My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 7.

The thing about chronic fatigue is it robs you of energy. Mixed with depression, you are robbed of energy and feeling good. If you are in a bad place with your mind and your body isn't willing to help your mind by distracting it with physical activity then it's a vicious circle.

I was working long days and nights mixed in, around looking after my daughter. I still didn't sleep after night shifts as the mood stabilisers rendered me unconscious sometimes and I was scared I wouldn't wake up in time to go and get my daughter and it would end up my ex finding out and using it against me, so I didn't take them. Whilst we were together, a couple of times I overslept and school would call me and I'd rush up there and get her form reception feeling terrible and apologising loads and my ex wouldn't bat an eyelid about it. But now that my ex was her named on her records I was bottom of the lists of contacts.

He had gone in to the school with the court order and changed the details of the first contact.With his gf as second contact. He had also told them about my suicide attempts and a couple times I had said I was going to fetch our daughter instead of her going to out of school club as she hated it. He had warned the school and they were on alert if I attempted to kidnap her. I was home and off work and I wasn't allowed to fetch her or they'd get the police involved.

I couldn't risk that as it wouldn't be fair on my daughter. No matter what I was, I wasn't a kidnapper. I was irrational and over emotional but I wasn't about to break the law. Plus she'd get so confused about days I was getting her if it wasn't a set day. One time she wanted to walk a little way home on her own with her friends so I waited halfway with the other mums and she forgot about it and she need up wandering around the playground not sure where she should be. She ended up going to out of school club and school called first my ex then his gf then my ex called me.

I was driving around the neighbourhood trying to find her and was panicking. I rang school and they said 'we've called her mum but she's in a meeting'. I was furious. This is what happens when you have a mental health problem and work shifts. You get shut out of your child's life. My ex called me and said not to worry as his gf was on her way to get her. You can guess what I said to him. I drove to the club and was made to stand on the doorstep so they could ring my ex to make sure I was allowed to pick her up. They had been alerted also that I was 'mentally unstable'. The thing was I was the one who enrolled her in the club and spent half a day there with her and now I was the baddy.

It was amazing in a few months I had gone from her main carer to being hardly involved in her life. There was no middle ground. I was now the estranged dad of the family. It was like my ex had been taken over by aliens. He had never been a bad father but now he was father of the year. The ex friend who slated me before had said that the group of friends we had been part of had always said that our daughter should be with my ex as he was a far better parent.

The thing was in public he appeared to be a great dad but in private he was back to normal. I did everything. Whilst we were out in public he would focus his attention on looking after our daughter so he wouldn't have to talk to the adults. He'd already admitted he felt intimidated with my friends. He would even change nappies when she was younger and feed her. I took the opportunity to have time off from being solely responsible for her. It came back to bite me in the ass.

It felt like grief. I was in denial and angry. I didn't like some other woman and my ex telling me what was good for my daughter and what to do with her and when. It was a constant barrage of texts and arguments. My relationship with my daughter had also changed, she had become very awkward and hostile towards me and had started bad mouthing me to my ex and his gf. It is common when children go to live with their other parent. But it was still hard to cope with.

Things escalated when they decided to send he to the school close to my ex's go's house. That meant leaving all her friends behind and all I got off my daughter was tears and tantrums over it. I was scared about her going to high school anyway. Every time I picked her up she would cry about having to leave her friends. I argued with my brother and my sister in law over it as well as my ex and unbeknownst to me my brother was colluding behind my back with my brother.

When I had taken the OD my ex had alerted my brother to 'look out' for me. The last person I wanted to know what was going on was my brother. He was opinionated, judgemental and arrogant at the best of times. He reckoned he was concerned about me. But my brother and sister in law just aren't those kind of people. I didn't trust them as far as I could throw them and they went on to prove that in style later on.

I had found a little bit of peace inside me and finding some energy from somewhere I managed to work extra shifts as I was living alone and had all the bills to pay. My daughters move to high school went without too much drama and I started talking again o a guy I had been speaking to briefly a few months earlier.  I tried to keep him at arms length as I wasn't interested in a relationship at that moment. He persisted and we got to talking about things. He was a good listener. But still I kept him at arms length.

It took him a while to persuade me he wasn't the same as other guys. I could see that. I had asked for someone kind, considerate, caring, compassionate and understanding and here he was. I trusted him. And finally had someone on my side to see the shit I put up with everyday.

