Life has been hard, but I keep things to myself. Only a few very close friends and my husband know about these things, so the opportunity to write something anonymously is hopefully going to be a cleansing one and one which might help others who have gone through similar experiences.
Life was ok until I was 11, when I was sexually abused and my mom left the family home. My behavior quickly deteriorated at school, grades plummeted and I started drinking and smoking. School teachers didn’t care, yet I can’t see how they didn’t realize something was desperately wrong. The sexual abuse was to last 3 years. I began to struggle with eating disorders and suicidal feelings. I attempted suicide on several occasions, the first in my bedroom, surrounded by my dolls.
I am in my mid thirties now and have children of my own and when I think back to how vulnerable I was it’s still upsetting. I went to Uni, not my first choice as I didn’t get the grades I needed, but I thought if I got away from where I grew up everything would be fine. How wrong I was… I committed suicide a few more times, got taken by ambulance to hospital, left in a corner, and then finally was seen by a psychiatrist. I didn’t like him, so pretended I was fine and got discharged pretty quick.
Through pregnancy I was very ill with pregnancy complications, in and out of hospital and also depressed. After each birth I plunged into this seemingly eternal darkness and had health visitors, a most wonderful doctor (who ultimately saved my life) and a mental health crisis team looking after me. The mother and baby unit was mentioned but I had another child at home and again, the over-riding “I can’t leave my children” took over and I felt unable to go there. I’m very good at pretending and felt I could easily say “yes I’m fine” to get everyone off my back. A big turning point was seeing my doctor and taking him all the pills I had ready for another suicide attempt.
Most of my adult life I’ve been on and off medication for depression and anxiety and seen countless psychologists, eating disorder specialists and other professionals. Nothing seems to help, I just bury it, until once a month or sometimes a bit longer if my family are lucky, I explode. The anger is all consuming and I can’t control it. It’s like looking from outside the situation. I know I would never hurt anyone but myself, but I also realize that if I did succeed in killing myself it would hurt my children, and I’m determined not to leave my children as my mom did to me.
At the end of the day, life is too short already and I owe it to my children to survive each day, for them.
This inspirational post was written anonymously by a mom who is a member of my Facebook mums group. 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.
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