My story – my life. I am getting better. “There is a light and it never goes out”. I Just want to take the time to share my roller coaster self harming ride with you all. I finally feel ready to talk more openly about it all.
So from the age of 15 I have self harmed on and off, to the point I would do it on my arms, legs, tummy, anywhere I could really. I loved the feeling of the blood pouring down my arm, it made me feel numb and I felt safe. I say I felt safe, what I mean by that is I was bullied all of my school life, never enjoyed school like you were supposed too.
I was called fat on a regular basis, ugly, clumsy due to me having dyspraxia, you name it I’ve been called it. Then came all the physical stuff, being pushed into, hit,kicked etc. I started to self harm when I was 15 as it was how I coped, when people found out I self harmed I was deemed as attention seeking, and people would say I was just self harming to get popular – how they worked that one out is beyond me.
I have never been popular school, and thinking about it now I would never want to be. I had a few friends I could count on but I have never had a best friend – this is something I used to take to heart.
I’m a very sensitive person and so I used to blame myself for not having a best friend, maybe it was cause I wasn’t good enough? or I was too ugly? too fat? either way I was sure it was my fault.
Anyway the bullying had gone on all my school life, I had sunk into a serious state of depression, started to skip school, started to think of excuses so I didn’t have to go to school, force myself to be sick – again you name it, I’ve tried it. I went to the teachers, the headteacher and everyone, no one would deal with it whatsoever.
The headteacher of my school was a complete prat, and as the people who were bullying me were skinnier and smaller than me, no one believed they could bully me.
One day it took a turn for the worst, and I was beat up in the middle of my maths class.. this was the last straw. I really had, had enough and wanted to die. It became so bad my mother took me out of school to teach me at home.
Best thing she ever done if I’m honest, I learnt more under her care and teaching than I ever did at school. To this day I have no GCSE’S at all, it was decided I’d missed way too much school to do any GCSE’S because I’d just fail them anyway.
My mam is my rock, with the help of her I went on to do other courses and stuff, at college and with JHP training. I loved it, but my depression was still there and still so severe, I had to leave half way through my JHP training due to my depression being so bad.
I decided I needed professional help – I didn’t want to go on tablets, but my mam suggested counselling,so I gave it ago. The counselor I saw the first time round really wasn’t for me – he just didn’t seem to understand me and I didn’t seem to understand him.
I left, and looked for advice online and off my sister (she too had self harmed on and off for years) and I started putting positive steps into my life. I went to college and completed my level 1 Childcare, I passed it with flying colours. Everything was going great and I hadn’t self harmed much – I still self harmed but it wasn’t every day.
Then life took another turn for the worse, in 2010 we lost my uncle.. this was a very hard time for us all, he was severely disabled and we were not expecting him to die so soon – he had an illness known as ataxia, we knew he wouldn’t live past 40, but he died before that.
This was hard for us all to deal with, especially my mam (her brother)I went to his funeral – the first funeral I’ve ever been to, that was extremely hard. It was nice that I went though, to say goodbye to such a strong inspirational man. My family had just been dealing with this death, when 5 months later my Grandad past away.
This was heartbreaking, and I made a decision that was probably the worst one I’d ever done – I went to see his body. Never again will I do this, unless it’s my child or someone like my mam. It broke my heart, and I couldn’t believe my Grandad had gone. I didn’t think it was real, I kept looking at him expecting him to talk.. but he never.
I knew he wasn’t coming back, but at the same time I clung on for hope that he might smile at me once more. We obviously had to have the funeral for him, which was sad – the vicar/people who do the funeral even remembered us from my uncles funeral.
Then the deaths just seemed to roll in we lost 3 more family members in the upcoming months. That’s 5 family members in 18 months – was pretty tough to deal with. Of course my whole self harming thing came back with a vengeance, as did my depression. I was slowly becoming addicted to self harming and I never even realised.
In 2011, I met Paul.. and my life seemed to change, it was amazing. We’d hit it off really well and we fell for each other pretty quickly. He was my rock, he picked me up going through all this shit. And it felt amazing to have someone I could lean on.