He became my other half (OH). I introduced him to my brother in December and immediately he didn't like his attitude. My brother was being his rude obnoxious self. We had a falling out in the summer over my daughter and which school she was going to and not attending my nephews birthday party and we got back in touch just before my niece was born but it had been awkward. That day he was showing his true colours and my OH wasn't impressed.

They have never been my kind of people. I'm still not sure how you would describe them either. I've always been a bit of hippy and not bothered with fancy clothes or fancy or labels or expensive stuff. My brother and sister in law have always been about what they have got and outdoing their mates. My brother had always been a bit of a bully towards me and on many occasion told me how to live my life and how to what and what to spend my money on etc. He hurt me quite frequently with things used to say to me. But I loved him so most of the time I let it churn me up inside but never said anything.

I think my brother knew that my OH wasn't going to stand any bull. Then came another blow.

I texted my sister in law to ask her what they were doing that weekend and I got a vey long text back in return. I knew something wasn't right. The gist of the text was that my brother and sister in law had bumped into my ex and his gf in town one day and got chatting and found they liked each other and as my daughter was going to be at my ex's most of the time they were going to forge a relationship with them so that they could see my daughter more. They were big on family.

I was of course very upset as they could see my daughter when she was with me and besides my daughter really wasn't bothered about them. When my ex and I were together we had gone to solicitor and nominated who should have her should anything happen to both of us. We didn't nominate my brother and sister in law that was for sure. He talked to her like crap most of the time. And neither I nor my ex ever stood up to him for speaking to her that way.

It did me a favour really, my oppressive brother was finally out of my life. The downside was I wouldn't see my niece and nephew again. They have since started to go on holidays together which I have come to accept is good for my daughter.

My ex had taken me to CSA (child support agency) late 2013 and quite frankly left me in the shit. But I also had no energy to work extra hours at that time. I had managed to work extra for a couple of months but the energy soon ran out and I was back to scraping myself through the days and just getting by. I tried to call it off with my OH as I wouldn't be able to afford to do anything with him or contribute to anything. But he wouldn't have it. I swear, although was a few issues with jealousy on his part, that if it wasn't for him I don't think I would have made it this far.

There were times when our relationship was difficult and I was down from all the shite I was getting on my ex and his gf and exhausted from work and his jealousy would just tip me over the edge and I would feel suicidal again. It just seemed I couldn't get any peace anywhere so for a while it was difficult. I went off sick from work again as I could barely get out of bed with exhaustion. It was't fantastic for him either having a new partner who was so poorly.

But we stuck at it and he worked through his jealousy and I got my strength back. Then came my divorce papers!!

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 6.

My husband eventually moved out as I had pets so renting would be tricky and also I had moved in and out that many times I couldn't face doing it again. Our daughter used to have lot of friends round in the holidays and my husband wouldn't allow them in the house so it was better I was there. I promised not to stitch him over the money that could be left over should we sell the house.

In hindsite I should have been the one to move out but a child being with the mother is the normal thing to do. Again if I wasn't at work I was with my daughter. I rarely got a night off and I was craving some excitement. My ex was again, going out and about and doing the things I had craved for us to do whilst we were together but to be honest I didn't really want to do these things with him. But I was still jealous he was doing things and had found someone else and I couldn't get out the house or find another man.

I had no time to date so joined a casual dating site, if you call it that. In fact bluntly it was a casual sex site. I proved quite popular on it and enjoyed the attention. I had a few encounters and was enjoying it to some extent thinking that was what I wanted but really it was soul destroying when I look back. But it made me what am today I guess. It made me realise what I was no longer prepared to accept and therefore led me to meeting my current partner who is everything I'd ever wanted in a guy.

I was behaving erractically and my ex's relationship with his gf was strengthening. I thought about letting my daughter go to live with him and his gf. They were concerned about my moods and behaviour although my ex still wasn't letting me go easily. Although he was virtually living with his gf he kept coming round to the marital home and cleaning up! I would find chocolate on the side next to a cup with a tea bag in and a note saying welcome home. And after we stupidly got 'together' a few times and his gf found out things became more serious. We were falling out about when we each had our daughter. We were doing 3 days one week and 4 the next but his gf wanted every other weekend off and more continuity so we went to court. I was at a really low point having had a couple of crap relationships, one of which threatened to kill me. I was struggling to cope again.

