broken my heart. I think even if he had cheated on me that would have been better than what he did do because he knew how much it meant to me.
As soon as I saw him at college I just lost it. I felt a thousand emotions all at once. I went bolting up to him and hit him. God, the guilt still fills me to this day. I was just so hurt, so angry. I was hitting his chest over and over again, screaming at him through my floods of tears “how could you do this to me?! how could you do it?! Why?! Why don’t you love me anymore?!”. He gave me every excuse under the sun and apologised over and over again but I was having none of it. I stormed off and went to my lesson where I just broke down. I spent the whole day crying my heart out. My heart which had now been ripped out. At home that night I was inconsolable. I burnt everything I had that reminded me of him and cut up his clothes, ignoring his calls and texts. Then for the first time in so long the temptation became too much and I cut myself probably about 100 times. I just cut and cut and cut until there was no more room. My leg was smoothered in blood and the pain was so overwhelmed that I could barely walk. But the pain wasn’t enough. I needed something more.
Thats when I dragged myself into the bathroom. Blood dribbled down my leg as I reached the bathroom cabinet and I grab all the tablets I could find. I threw the toilet lid down and slumped on it, resting my arms on the sink. I was desperate for air as I was frantically ripping tablets out the packets and crying so much that I was in indescribable pain. I wailed as I filled a glass with water and looked at the tablets for a moment. I grabbed a handful and starting throwing them into my mouth, as many as possible at a time. I looked down and I had run out of pills to take. So I retreated back to the bedroom to find more. My mum came into the room shortly after to see what all the noise and moving about was for. She saw my leg and screamed. She ran up to me and started examining it. She wanted to call an ambulance but I refused. I then started to feel extrememly sick. Thats when the reality overpowered the madness and I realised that I had taken a highly dangerous amount of pills. I told my mum in a panic but she didn’t believe me. I insisted that I was telling the truth but she still didn’t believe me. My brother who had come round for the evening then came in and saw the state I was in. He could tell straight away that I was telling the truth. My mum panicked and rang me dad who shot round and took me to hospital. In the car I was swaying in and out of consciousness, I’ve never felt anything like what I was feeling. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. My dad carried me into A & E but there was no beds free. I was left lying along a row of seats in the waiting room, still not really knowing what was happening. I started screaming out for my now ex boyfriend, Louie. I started screaming at total strangers “where the fuck is Louie?! What did you do to Louie?! I want Louie NOW!!”. I was moved into another small waiting room which was empty. By this point I couldn’t stop moving. I was rolling around on the seats, scratching my arms and legs, still asking for Louie. At one point I was moving so violently that my mum and dad had to literally hold me down, before I caused anymore harm to myself. A doctor eventually came in and had to take a blood test. I’m bad with tests and needles as it is so being in the state I was in I freaked out even more than usual. After several attempts the doctor managed to get what he needed but my body just went crazy. I was hyperventalating, I couldn’t see, my head was spinning, I couldn’t stop crying. I would have given anything to make it stop, I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. I then heard Louie’s voice. My dad must have called him at some point and now he was here. I tried to get up to run to him but I just collapsed immediately. I was so weak. I just lay on the floor in a heap screaming his name and he soon found me. He burst in the room and picked me up and put me on the seat next to him and just held me. I loved him so much, it was all I could think about at that moment. I had gone from being so hurt from him that I couldn’t bare the thought of living anymore to being so scared of dying and losing him forever. I didn’t want to die but I knew it could be too late. I then started throwing up violently, 3 or 4 times a minute. There was so much of it I thought I was going to choke. I was soon filling bucketfuls up and I pulled so many muscles in my stomach in the process that there was just more pain. As I was throwing up I was starting to bring up some of the medicine that was still in my stomach which helped me to feel more conscious. Still, I was weak and very very dizzy. Louie sat on the floor, keeping my hair out of the way as I threw up and looking at me, trying to reassure me that I was going to be fine and that we were going to fix everything and went on to describe the life we had planned out for ourselves. It was so comforting but I was still terrified knowing that I could die within a few hours. I didn’t want to die anymore. I was 17. I had so much to see and do. I had dreams and aspirations and plans. I was so full of regret, I was so desperate to turn back the clock a few hours and stop myself from being such an idiot. I was trying to work out why everything had happened to ME. Why did it have to be ME that had a bad relationship with my parents, why did it have to be ME who’s parents broke up, why did it have to be ME that spent years of self harming and why now was it ME that had my heart broken at the fragile age of 17. It felt that life had been so unfair on me in the last 5 years and I didn’t understand why. But at the same time I knew that I didn’t want my life to end now. I could turn things around, I could make my life what I want it to be.
