Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! To Anyone Lonely Depressed: I was there I survived
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But then I cam to the "Suicide" topic. Tsunami waves of emotion that I had been hiding for years flooded back as again and again, I read about young people wanting to rid themselves from the world. I remembered the helplessness I'd once had, and it surprised me to think now how far I have come past those dark days.
Please let me share my story...
My name. let's just say I have never liked my name. It sounds ugly. My first name I was given thanks to my grandfather who I was named after. My surname is a freaky, western European name that when surrounded by Smith's, Glover's, McHale's and Gray's, made it sound even stupider. For privacy sake, I will call myself Chloe. Trust me...Chloe is a lot prettier than my actual name!
School was ok, I guess. I started off really well in High School. Top of the class in History, Science and English. It was all looking pretty positive for me. I had dreams of being a writer. I would read and write in my spare time, so I guess I seemed a bit booky to people who didn't know me.
The truth is though, I was and I am still a noisy, outgoing, not very shy person at all. It shocked people I guess that here I was, class clown AND class nerd. You can't be both in society these days. You have to be pigeon holed as one or the other...
But I was also a diva. A born performer. I was selected over and over to be soloist in the choir, main character of school plays and community musicals. I danced, I acted and I sang. I loved the limelight. That's where I got my vengance. Look at me! I am not scared of ANYTHING!!!
...I was scared though. My entire high school career I was scared. Scared that I didn't fit in to anywhere in the world, scared that I wasn't "normal" because I was often ridiculed and harrassed for not only being loud and outrageous, but for being smart too.
My grades began to slip mid-way through 7th grade. I had new, tough friends. You know, the smoking, promiscuous, under age drinking friends. I skipped school regularly, dabbled in alcohol and pot smoking before my 14th birthday. I had already had sex once and I was very into the black arts, studying witchcraft and gothism.
I would cut myself to release pain. My writing became darker, often speaking of death and suicide. I had to wear dark stockings in scorching heat to cover the slices and wounds I had made on my legs. I had jet black hair and pale, pale skin...when a year before I had been at the beach every weekend for Nippers and Surf Life saving. Now I sat in my darkened rooms, surrounded by candle light and demonic music.
My first suicide attempt was November 24th 1994. The day before my parent's 16th wedding anniversary. Dad and Mum left for a romantic dinner, leaving me and my 12 year old sister at home. We were responsible, they had figured. We often came home from school to an empty house due to both our parents working and we were old enough to react in an emergency.
My parents left the house at 7pm. I complained of a headache to my sister and got up to take some Panadol (Australian brand of Tylenol) to relieve it. I downed ten to begin with. Then another ten. Then I finished the remainder of the 48 capsule pack. My sister was still watching TV, unaware of what was happening in the kitchen, five metres away. Her big sister was poisining herself.
I had to keep going in and out of the kitchen without my sister realising I had been in there for some time. I would go in, take some capsules and leave, go back to say I would be getting more water for my head ache.
Mum had been taking a strong pain killer, Tramal, from a recent operation. I tipped about a dozen into my hand and like the 30 or so Panadol, I slipped the Tramal in my mouth and took a glass of water.
Dad's heart condition tablets were next to go down. about 6 of those and a few antihistamines for good measure were the last things to enter my system.
By now the time was 9.15. It had taken me 2 hours to swallow over 60 assorted tablets. I began to feel dizzy and warm, but I put it down to feeling ill when my sister asked if I was ok.
I lay down to go to sleep at 10.30pm. Mum and Dad arrived home and mum came into my room to wish me goodnight. I told her I loved her and that I was sorry for ever being a bad daughter. She gave me a funny look I will never get out of my mind.
Mum must have had a ligitiamte headache, becuase the next thing I knew she had burst into my room holding the empty packet of Panadol.
"Chloe, did you take some Panadol tonight?" I was woozy by now and the room was spinning. Mum sounded so far away. Mum told me that by this point, I was spaced out, crying and saying I loved her. She knew something was wrong. Mum had thought I was drunk, and that even still if I had had any alcohol, I shouldn't have mixed it with the Panadol.
She sat me up in my bed. Mum asked me straight if I had taken Panadol and how many.
"I don't know" I apparently replied "Maybe 30 or so..."
I fainted then and the next thing I woke up in the emergency room at the local hospital. I was attatched to a respirator, a drip and I had a tube feeding jet black liquid into my stomach. My first instinct was to get up and leave, but the vomit at the back of my throat stopped me from doing anything. I yanked the respirator off my face and let the thick black liquid that was pumping my stomach clean of the toxins I had taken appeared all over the white hospital bed sheets.
I cried. The nurse arrived and told me my parents would be coming in first thing in the morning. I had no idea where I was or what I was doing in the hospital.
"You were a very silly girl, Chloe." The nurse scolded me. I hated the fact that a stranger was scolding me. It was my life and I could end it if I wanted to. I ignored her and drifted back to sleep.
The rest of my high school years were filled with appointments at the psychiatrist, counselling, group therapy, doctors and tests. I last spoke to a psychiatrist on my 19th Birthday. Happy Birthday! You're not a nut any more! That's how it felt.
I have attempted suicide 16 times in 6 years. My last attempt was foiled by a neightbour, who found my car parked in the garage, me inside with the engine running. Exhaust was filling the cabin from a crude hose I had attached to the pipe.
I have tried to slit my wrists, poison myself again (and again wound up in emergency), jumping out of cars, I have caused 3 car accidents (luckily no body has ever been hurt but myself...a fractured collar bone and a broken jaw).
It has been almost 3 years now. My last attempt was MY LAST.
I read a bumper sticker once. That is what changed my life. Not all the the therapists, psychoanalytics, counselling and Self-help books. A simple bumper sticker.
"I'm Here For A Good Time, Not A Long Time".
I have lived my life like that EVERY DAY since I bought that sticker.
In the last 3 years:
I have been dumped...
I have dumped...
I have been cheated on...
I have cheated...
I have been engaged...
I have broken off a wedding...
I have been pregnant...
I have lost a baby through miscarriage...
I have travelled the world alone...
I have laughed at home with my friends...
I have lost friends...
I have made friends...
I have spent money...
I have saved money...
I have laughed...
I have cried....
I have loved...
I have been loved...
I have lost...
I have found...
I've been to weddings...
I've been to funerals...
I've been sober...
I've been drunk...
I've been happy...
I've been sad...
I have quit smoking...
I have taken it up again...
I have been hurt...
I have been kissed...
I have bought flowers for myself...
I have had flowers bought for me...
I have slept in...
I have had no sleep at all...
I have written letters...
I have recieved letters...
I've been alive for the last 21 Years...
The bottom line is, when I read that bumper sticker it made me realise that I was not LIVING. I was EXISTING. Deep down I never wanted to be dead. I just didn't want to be un-alive.
I now realise I am only 21. I have so much to see and do before my times up.
A 15 year old friend of mine died on Saturday, purely of an accident. And all that keeps flashing through my own emotions is that, here is this 15 year old girl, with SO MUCH potential. She was positive, happy and bright. She didn't know she was going to die, nor if you'd had asked her before hand, wouldn't have WANTED to die.
And I keep thinking how selfish I had been at 15. I had the same potential, only buried so deep inside, I couldn't see it at all. All I had wanted to do WAS die at 15. It makes me feel so sorry for the years of grief I put my family and friends through.
And it makes me hope that by sharing this story of how I have made it by believing in myself and working to make every day count, MAYBE someone out there will eventually think the same. I saved my life. I just hope I can save more.
Take Care, whoever is reading this. Please don't give up. There is always a star somewhere in the dark of the night.
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