The judge agreed we should still have 50/50 residency but my ex's solicitors was savvy and the law isn't on the side of parents that work shifts. I was working long days by then so my ex wouldn't let me have our daughter if I couldn't have her overnight. Cafcass will also agree this isn't always favourable as it doesn't promote consistency. The order states what time you pick put he child and what time you drop them off and what days, there is no room for leniency. Therefore I wouldn't be able to have her before a shift the next day and on the night of the shift it was too late to get her so I had to say I could only have her every Wednesday and every other weekend. Or I'd be really restricted what days I could work. I was going to have to work extra shifts also now being on my own. I also wasn't sure what my employer would agree to me working. I couldn't over commit because of working hours but I realised afterwards that this meant only seeing her 4 nights a fortnight.

My ex had informally agreed that I could have our daughter outside the agreed order days whilst we were in court but this never came to fruition as to be honest I messed him about and it wasn't good for her. We fought over loads of things and his gf had a tight reign on things. I felt a failure letting her go and live with him although I found her hard work and he could make her behave much better. The only time I'd been away from her for any length of time was when I went to Kenya. Before I went I struggled so much with anxiety and guilt of leaving her but whilst I was away she behaved impeccably for him. As soon as I got back she acted up again.

It was the best thing for her to go and live with them as they worked normal hours. They had energy and a wider circle of friends and relatives that I didn't have anymore. But I struggled so much with it and became very depressed. The whole thing of going to court and then the lack of control over everything and all the mistakes I had made really hit me hard and I felt a complete failure. There was no let up from the soul bashing my head was giving me.

I did 2 nights on the trot and hardly slept in 3 days and felt dreadful so after little to no sleep and feeling the worst I'd felt in a long time, I decided taking a slow killing overdose was the way to go. I could say goodbye to everyone that way. I went downstairs, made some tea and took a shed load of paracetamols. Instantly I felt calm. I had been having terrible panic attacks and they just disappeared.
I went back to bed and slept but when I woke up I panicked big time. I was terrified.

I rang my ex in a state and asked him to pick our daughter up from school that evening. I was having trouble speaking and he tried to get me to tell him what was wrong. All I could manage to say through the tears was 'I want to die'. I asked him if he could take me to the hospital and he wanted to come round anyway to get our daughters birth certificate to be able to claim child benefit. He looked for that whilst I sat waiting for him to take me to hospital. I was crying uncontrollably in the car all the way there and he asked me 'what has brought all this on?' I didn't answer him. He just dropped me off at the doors to the emergency room and left.

The nurse who booked me in was perfunctory but not unsympathetic. I was so embarrassed and felt so very alone. I felt a failure as a mother and a human being. I was at rock bottom. I remember a young doctor asking me why I had done it and I said that I'd let my daughter go and live with her dad but also that I found having her difficult to cope this. It sounds contradictory but it was struggling with a lot of things. She didn't seem to care and I felt so stupid.

My levels of paracetamol were really high so had to undergo a treatment to protect my liver which lasted a couple of days. It was horrendous and the paracetamol made me throw up a lot. I had the worst headache I ever had and hadn't got my normal pills with me so didn't get any sleep for 2 nights. Luckily the 3rd night I slept. I told a couple of friends who knew what I'd been going through and they came to see me in hospital. I was so relieved to see them.

I felt like I'd been crying for months and it wasn't going to stop. I cried a lot whilst I was in hospital too. I saw a member of the self harm team and she was very understanding and lovely. At the end of the day it was only I who could make things any better but still back then I thought it was down to other people to help me and the pills. I believed my ex, his gf and everyone else who had 'wronged' me were to blame for my downfall. I know better now.

Somehow the overdose reset my emotional centre. I no longer felt anxious or miserable. I was neither happy nor sad to be alive. I just went home and got on with things. I also decided to not have anymore ridiculous casual encounters. I had an idea in my head what I wanted from a guy and I wasn't going to settle for anything less than I deserved.

But I still didn't have it in my head that the only person I was hurting with it all was myself. There was still a few more bitter pills to swallow to come.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 4.

May contain triggers for you. Stay safe.

