Please Help…

This is my first post on this site, I’ve come here more than a few times to read your stories and poems when I need to cry or try and feel better. But today things are different.

I’ve struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts since I was about 13, I’m 25 now.

As a kid, I was an elite athlete. I dove springboard and tower and I was really, really good at it. So good that at 12 years old I was already training 5 nights a week and had set a National record for my age group. Being so good brought a lot of pressure into my life. I had to succeed at everything if I was going to go Olympic like my coach said. School was never a problem, I liked class and was kind of bookish so grades was kind of a breeze for me. I was socially awkward though, and had no real friends until I was 14.  My team mates were jealous of my natural ability and my coach did show me favouritism by offering me extra, private sessions. It wasn’t until too late that I realized he wanted to rape me, and that was the motive for his “private lessons”. When I told my dad that my coach had crammed his yellowed, nasty smokers fingers inside me, he didn’t really believe me. I celebrated the day that coach was fired though. Never told anyone else what happened after my parents didn’t listen, because I didn’t see a point. Luckily, about a year and a half later I met my current best friend. She had a troubled past as well and we instantly bonded. I can honestly say that if it weren’t for her, I never would have graduated high school. I would’ve either died in a car “accident” on the way home from practice one night, or left my brother to find me bled out in the basement tub. I thought that after graduation, when I could leave the pressure of my family, things would improve. No more jabs about my little pudgey tummy keeping me from being the best, no more guilt trips about money and me burdening the family with cost, no more childish fits, no more being abandoned when I’m down. I wouldn’t have to deal with the constant fighting and judgement anymore.

My scholarship took me to America for university. I earned a full ride, busting my ass at school and the pool for the majority of my young life. I fell in love with the freedom that being away afforded me. I had a decent group of people I called friends, my team mates and was easily the most skilled diver on the campus. But college life had new challenges for me. I partied a lot. Drank a lot. Let myself get blackout drunk on more occasions than I’d like. Which led to the second rape.

This one was so much worse. All I will let myself remember anymore was the way I cried the whole time it happened and for days after. I stood in my shower fully dressed when I got home from the night it happened, and just cried in defeat. I felt I must’ve deserved it somehow.

That is what led to the first attempt. I tried to OD on the medication I’d gotten only about 6 months earlier. My parents wouldn’t believe that someone so young would have any reason to be stressed or depressed, so I reached out to my Dr on my own. I downed a whole bottle of seroquel, effexor and half a bottle of tylenol, swallowed it all with milk and woke up throwing up in the hospital.

My room mate had come home and called an ambulance.

That was when my parents finally took an interest. But by this point, I didn’t want their help anymore.

I lost my scholarship, came back home to Canada and reached out to my best friend again. She helped me get on my feet enough to find a few jobs and help me admit that I was sick.

It was about a year after I met my boyfriend that I decided I needed to change my life. He wanted to be with me even though I had all these problems. He was supportive and tried to help me. He let me cry and get angry and still tries his best to help even when he doesn’t understand. He never judged me when he found me passed out in the hallway of our apt with a plastic bag on my head. He even told me that he wouldn’t be angry at me if I took my own life someday, as long as I give it a real chance first. He’s stood by me even though I’ve put him through 3 seperate attempts. I’m very blessed to have him.

But I don’t know how to cope anymore. Lately I’ve been in so much physical pain that it makes me depressed. I catch myself crying from financial pressure and not having any ways to cope with that or get any relief despite me having a full time job and a part time job. I get overwhelmed by stress and fall ill, which makes me miss work and makes my finances worse. And the icing on my shit cake is that my physical pain comes from newly diagnosed progressive MS which means there is no end to it. It’s painful every single day, and my bad days are so bad that I can’t even brush my own teeth without help.

My boyfriend and best friend are trying to help but have no idea how. My dr says that in all reality, I’ll probably need a wheelchair in the next 10-15 years and may lose my arm functions in just as little time. I’m so stunned by this that I just don’t want to deal anymore. I don’t know how to tell my employers, I’m afraid I’ll lose my full time job since it’s new and so physically demanding. But my symptoms get so bad some days that I can’t hold onto anything and lose feeling completely in my left arm and leg. I’m constantly on the emotional edge, and more and more lately suicide is back in the picture. I just want to jump into the street one night on one of my walks. I think about hanging, drowning, maybe even a gun if I can get one. No more messing around. I’m just so done with the crying from everything, I can’t handle this pain anymore, one or the other I can deal with, but both at once for the rest of my eternity is more than I want to go through. I think of myself as a survivor and as strong, heck I’ve lived through 2 rapes, being a target for bullies, raising my siblings, being emotionally and physically abused by my parents for atleast 10 years and 3 different suicide attempts, but this time I don’t know if I want to survive. So I’m reaching out, hoping someone will take the time to read this and maybe hold my hand. I just want to die, there is just so much pain…please help.