Part 19 - Final Attempt

"Hurt" - Johnny Cash

During one weekend whilst my parents were away, and had therefore let me stay at home for the weekend, I had a friend from school come round for company. We’d known each other for many years and had remaining close through-out my turbulent youth. I had drunk quite a lot that night, and, in the early hours of the morning, after many tears had been shed, I asked him to go home, as I "needed some time to myself". I think he knew what was going to happen, and what I planned to do, but left the house anyway.

By the time the paramedics had arrived, I had smashed up some furniture in my parents living room, including a massive mirror they had on the wall (one that has now been replaced at my own cost), cut the majority of my hair off in a rage, and gashed my wrist pretty bad. It didn’t need stitches, and would hold together relatively well with some "celery strips" (very thin, strip like bandages, meant for hold together skin in the same way as stitching), and a decent bandage. This had been my last stand. I was just too tired to keep trying anymore.

My friend cleaned me up somewhat, and then took me home to his house, so I could grab a couple of hours sleep. We came back later on in the day, once I had sobered up, and hidden my brand-new hair cut up a rather stylish baseball cap, to clean up the mess that had been made. I think in my drunken stupor that night, I’d managed to smear blood on almost every available surface at my parents house. I know that I never would have got through that night without my friend’s call for an ambulance. Sadly, we are no longer in touch at this point, which is something I deeply regret.

After the house was tidy to a partially high standard, I waited for the arrival home of my parents. It was crunch time. I had to beg for forgiveness, and ask, again, to come home. I needed stability in my life, and would only get that from them. They had emotionally washed their hands of me many months before, but I needed to be frank and open, and let them help me. But I would have to work incredibly hard to get their trust back. I can never thank my parents enough for everything they had done for me, after all I had put them through, and had it not been for them conceding to give me one last chance, I’m not sure I’d even be here to tell my story.

As with the last time I had returned home, there were stringent rules to stick to:
1. Absolutely no drugs. I had all but given drugs up by this time, but I think they just wanted to stress the point, that this would not be tolerated under any circumstances.
2. Significant decrease in alcohol consumption. I would only be allowed to drink at weekends, at appropriate situations, and was to not even drink, let alone get hammered, during the week.
3. Get a job. Education was just too easy for me to abuse, and to stop attending, so I was to move into the world of full time employment. And should I loose a job through some fault of my own, I’d be out on my ear.
4. Go back on medication. At least until a time that my parents could trust that I no longer needed it.
5. NO CUTTING.

As with before, it was slightly difficult to stick to some of these rules, but I pretty much just kept focusing on the fact that I needed somewhere to live, and that kept me on the right track. The medication, of course helped, probably the most out of all the above.

I’ve mentioned before how my sleep was a major issue for me through-out any time of emotional upheaval, so when I went back to my doctors and asked for medication again, rather than re-prescribing the pills that I had tried before, I was put on something new. I’ve been on four different anti-depressants/anti-anxiety drugs in my life, but there are hundreds more different types available; all with different effects.

Part 16 - Finally Coming Clean

"I’m A Fake" - The Used

When we got back to the house, my parents went straight into the reception office with Louise, to tell her what had happened, while I unpacked my things. My housemates were naturally curious as to the situation, but could see that I needed space at that moment. After what seemed like hours, Louise called me down to the office, sat me down in front of my parents, and told me, to tell them.

I had mentioned the rape briefly to Louise, while I was settling into the house, and although I brushed off any concerns she expressed, she was wise enough to understand that this event in my life was having huge ramifications on my behaviour. I only ever mentioned the incident as a passing comment, and had never really achieved closure on the rape, or really worked through my feelings about it. Ignoring it was just not working anymore. And Louise knew that this was probably a major contributing factor to my low sense of self-worth, and therefore, suicidal thoughts. I was vocal about the thoughts, probably too much of the time, but not about the cause.

Four years after the event, I finally told my parents. They were shocked, angry at the fact I had never told them, angry with the lad concerned (although they didn’t know him),and devastated. My Mom, being a woman, coped slightly better with the knowledge, and suddenly I knew that she understood the pain I had felt, and be dealing with, on my own, for years. The best thing I ever did was to tell her, and from there we had something to work on, and somewhere to go. There was an explanation for my behaviour, and that, she could handle. She still doesn’t always understand the depression, or the reasoning behind it, but having some knowledge gave her a foundation for a continuing relationship with me.

However, at the same time, one of the worst things I ever did, was tell my Father. Every irrational emotion I had experienced at the hands of this event, he seemed to feel too. I know now that he was in despair that he hadn’t been able to protect me during this time, and that I had struggled with this very adult situation on my own. He blamed himself, and this came out in the form of anger. It took me a long time to realise that he wasn’t angry with me, but at the time I had no sensible guide to lead me through this process, so I couldn’t come to terms with his anger.

That day, during this frank and open discussion, my parents agreed a few targets for me. If I achieved these aims, I would be able to return home, away from the bad influences that had drawn me further down into my depression. I was to re-start my further education, get a part time job, get clean, and stop self-harming. For the next few months, I did everything in my power to meet those demands. But happiness will still just out of my reach.

Part 15 - Samaritans

"The Pros and Cons Of Breathing" - Fall Out Boy

Contact details for Samaritans:
Telephone: UK: 08457 90 90 90
ROI: 1850 60 90 90
E-Mail: jo@samaritans.org
Website: http://www.samaritans.org/
Postal Address: Chris,
P.O. Box 9090
Stirling,
FK8 2SA

My parents had invited me to go visit my Grandparents with them. It was the first time I had visited my Nan and Grandad since leaving home, and my Mom and Dad were keen for it to go well. I made my promises to leave the drugs at home, and to wear long sleeved jumpers all weekend, even though it was the middle of summer. And we were all set.