There is a tree in the middle of a field where I used to walk my dog. That tree was my comfort blanket. I imagined myself hanging from it. Not the putting of the rope around the branch or the physical act of looping it around my neck or how horrid it would feel to die. Just the peace I felt seeing the figure limp and lifeless, hanging there. At peace at last.

Morbid? yes, weird? maybe? Why was it a comfort? Because it meant that if the figure was me I would be free from all these terrible feelings and free of the conflict my brain was constantly throwing at me. The guilt was like a lead weight suffocating me. Why did I feel this way?

Personally I think I had done more than my body could take and the fatigue precipitated the depression. I was exhausted but I was also depressed. I've seen the same pattern over and over again. I get exhausted and then really depressed. I can be tired and start getting depressed but then I get exhausted and become much more depressed. It's not the normal kind of tiredness, it's not relieved by sleep and I could sleep for hours and hours and still feel dreadful.

I was on antidepressants and was still under the mother and baby psychiatrist but still felt my mood wasn't improving with the drugs so my psych changed it. I stayed on citalopram for a while then was discharged from the mother and baby psychiatrist when my daughter was a year old, which was the normal thing. I had appointments every 3 months to keep a close eye on me but every time I went, I saw a new face and had to repeat everything again. After the 3rd visit I lost all faith in the psychiatric system again as the doctor I was with kept nodding off on me. I answered his questions with 'yes/no' answers juts to get to over with and get out of there. It felt like a farce. It felt like no one was listening anymore.

I just pretended everything was ok but it wasn't. I went to my GP and asked to swapped to a drug I had briefly tried before. He refused and said I needed to change my life style. I told him I was trying and had done what I could but still felt suicidal. He asked me with what I thought at the time was a very a patronising tone, why I hadn't killed myself yet. I was getting very upset and angry and aware I was shouting, I have a loud voice anyway so it doesn't take much for me to sound louder. I screamed at him though gritted teeth 'because I have a child'. He was still not going to change my tablets so I stormed out the surgery and headed home. I bloody mindedly cancelled my psychiatric appointments knowing to get one again may result in me having to go on the waiting list again and decided I would do it all alone and come off my pills altogether.

It wasn't long before I was struggling again so decided to contact the MIND advocacy people to have a representative come with me to talk to the GP. I felt that being on my own they could say anything and be unhelpful and I was very vulnerable. Having someone with me had always proved beneficial in the past. My husband wouldn't come with me and I didn't have anyone I could ask to go with me. These people are trained for these situations so knew it was the right thing to do. I was determined to go back to the GP and face up to him and get him to help me. By the time I got an appointment again, that GP had left so got a locus instead. He could not have been a nicer person. He was understanding, helpful and caring. He rang my psychiatrist there and then and spoke to him. By that time legislation had changed and GP's could no longer prescribe certain drugs, only psychiatrists could.

I went back to see my psychiatrist and this time actual saw the consultant. He was ok with me after he told me I should never take my medication into my own hands and my treatment needed close supervision! Anyway after discussion he agreed with me to go back on the meds I had been on a while back, Venlafaxine. I was on a really small dose as I found the side effects to be horrid.

I found it very hard to function, although I did my best for my daughter. She was never neglected, but I only had the energy for her and my gran and that was about it. I was also having dreadful trouble with my stomach. The doctors said it was IBS and gave me a shed load of pills to help with it. It kept me up at night in agony and I felt like I had been poisoned a lot of the time. I was really sensitive to a lot of foods and was experimenting with cutting things out, avoiding dairy, stuff like that. I didn't drink a lot at the time either.

I couldn't face the possibility of going back to work and as the weeks rolled by I still had trouble coming to terms with going back. I just had about enough energy to do the basics. I was having acupuncture again and eating better and slowly the depression and suicidal thoughts subsided but I still couldn't stand the thought of going back to work. It was the momentum I didn't think I could stand and I wasn't good at pacing myself. Luckily, my husband was earning good money so I asked him if I could give up or until I was fully better. I know I berated him for not helping me out but I was and am grateful he allowed me to give up work.

I say 'allowed' because I couldn't just give up  work without his say so. We could manage financially but it would mean he would be responsible for all the bills etc. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have struggled with the concept.

