That Somebody May Just Be Me.

I am 20 years old. I am female. I am a law student. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a friend. I am confused.

The first time I sat on my bedroom floor with a bowl of pills to swallow I was 13 years old. My Pop had recently succumbed to cancer, I’d lost a friend and I was just feeling awful. I swallowed two and then got scared. I swallowed two pills a day for four years. Every day. The first time was because  I wanted to see my Pop. Every day after that for four years was just routine. What stopped the routine? One day there was no panadol in the cupboard.

The second time I sat on my bedroom floor with a bowl of pills to swallow I was 16 and I’d graduated to using Nurofen Plus. I’d just withdrawn from an Australian squad after being diagnosed with an incurable neurological condition. But the truth is that I withdrew from that team because I was unhappy. The sport I’d played since I was three was no longer a sport that made me happy. I used the neurological condition as a cover. Everyone just thought I couldn’t do it anymore. And they were right, except they didn’t know what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t be coached by my sister anymore. I couldn’t face failing at the one sport that I’d always considered my meal ticket out of this country. I couldn’t turn up and know that I was disliked amongst some circles and be upset by people who didn’t deserve that satisfaction. I lost much more than my motivation to play a sport, I lost my sister. And to this day I only have a younger sister. My older sister no longer exists.

The third time I sat on my bedroom floor with a bowl of pills to swallow I was 20 and wasn’t actually on my floor, I was on my bed. I’d told my father I was sick of him being obese and continuing to eat like an obese person and I wish if he wanted to die he would just do it, don’t make me watch him die slowly. No, I’m not proud of it but I was and am frustrated. How could a man with three daughters get so obese that we can’t do things that daughters and fathers are meant to do? How could he not be motivated to lose weight and regain his quality of life? How could he do this to us? Most importantly, how could he do it to himself? I was and am cranky. I have not studied for a single subject at university in three years and I’m scared of failing. I’m scared that I’m going to be that girl that could have done something and been someone but let herself down. I think I hate my older sister. This goes back to the days when she was my coach. She ruined our relationship. She couldn’t just let me play the sport that I loved. She had to coach. She had to coach the state team I was in. She couldn’t hold off a year or coach a different age group. Everything has always been about her and my parents have let it get to that stage. On this particular day (Sunday) she had screamed at me because she asked me to clean her room (so I didn’t have to pay her back for things she’d bought me) and I hadn’t done it the way she wanted. She screamed and screamed and then told me that I was the problem in this family. I was the reason that my father wasn’t talking to anyone, that my parents were getting a divorce and I had been a problem since birth. I wasn’t going to swallow pills but then my younger sister told me that I was the common denominator in all the problems in our house. So I pushed my bed up against the door. My Mum tried to get in but I wouldn’t let her. Eventually people left me alone. I had stolen my Father’s Endone tablets which are better known as containing Oxycodone. I swallowed the packet and I went to sleep.

At 6am I woke up. I woke up and I cried. I didn’t want to wake up.

On the Monday night I cried and I told my Mum what I had done. My younger sister bawled her eyes out. When I was in the shower my Mum told my sisters that she didn’t believe me. Otherwise she’d be taking me to the hospital.

I told my Mother that I had tried to kill myself. I wanted her to help me. I wanted my older sister to take notice. I wanted my father to take notice. I wanted to die so that my family could go back and be happy. But I failed, again. But the thing that hurt me the most was that my own Mother did not believe me. The next day everything was back to normal. My older sister was screaming abuse at me for being a problem. My Mother was screaming at me for being difficult. My father wasn’t talking to me and my younger sister was pretending like nothing had happened. I WANTED HELP. I wanted someone to realise how much I was hurting. I wanted someone to care and out of four people not one did anything to help me. They haven’t even asked for my father’s oxycodone. They haven’t asked me for my pills.

Tonight my Mother said that one day somebody was going to kill me. She’s right. That somebody may just be me.