I was 13 and desperate to be heard but I didn’t know how, what started as a cry for help ended up as a suicide attempt and I’m glad I did it at school because if I’d done it at home I’d be dead!
It was a normal day at school, or so everyone would think, I had friends around me and a boyfriend who adored me but inside all I wanted to do was scream and stop feeling so dirty and disgusting. We’d just sat down for dinner and I thought to myself “now’s the time, everyone will see and someone’s bound to help me.
I won’t even have to do it, just pretend I’m going too. I pulled a small pot of paracetamol out of my bag, there must have been about 16 in there. I’d been collecting them up for about a week maybe a week and half, telling my mom I had a headache then instead of taking them I’d take them upstairs and stick them in this pot.
I had 2 of them full now, more than enough to overdose I thought.
I hoped that my friends would stop me as I lifted the pot to my mouth but before they had chance I swallowed the whole pot, gulping them down with water.
My best friend knew exactly what had just happened as she saw them in my bag earlier that day but I just told her they were for my headaches that I regularly get. She grabbed me and dragged me to the toilets and told me to be sick but I wouldn’t I thought I just wanted help but now I’d actually started the process I actually wanted to die.
I refused to be sick and by this point I was already feeling dizzy, stumbled out of the toilets down the corridor trying to get outside, I needed fresh air. I wandered past my boyfriend who just looked at me blankly then said “are you high?” ha if only maybe I wouldn’t have felt so bad. Just as I got outside the bell rang, I shrugged my friend off me and I went off to class as if nothing had happened, teachers still blissfully unaware.
I swore my best friend to secrecy and her being such a good friend she kept my secret, for the time being. I was only quarter the way through my maths class, my head was spinning, everyone’s voices were echoing and I could hardly see, my teacher asked if I was okay to which I mumbled “fine”.
My teacher asked me to leave the room and get some fresh air, gladly I thought so I rounded up my stuff, wobbled and stumbled out of the room, downstairs, through some corridors to a small yard used by the year 7 pupils and just sat there waiting for it to be over. My headache was becoming unbearable and I could hardly string a sentence together.
Next minute my friend from my Maths class is behind me accompanied by my head of year, “shit” I thought putting my head in my hands. Now I was in trouble!
My teacher calmly sat beside me and said he knew what had happened and he’d called an ambulance and my parents and that nobody was mad but I needed to tell him myself how many I’d taken so they could help me.
The first thing that went through my head was “no not my parents” but I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t want my parents with me cause it’s their fault I was doing this. Their fault I thought? This was my only way out!
It started as a cry for help but now I wanted it over
I tried to get up to run away but I just fell forward onto the floor. I was also upset that my best friend had betrayed my trust and that she wasn’t the one with me now. I later found out it was because she’s fainted with worry shortly after telling the teacher and was receiving medical attention herself.
My teacher stood me up and tried to walk me around, one arm around him and one around my friend holding me up and walking me up and down the yard. They’re trying to make me sick I thought and kept trying to stop but they just kept going, they wouldn’t let me stop.
I could hear sirens and then yep ambulance, as they got to me I was sick all over the floor, lovely, now there was probably not enough in my system to do the job.
I was taken into the back of the ambulance but my parents still hadn’t arrived so my teacher escorted me to hospital, trying to contact them the whole time as well as attempting to reassure me. The paramedic was trying to get me to talk to her and tell her how many I’d taken, nobody knew about the 2nd pot in my bag so I said nothing, I was surprised they hadn’t checked though.
I planned to take the rest at first chance I got and finish the job properly. I kept stum until we got to hospital and my parents were there waiting all cross looking. My mother started yelling at me and the paramedic told her she had to calm down else she wouldn’t be allowed in. They chose not to come in so my teacher came with me instead, he looked rather puzzled that they chose to stay outside than support their daughter when clearly she was distressed and needed support.
I was kept in overnight, I didn’t need my stomach pumping as I’d been sick so much but I was put on a drip to re-hydrate me. I was asked over and over why I tried to do it I just said I was bored then I said because my nan died, I’m not sure if they believed me or not though.
My head was still thumping the next morning, the nurse joked that she thought I’d had enough pain relief for a while. I saw the funny side but soon as she’d gone I remembered my bag and closed the curtain around me and rummaged to find my other pot. Damn, it was gone, next moment in walked my parents, pot of paracetemol in had, “looking for these” my mother said rattling the pot at me.
My heart sank, I preferred it when they weren’t around. I was allowed home later that day but referred to see a shrink at school and given a social worker. I soon ditched the social worker cause she just made me angry but the shrink was lovely but I never told her the real reason I’d tried to overdose, I couldn’t, not yet anyway.
I told everyone I was sad over my nans death which happened in the previous December, it wasn’t a total lie, it was my nans death that lead to the events that followed causing me to attempt to overdose on that day – do I wish I’d succeeded? For a long time yes, but now I’m so thankful I didn’t cause I have a lovely little family I adore.
This inspirational post was written anonymously by a mom who is either a member of my Facebook mums group, a Twitter follower or has been submitted to me via email. I have full permission to share her story. If you can relate to this post and would like to share your own anonymous post please contact me. You could help us share the blogs love to helping others by sharing via the social sharing buttons.