With nothing else to cloud my recovery I embarked on looking after my daughter and my granny and granddad and living a very simple life. A easier life. I began to get my energy back and feel more positive. I took 8 months off work altogether and began thinking about getting another job. Very part time hours only. I ended up asking my ex manager if I could get a job back in the place I worked when my daughter had been born. I got one night a week. The manager was ok with us doing fixed nights but not fixed days. I thought one night a week would be fine. I had to do it at the weekend so we wouldn't have to pay for childcare so my husband could spend some quality time with our daughter also.

He was doing the house up at the time so spent most weekends doing DIY therefore he never got to spend quality time with her. It was a good opportunity for them both. The only thing was he would spend her the time with her going to DIY stores! Gradually I got back into the swing of things and started working 2 nights a week but it was hard work. I'd try to sleep the day of my night shift for an hour or 2 before I got my daughter from school then go to work and hardly sleep the next day as I found it hard to do that. I'd probably get 2-3 hours max in the day then pick her up from school. Some days I was so desperate to get back to sleep that as soon as my husband walked in the door I would go to bed. Then the next day I'd do the same again as I had another night shift to do.

My husband continued to not have much interest in being a father to our daughter and I was solely responsible for her. 24/7. I found this very difficult being so tired after a night shift and dragging myself to get her from school after 3 hours sleep at most. I was in a constant fog of tiredness and lack of sleep followed by insomnia. It wasn't pleasant.

I carried on this way for a couple of years. I'd always known when I had gotten married that life would be the same day in and day out with not much to look forward to in the way of holidays and I could predict the future totally. A few breaks away camping, myself and my daughter and trips to see friends broke up the monotony. Nothing changed. I craved excitement. Mostly I was doing ok and could manage with a few short lived blips in between but with a nagging sense of boredom.

Our daughter was nearly 4 by then and I'd started to entertain myself to relieve the boredom by fantasising that a guy would come and sweep me off my feet and rescue me from the mundanity. Writing this now I can see it's ridiculous. I was very unhappy with my husband and should have just found somewhere to live and leave him. Messing about on Facebook I came across a guy I used to know from school and messaged him.

Messages passed back and forth for a while, mainly about life and what we had been up to. Then he started asking if we could meet. And although the thought was exciting I was nervous. I didn't even consider my husbands feelings as I thought I had nagged and begged long enough for some help, even just go in work a little later so I could get straight to bed and get an extra hours sleep but it never happened. I switched off my capacity to care about what he thought. I know now it was wrong.

We were getting closer to meeting all the time and when we'd finally arranged on a date I had cold feet. I remember coming back from the school run one morning and ringing him saying I couldn't do it as he had so much to lose from seeing me. I didn't think I had anything to lose. I was my daughters total carer so my daughter would always stay with me. Fathers don't generally get custody of their children and become part time. How naive I was.

He persuaded me to see him and I agreed. I lied about where I was going but my husband knew I was up to something. After the first night we spent together I knew then I would leave my marriage. I thought we would be together as we were meant to be. I was on cloud nine. I felt more alive than I had done for a long time.

But this was the start, as I'm sure you can imagine, of incredible heart ache and pain for us all.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part one.

This post may be a trigger. And remember it is very individual, so take it out of it what you need and disregard what you don't.

The trouble started when I started senior school. Everything was fine until I moved to senior school. I had no mood issues, as far as I was aware, up until then. I was placed in a class of people I didn’t know except one girl. We had been friends, in a way, at primary and junior school. Sharing an interest in horse riding, she had her own horse and I would impose myself on her to get as close to her horse as I could. The relationship was fickle and not deep rooted but we knew each other, however in senior school she paid me no mind and I was more or less left on my own. 

The friends I were closer to were in a different class with a completely different timetable to mine so I had no one to sit next to in class and no one to hang around with at break or lunch time. They'd made new friends and having a hanger on wasn't an option.

I started to dread school and spent every Sunday evening crying myself to sleep as I didn’t want to go to school on Monday. I had no one to talk to about it but it was noticeable at school and my very kind form teacher asked me what the matter was. I told my form teacher only a tiny bit of the story, one problem was that I was left in the dinner hall on my own. I found it very intimidating eating on my own with a table of unknown or older kids, it got to the stage where I wouldn’t go in to the dinner hall at all and spent my lunch hour trying to find places to hide and trying not to cry.