In 2012 April – my depression really had turned up with a sheer vengeance. I was having really really dark days, I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink. I slept too much.
All I wanted to do was self harm. I became addicted to it, I would use any excuse to leave the room so I could self harm – the blood trickling down my arm made me feel alive. I felt such a relief when I saw the blood running down my arm.
Paul had realised my depression was really bad, as did my mam and they both insisted I went to the doctors for help.I went in, and cried to the doctor, I was literally so low, so worn out I really had, had enough and she could tell. Straight away, no questions asked she signed me off college, and gave me anti depressants. I didn’t want to have to take pills to make myself happy. But I had to do what needed done, I couldn’t live like this.
The next few months seemed to be a blur, I was there, but I felt so numb. I needed these pills to feel “normal” and I continued to self harm. Paul had even told me how much he hates my scars, which made me feel guilty.
I began to comfort eat, I would eat to make myself feel better.. to the point where I’d feel sick and occasionally I was sick. I didn’t realise how bad I was, I would eat so much food just to have a moment where I felt good about myself. Paul was making me feel amazing stuff, but this was different.
In August 2012, our relationship had hit a rocky part, I’d been ill for sometime now, and we were constantly arguing and fighting. It was so draining, and I didn’t know whether we should stay together. I needed him to keep me strong, but at the same time all the stuff I was facing was pushing him away.
One night, he went out and didn’t come back, this was the first time he’d ever done this and I just felt so alone and so dark. It was 3am in the morning, and I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours crying, and hours trying to think of reasons why my life should continue.
So far I’d came up with none. I’d gone into a really dark place, and thought that everyone’s life would be better without me. All I had been for years was trouble to my mam and dad and family. And I decided enough was enough, even Paul had been pushed away by me.
That night, I tried to end my life. I actually had every intention of ending my life, I cut and I cut and I cut. So deep.. I’d lost so much blood, I wasn’t aware of what was going on around me.
I found my mam, struggling to breathe, straight away she knew something was wrong – I didn’t want her to come, I just wanted to speak to her once more. I was sure this was enough for me and I was happy because I’d come to the decision I was going to die.
All my pain, the dark feeling would be gone. And I’d finally be at peace with myself. But my mam wasn’t going let that happen.. so glad she did come and get me.
I was rushed to the hospital, and I refused treatment, it took them a while to persuade me, but I eventually gave in and let them treat me.I was then assessed, and almost sectioned. If it wasn’t for my mam saying she’d look after me and make sure I didn’t do anything, I probably would have been sectioned.
Few hours later, I was discharged. I was emotionally drained, and all I wanted to do was sleep. My mam allowed me to sleep, but first she hid everything sharp so I couldn’t harm myself. I was given my own crisis team to phone when things were so low for me. I had been refereed to counselling again, few weeks before and finally got an emergency session with Janine – my counselor.. She is amazing!
That was the lowest time of my life, and I’m so glad I’m not there now.
September came and thing were picking up slowly, I hadn’t self harmed at all this month, my counselor had taught me a technique, the elastic band technique. I would flick an elastic band around my wrist whenever the urge to self harm was there.
The first few weeks were tough, the urges were there so bad, I was actually shaking I had the urge to harm myself so much. I asked Paul to let me do it just once, and that’d be it – luckily he said no, that was what I needed. If he had let me, I would still be addicted to it.
I had to ask him any time I wanted something sharp. It felt like a prison, but a good prison, because I was slowly getting better with all the right help I needed.
Now, February 2013, things are brilliant. I STILL haven’t self harmed, to that night back in August. And I’m so proud of myself, I’ve come along way, and I didn’t think I could ever beat depression.
I still have my really dark days, but with the help of my loved ones, the tablets and counselling I will get back to 100%Life is on the up for me now.
I’m 24 weeks pregnant, engaged to Paul and we have a set date to get married. I just want to say a big thank you to Paul, my mam, dad sister,brother and other family members and friends – not forgetting Janine. Without you lot, I don’t think I would be here to this day.
This inspirational post was written anonymously by a mum 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.