I Was 13 When Childhood Depression Made Me Attempt Suicide
Was I an invisible child? Did none of the adults that were consistent in my younger years witness the changes within me? Where were my parents or teachers at this time in my life when I was so low? Childhood depression should have been recognised by the professionals.
Opening the bottles, pouring out the tablets, aged 13, alone and afraid. I remember the fresh orange juice burning my throat, a rancid acid taste as the Paracetamol mixed with the citrus liquid that ran down my throat.
I was 13 and depressed
Still a child
My only thought was that my father would be angry that I had drunk the rest of his fresh juice, never did it occur to me he would care that his daughter had just taken her own life.
It was not a cry for help; the tablets I consumed were enough to end my life that evening.
He never came with me in the ambulance. I remember the doors closing and I never saw his face. My step mother, the women 5 years older than me came instead.
I don’t remember what happened to me, but I was sick; puked up vile liquid for what seemed an eternity. I lived that night.
I would stay in hospital for many weeks, be assigned a child psychiatrist and would be given the first of many antidepressants; my time in the mental health system began here. I would never get out of it.
My parents and the teachers knew I was being bullied. Those girls, (they know who they are and I hope one day they will read this), you took away something precious to me, you stole part of my childhood. You made me feel that my life was not worth living.
These girls made me feel fear; I was 13 and afraid to go to school because of them. I had begun to play truant as much as I could. I moved to live with my father at this age too; he was drinking heavily and had a new partner who didn’t like me much.
School was an escape for me, yet the bullies also took that safe place away too. The school should have had trained teachers, in childhood depression, more than in any National Curriculum lesson.
Tormented, called names pushed and mentally abused. What did I ever do to make these girls hate me? Feeling an outsider, nobody dared to be friends with me, sitting alone in the dining hall, eyes down, looking always at the floor as I walked. Not good enough to look forward, I knew my place, at the back of the line.
My anger lies with my parents, the teachers and other adults who were around me at that time. Why did nobody see how depressed I was? Why did nobody stop these girls? Why did I allow them to do this to me?
It scares me that my eldest daughter is the same age now as I was then, that my life with mental illness started at such a young age. I am thankful to an extent, for the knowledge I do know because of my mental illness.
Childhood depression is never to be passed off as just the hormones, if you suspect your child is depressed then fight for support. Some GP’s are eager to put it down to the age. I know different, childhood depression kills.