My form teacher asked the only girl I knew in the class and her new best friend to go into lunch with me, I felt like a burden, although they were with me in the queue they never spoke to me and if I hadn’t finished my lunch they would leave without me. It didn’t solve the problem, only made it worse. 

The crying continued and I stopped eating, virtually all together. My brother was a year above me at school but he chose to ignore the very embarrassing younger cry baby sister and continued his tirade of teasing at home, the usual brother/sister stuff, not just the fact that I was a crying freak at school.

Eventually after months of tears I was moved forms to be with some of the girls I had been closer to in junior school. I was relieved but it started to cause trouble. I felt I fitted in much better in that form as there were kids from the same sort of background as me. I got close to a girl called Amy, who had become close to Lisa, my friend from junior school, and Lisa did not like it at all. She became jealous. What made it worse was that I was attracting male attention especially from a boy Lisa was smitten with. She started to turn against me and loyalties were divided. Luckily, by this time, the tears had stopped but not the last thing I wanted was my insecurity to cause friction with class mates.

Within the year things settled down amongst us, with the odd fall out, and my emotional state was less volatile however another mood descended and by the time I was 14 I had taken a blade from a pencil sharpener and started self harming. The pain was a relief from the awful empty yet disorganised feeling I felt inside. I was still prone to emotional outbursts and very dour feelings. I remember saying to a friend that I would die, one day, by committing suicide. It didn’t help that I became friends with a girl who thought being dark and moody was cool. Enter the Gothic stage.

At 15 I started going out with an older boy and felt I was madly in love. I was clingy and possessive and it didn’t sit well at all as you can imagine Although he didn’t dump me, he backed right off and I felt confused and upset. I thought I was loosing him and I was terrified. It came to a head and I ended up slashing my left wrist one night with a razor blade. One small cut about an inch across. Hardly a suicide attempt but that’s what I thought it was at the time. The nurse who attended to me in Casualty told me to talk to my Mum when I had problems. I agreed just to keep the peace but I knew I wouldn’t, I couldn’t talk to my Mum about anything.

I remember wanting to ask my Mum for a bra when I was around 12 as I was the only one still wearing vests at school. I sat with the catalogue open at the underwear page on my knee one evening for what seemed like hours. She must have known I wanted to ask her something as I kept looking at her. She ignored me. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I didn’t start my periods until I was 14, the last one of my friends, it wasn’t until then could I say anything to my Mum. I didn’t know how to approach her and tell her I had started but it was such an awful first period I had to ask for help.

To add embarrassment to the fact I had self harmed, my Dad was called back from work that night and gave me a lecture on paying more attention to school rather than boys. I wasn’t close to my Dad at all and I was mortified.

I had been to my family doctor about my feelings asking for help before my first self harming incident and at seventeen he referred me to a psychiatrist. I didn’t tell anyone I had been referred but by the time the appointment came through I had already hurt myself. I still attended the appointment though as I was still feeling vulnerable and down.

It was at a clinic about 15 miles away from my home and I drove there by myself and no-one knew. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. Doctor Clayton was apparently a good friend of my GP so I thought I would be safe in his hands. He seemed ok but I was very nervous, he asked me a few questions about myself and my family and why I come to see him. I told him I thought I was depressed and had harmed myself, he told me that sometimes cancer can cause depression therefore he wanted to examine my breasts and asked me to take my top and bra off and lay on the coach. The examination seemed genuine but despite my naivety I knew it was wrong and I felt uncomfortable. After the examination I was very keen to leave as soon as possible and after a very short consultation of which I do not remember a great deal about other than him saying if I felt I needed to come back I would be welcome and to tell my GP.

I nodded and headed out the room at speed and did not ever return. I told no-one, not my Mum, not my GP, not my friends. If that was the treatment I got from asking for help then I didn’t want it, I would battle through on my own.

I kept my feelings under wraps from then on until I had another failed relationship around the age of 18. There was a pattern forming; time I made more of a mess but it was still self harm rather than a suicide attempt. A way of calming the churning feelings inside I had no idea how to deal with.

The scars got me no where apart from a little short lived peace, permanent scars, lack of a boyfriend, and ridicule. My mum and dad returned from a few days away, mum found me in bed and I told her what I had done, she seemed almost sympathetic. I can’t remember what she actually said but I can see her sitting on the edge of my bed looking down to me and me not able to look her in the eye as I was so ashamed.