I was then asked to do some more samples and that it was urgent. The doctor then told me that I may only have two hours left to live, judging by the amount of pills that I had taken. Panic took over me. “This is it, this is the end, I can feel myself fading away” I said. My mum just sobbed, my dad walked off, showing no emotion on his face and Louie squeezed my hand and promised me that it wasn’t true. So the samples got sent off and the waiting game began. I’ve never felt so impatient in my life. None of us had. After what felt like a life time, the doctor came and took me into a separate room. She told me that I was lucky, I was going to be ok but if I had taken just a few more that would have been the end of me. I didn’t know how to feel. I felt so relieved but at the same time so stupid and so ashamed of what I had done. I felt like such an idiot for putting not only myself through it but also the people most important to me as well. I was severely ill for a few days after, throwing everything up and generally being really under the weather.
But that wasn’t it. There was still a long road to a full recovery. I was referred to a counsellor who was part of the CAHMS team, an absolutely adorable woman called Alison. I saw her twice a week, then once a week, then once a fortnight and then once a month. It was taken completely at the pace I wanted to go at and it was up to me what I did and didn’t talk about. At first I thought that I would find it impossible to talk to a complete stranger but it turned out to be such a big help, words can’t even explain. I probably wouldn’t even be where I am today if I wasn’t for her. I found college really hard to get back into and I missed a lot of it but I managed to somehow get through it and come out with 4 pretty good A Levels. I also got a place to study Law at my first choice university which is amazing.
As for Louie, we went through a hell of a lot more after my suicide attempt. Months of pain that I won’t even go into. We’re not together anymore and I found it impossible when we first broke up for good. I didn’t know what I was going to do and I was terrified I was going to go downhill again. And I won’t lie. Yes, I did go downhill. My heart was broken all over again and moving on was the hardest trial of my life. I’ve only just started to actually move on properly. I spent the best part of a year just waiting, hoping that he would come back to me. And it was hard. And even harder accepting that he wasn’t coming back. But I’ve done it and I’ve got my life back on track. And I thank God every single day that I am still alive today. Life is a beautiful thing and its taken for granted so so much. There are times in everybodies life where they feel depressed or heartbroken and for some people it becomes so bad that they don’t see any other option but death. But there is so much help out there and there really are other options. I just wish that I had known that when I was in that position.
Geez, I’ve really written rather a lot but I really hope this helps at least one person. I can’t express how precious life is and how terrifying your life being in the balance is. But please, anyone who is even contemplating suicide or even self harming, don’t do it. There is no better gift than the gift of life so fight to make the life that you want and deserve for yourself. No one ever said that life is easy, so don’t take what seems like the easy option out.
3 comments
it is an incredible story – thank you very much for writing it out.
and i love how you thank God everyday for your life. after reading all of this, that is the most inspiring thing that you wrote.
will you please talk to me? i’d love to talk to you about God, not to bother you or anything like that but i just want to know if there’s anything i can do for you. my contact info is at skull09.net
again, thank you for your story! and thanks for reading :}
take care please
Well, the story is harrowing, even disturbing to read due to the detailed description of horrible things. The emotional and psychological make up of every person + the environment and the emotional input that she/he has received in childhood, are by definition, almost irreproducible.
You repeteadly write the word “I loved him so much”. That had Nothing to do with love. It was an extreme emotional dependence of a source you had chosen probably to liberate yourself and compensate the enormous damage your mother had caused you. Telling a daughther of 12 that “you are the worst regret of my life” is an act of monstruosity and cruelty that is beyond any trace of humanity. Your mother inflicted in you such a horrible emotional unbalanced, that completely perturbed your equilibrium.
Currently there are no laws that prohibit individuals from getting married and bringing children to this world. This must be changed. I would say that just about 90% of the people here have had some pychological trauma (whether they can trace it or not) in their childhood due to cruel “parenting”, and this has affected them throughout the rest of their lives.
K3T seeks to exploit the situations of people in despair. He never gives advice out of his own. He reads out excerpts from the bible and basically his point is that if you suffer is because you deserve it because you are not a god dependant. It is a sort of rationalisation of saddism
He copies and pastes always the same text to everybody regardless of whether that puts the person into more despair or not. He doesnt care. If the person kills himself out of feeling that nobody understands him/her, then he will say that he or she deserved it, for not listening to his preaches of god.
SillyLily–LovelyDearly