My Grandparents live approximately two hours drive away, and they had a busy weekend planned. On the Saturday night, we out for dinner at a local pub. It was a nice meal, and the alcohol was flowing. I got so drunk, I don’t even think I could see straight. And soon an argument arose. I can’t even remember now how it started, I just know that it was a huge one, and me and my Dad came to blows, big style, with the whole of my family looking on. I walked out of the pub, and back to my Grandparents house, a short distance away.

It felt like my world had broken down around me; although it’s obvious now that this was largely due to the effects of the drink. I was devastated, and had no idea how to repair the situation I had got myself into. And the longer I sat in that house alone, the more I felt like my only option was suicide.

I went round the whole house, through every drawer and cabinet, until I had collected all the aspirin, paracetemol, and ibuprofen, that was in the house. I found a couple of bottles of beer in the fridge, and I thought that would do the trick. I took the pills by the handful, and then decided that I really needed to talk to someone; to tell someone why I wanted to die so much.

This is what Samaritans says on their website (address above):
Samaritans provides completely confidential emotional support 24 hours a day by telephone, personal visit, email, and letter, through its branch network – support that includes outreach activity at festivals and outside our centres in prisons, hospitals, schools, the workplace and with homeless people. Our purpose is to: enable persons who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those who may be at risk of suicide, to receive confidential emotional support at any time of the day or night from appropriately trained Samaritans in order to improve their emotional health and to reduce the incidence of suicide; and promote a better understanding in society of suicide, suicidal behaviour and the value of expressing feelings which may otherwise lead to suicide or impaired emotional health. Volunteers offer support by responding to phone calls, emails and letters. Alternatively people can drop in to a branch to have a face to face meeting.
The service is offered by 17,000 trained volunteers and is entirely dependent on voluntary support. There are 201 branches of Samaritans in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

I am a huge advocate of Samaritans to this day, mainly due to how they helped me that night. If you feel like you can’t talk to your parents (or other family members), friends, any "responsible adults" in your life, or even your GP, about emotional difficulties you may be facing, Samaritans is there to fill that gap. The support they provide is so widespread, and I think that almost everyone that has ever suffered with depression has at some point, wanted to, or contacted Samaritans, since it’s birth in 1953. If it wasn’t for them, I believe the national suicide statistics would be massively more scary than they currently are.

I picked up the phone that night, and talked for a long time to a Samaritans volunteer, and with her immense training, she managed to not only stop me from taking more pills, which I had continued to do for the first half of the conversation, but to also, put down the phone to them, and call an ambulance. It was lucky I did; when the paramedics arrived they counted how many blister packs I had on the table in front of me, and worked out that I have taken approximately 100 pills. I was falling in and out of consciousness by the time they got there, and I was rushed to hospital, where I was forced to drink charcoal. This induces vomiting, rather than having to have your stomach pumped (which I’ve heard is excruciatingly painful).

I had to have a lot of blood tests that night, as due to the quantity of pills I had taken, there was a risk that my kidneys would shut down, if enough of the drugs had got into my system. However, after a few hours sleep, I didn’t want to stick around for the results, more humiliated at what I’d done than anything else. I did a bunk, and caught a taxi back to my Grandparents at about three in the morning.

My Mom said nothing as she put me to bed, and I was woken up at about six in the morning. They were taking me back to where I lived. And we needed to talk.

Part 11 - My First Attempt

"Basket Case" - Green Day

I came home, after a final blow-out with my boyfriend and best friend, calmly told my Mother I just wanted to be left alone (both of my parents had gotten used to my black moods by this time), went upstairs, locked the bathroom doors, and cut my wrist.

My Mother came to check on me, and finding me nowhere but in a locked bathroom, she practically battered the door down. I laugh now, as we all do, now that I’m out of the woods depression wise, because my Mom was so shocked when she found me, she wrapped the nearest towel she could find around my wrist, to stem the bleeding, sat me on the side of the bath tub, and proceeded to clean up my blood, which was all over the tiled floor! But in all seriousness, the humour is a way for both me, and my parents, to cope with one of the darkest moments of my life.

She collected my Dad from work, on the way to the hospital. By this time, all my anger and pain had literally bled out of me, and I fell into an extremely unresponsive temper. I don’t remember a lot about being at the hospital, except a Doctor trying to get me to talk, and then telling my Mother that the solution was Prozac. A few pills and I’d be fine, but "better make sure she attends counselling so we can nip this in the bud".
I was stitched up, and sent home, with a brand new repeat prescription, and the telephone number for the crisis counselling service.

My Mom kept me off school for a fortnight, whilst I adjusted to my medication, and in that time, I was not alone for five minutes. She was terrified there would be a re-occurrence, but strangely enough, I think the time went someway towards healing me. She took astonishingly good care of me, considering she had absolutely no clue how to handle the situation. I’m not sure any parents would know the appropriate way to act at times such as this, and I’m not really sure there even is an "appropriate" way to act.

I went back to school, minus one boyfriend, on strained terms with my best friend, but with a brand new sweat band to hide the scar that’s still on my wrist to this day. It even goes slightly purple when the weather is really cold. I felt like an empty shell with no where to run, but carried on going through the motions of every day life, if nothing else, but to keep my parents happy.

Eventually, my best friend dropped out of sixth form schooling (A-Level studies), and my ex-boyfriend signed up to the Army. Over the months, we had become friends again, and grew used to being only that. Whereas my five year strong friendship with my "bessie" was officially dead. But deep down inside, that’s exactly what I wanted to be, and it took along time for that feeling to go away.