I was in turmoil also as I was about to start training as a nurse. I had flitted from job to job not knowing what to do with myself. I hadn’t worked hard at my exams as I was pretty depressed towards the end of school and the teachers strike was on so teachers weren’t always around. I rode my bike to school, signed in, then bunked off. I remember sitting on an old stool in the kitchen crying to my mum about how crap I felt and didn’t know what to do with myself. Again, I can’t remember what she said but I don’t think it was very helpful. She wasn’t very good at counselling.

I got the sack or rather ‘let go’ from one of the jobs I did in my teens as they didn’t think I was suitable for the job in the probation time. I got one of the bosses to drop me at my Grans’ house so I wouldn’t have to face Mum. As I walked up to the house and round the back I could hear Mum’s voice and knew I’d be in trouble.

I saw a social worker at one point about things but again it didn’t really amount to any form of diagnosis or counselling.

I just thought I was mad and a bad person.

Nursing was the distraction I needed for a while although I was still suffering periods of extreme tiredness, unease and emotional instability. Mostly my moods were calmed by a new found activity of drinking. It was a big thing to do while we were training. I started drinking pints, a big step from my usual Malibu and coke! The alcohol calmed my rages and soothed my loneliness but equally exacerbated the depression up to a point where I was paralysed with emptiness. My best friend and a guy who lived in the nurses home with us tried to make me cry by plying me with cheap white wine and making me watch a sad film. I remember nothing of the film but the alcohol made us larey and we did silly things that night such as dressing up in a long blonde wig I had and taking stupid photos. It was a great night! The next day I was terribly hung over and although I drove us to work I wasn’t legal and had to ask the nurse in charge if I could go home. She wasn’t pleased but I’m sure she could see I was in a state and not fit to be there.

I ended up, a few weeks later, going back to the GP who had referred me to the pervert psychiatrist and asking, once again, for help. I was put on prozac. The same evening my best friend and I went bowling with colleagues we were on a placement with and I was off my head. I was on cloud nine. Someone had finally listened to me and done something constructive about my plight. My best friend remarked on how high I was. I thought it was great as finally the dullness of the depression had lifted.

It didn’t last long though and soon I was struggling to get out of bed again and continuing my studies was hard work.

I didn’t stay on Prozac for long as I thought it wasn’t doing a great deal and I didn’t want the stigma of being on it following me around. There was a bit of press about nurses with mental health problems not being allowed to qualify. It was the time of the Beverly Allitt killings so mental ill health in nurses was being highlighted. I hid my scars as much as I could and not taking the drugs meant I wasn’t ill. I wasn’t anything like Beverly Allitt but I didn’t want labelling as a risk because of my history.

I qualified in December 1993, on the 18^th I dislocated my knee cap. It was to be the starting point of a slide into the worst time of my life. I was having a reasonably good time up until then. I had a boyfriend and I was loving work. I had just landed a job on the ward I was on for my final placement. It was a great ward and I had a great laugh with the people I worked with. I was helping a patient get off a commode when he fell a little and I twisted to help him get on the bed rather than hitting the floor and my leg twisted round and my knee cap popped out. It took a few seconds for my brain to register the pain but when it did I hollered like a banshee.

I was put in plaster in casualty and called my Mum to come and pick me up, it was 18th December. I was still wearing the plaster at my mum’s funeral in February the following year. It led into a slide of out of control behaviour and self destruction.

I was encouraged to see someone by some concerned work colleagues. I contacted Cruise bereavement counselling. The counselling helped me get things in order in my brain and talk about issues I had surrounding Mum’s death but the counsellor told that me one day that I would go the whole day and not think about Mum and I was mortified. Terrified that would be reality. And to this day I still think of her everyday. The pictures of her face got fuzzy after a few months and I had awful dreams about her; she’d be leaving on a train and I hadn’t said goodbye or she was in hospital and I couldn’t get in to see her. I’d wake up feeling exhausted and washed out.

A few months down the line I persuaded my Dad to give me some money to put a deposit on a house from the money he got when Mum died. I thought it would be a new start. I didn’t put my current boyfriend on the mortgage, I suppose I knew it wasn’t going to last.

Despite having the house, I still felt empty, although buying stuff for the house and settling in took my mind off it for a while. I started to crave my freedom from my boyfriend and started to hang out with my immensely trendy best friend again. I’d turned into a frumpy, mumsy type and she was very rock and roll. My boyfriend and I hit the skids and when he became needy as he’d started a job he hated, I couldn’t cope with it. I know, very selfish. But I felt suffocated and wanted to let my hair down. I’d go partying with BF (best friend) and thought of myself as rock and roll as her, but I wasn’t. She was beautiful and I was neurotic. She attracted lots of male attention. I repelled it. It was frustrating. Meanwhile ex-boyfriend would be hanging around coming to mine in the middle of the night after a night out and constantly ringing my door bell, which was hooked up to the mains, so I had no choice but to let him in. Then face a couple of hour’s verbal abuse. Nowadays of course I wouldn’t stand for it and would call the police. But back then it wasn’t thought of as an option.

I started taking drugs mum had been given for pain relief as well as drinking heavily. I once won a bottle of vodka, drank a pint, neat and took a tab or 2 and cannot remember locking myself in the loo or that someone had to climb over the top to let me out. I made a complete fool of myself on the dance floor with a junior doctor I fancied but didn’t fancy me back.

Then when the drugs ran out I became very depressed but a distraction was waiting in the wings in the form of a male. My bf was house sharing with a colleague of hers and she had started seeing her house mates brother. They would come round and sit with us watching TV and drinking tea and having a laugh. I wasn’t aware that the mate fancied me as I was sort of seeing a friend of my brothers at the time, which was an awful experience, but wasn't on the look out. But somehow we got together and started seeing each other after I had ended the relationship I was sort of in. Bearing in mind this was only just over a year after Mum had died and I was going through a hypomanic phase, not that I knew that at the time though. 

He was smooth, tall, and a charmer. I fell for all the bull. My bf and his bf and us two made a good team for a while, enjoying time at my house and doing stuff together then it started to go wrong.

He had been staying at my house on his Uni holidays and one night he took me to work in my car for my night shift and was supposed to pick me up the next day. I waited and waited and he didn’t come.

I rang his Uni house and one of his house mates told me he’d overslept and was on his way. I felt reassured but not convinced. Things just didn’t seem right. One night out in town my BF, her house mate and I went for a curry and I was whinging about where he could be and my BF said ‘for god’s sake will you just shut up about it, he’s been talking to his ex and he left with her the other night when we were out’.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, as I always did that, this was ‘the love of my life’. How could he do this to me?

The depression kicked in even more and I started to go downhill rapidly. Withdrawing myself from everyone and mooning over my ex and his infidelity. I hung around a lot at my BF’s digs and it got on her nerves although I thought she was being very unkind and insensitive, it must have been a pain for her, having this mooching, sad sack around all the time.

She was going to say goodbye to her boyfriend, my ex’s best mate for the summer and said I could go with her as long as I didn’t moan about them snogging or talk about the ex. That was the turning point for me. I headed home and buried my head. I rang in sick and took an overdose. I wrote some crap about love and devastation in my diary and rang a friend/colleague when I became very drowsy and got scared. They took me to accident and emergency, where luckily my friend/colleagues doctor boyfriend was on duty. They made me drink charcoal and stay in for the night. Ironically I was put in the same bay as my Mum had been in when she had been admitted to hospital. I was freezing and daren’t ask for a blanket as I thought the nurses would not be nice to me after what I had done. It was still very much stigmatised to OD, especially over your boyfriend splitting up with you. I had heard many nurses/colleagues mocking overdoses or suicide attempts brought in especially when it involve the person having been dumped by a boyfriend. Females tend to overdose whereas males tend to try hangings or poisoning by exhaust fumes. 

I remember being depressed before my Mum died and thinking ‘I wish I had something to be depressed about then no-one can judge me’. They say be careful what you wish for as I got my Mum’s death in return.

I could not handle the rejection and my thoughts of his betrayal were whizzing round my head. I couldn’t think straight. I can’t remember being seen by the self harm team, maybe I was but I just wanted to put it behind me and carry on. I just wanted to be normal.

Self harming often resets the way I feel and takes away the turmoil even though I know it’s all wrong. It resets the way I think and feel and I was back on an even keel again, ready to face the next chapter.