How I got to where I am today

I woke up this morning and my head was killing me.  I'm having issues with dizzy spells and lack of balance (although, to be fair, it's hard to tell what's off balance and what's balanced; I'm pretty clumsy).  On days when you're in physical pain, it's much harder to compartmentalize your emotional pain, and between my head, ribs and shoulder with no painkillers, it's getting pretty unbearable right now.


I've found over time that writing it down can make it much more manageable.  It doesn't make it go away; I don't think there's a quick fix for that, but it does tell your brain that you've done something about it, and makes you feel more in control.  So with that in mind, I thought I'd write down one of my memories that has really been playing on my mind for the last few days; the 'what if'.


WARNING: this is a suicide/self harm story. Don't read it if you're going to get upset, or if you're going to tell me I was stupid. I already know.  It made me cry to write it, and if you're a bit of a sop, you might cry too.


EDIT: Don't read if you're a sop and at work (via @newslettersltd)


Do not ask that your kids live up to your expectations.  Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit.  ~ Robert Brault


This happened when I was 16, the Tuesday night after the the 'great loss' I spoke about yesterday happened. Maybe one day I'll write about that, but not today.  It was before I broke up with the boyfriend at the time, but I sort of knew things weren't going great.  I had started cutting; not to kill myself, but to feel physical pain rather than emotional pain.  At the time, I was much better at dealing with physical pain.  I suppose I still am.  It's something I can locate, and I can rationalize why it's hurting and when it will stop.  With cutting, I could control the pain.  It sounds cliche, but I was that girl who cut myself to stop the pain.  And, to some extent, it worked.


I usually cut late at night, when the pain was the worst.  Emotionally, I wasn't capable of dealing with it, and being alone and left with my thoughts was the worst.  One night, I went too far.  I took too many pills, and cut myself too far.  When I realised I was bleeding more than what I could handle, I rang my boyfriend.  My parents were right in the next room, but I couldn't face their disappointment.  Luckily, while he was seriously lacking in the common sense department, somehow, that day, he knew that ringing my parents was the best thing to do.  My parents woke up and came into my room.  


They saw what I had done, and I waited for the 'disappointed' talk, and it didn't come.  My mum took one look, said she loved me, and rang an ambulance.  My dad sat on my bed with me, and held my hand.  He said he couldn't imagine what I was going through, and he hated that he couldn't help me.  He said that he didn't think it was fair to put them through exactly what I had just experienced,  but he understood if I couldn't deal with the pain.  He and my mum spent the time until the ambulance arrived (which seemed like hours, but in reality was probably no longer than 30 minutes) telling me stories about  me growing up, and how much they had loved seeing me grow.  My mum left the room again, I think she was really struggling to deal with it.  I don't blame her.


When we were alone, my dad hugged me and told me that this was the moment I could change my life.  He said that he believed if I wanted, I could survive this, all by myself.  All I had to do was want it.  He said that there was nothing he could do at this point to help me, he couldn't force me to live.  He told me that if I didn't want to live anymore, I didn't have to; it was my choice.  He told me he had given me everything, but he had realised in the last week, that sometimes, everything isn't enough.  I remember sitting there, too confused to cry or be upset.  I felt like my dad was saying that me committing suicide was okay.  


I remembered what it had been like for me to lose my cousin who committed suicide.  She was my idol, and I never thought I would experience loss like that again.  Then the 'great loss' happened, and this was pain on a whole new level.  I thought about all of the other people in the world who had lost the same thing in similar ways.  I thought about how I would feel if I was sitting in my dad's shoes.


That night is 6 years ago today.  I made a choice on that night that I was going to live.  I didn't make the choice because I didn't want to cause my parents pain.  I didn't make the choice because I didn't want my brother to grow up without a sister.  I didn't do it for my friends, or for my boyfriend, or for the little person I lost.  I did it for me, because at that moment, I knew I was stronger than anything else in the whole world.  I knew that if I could get through what I had been through already, I could get through anything.  I knew that my parents loved me, more than I ever had been able to imagine before, but in the same way I learned to love the week before.  


I made the choice to get up and make myself vomit, and I made the choice get an ice pack to help stop the bleeding.  I made the choice to throw away all the pills, and I was the one who put the razors in the rubbish bin.  That day, I made the choice to live.  I knew it wasn't always going to be easy, and it hasn't been.  I also knew that by letting myself feel the pain, I was teaching myself how to process it.  


For the rest of that night, my parents sat with me on my bed, telling me stories about my childhood.  They told me they were proud of me, and that they loved me, and that I had made the right choice, no matter how hard it felt right now.  The next morning, I got up, and I went to school.  My parents didn't think I should, but they understood that I needed to live life on my terms.  I wasn't myself at school, and I wonder if anyone noticed that I was odd that day, and forever afterwards.


Since then, I've had ups and downs.  I've had great days, and hard days, but nothing has ever been as hard as that one week.  I finally felt truly at peace with my choice last year, on my 21st birthday.  My dad took me aside, and told me that he had thought that he was going to lose me that day.  He said he had never realised my strength until I got up, and said that I didn't want to die.  He told me that I was the most amazing person he ever had met, and that raising me had made him a better person. 


He handed me a piece of paper, and told me to read it later.  I got it framed.  It said:


The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.  The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.  ~ Frank Pittman


It's not enough for me to say that I'm a strong person.  I am, but I am only strong because I was taught to be strong by wonderful parents who loved me more than they loved themselves.  Teach your children strength and humility and teach them to love themselves.  Your children learn everything you teach them, and much much more.  If you're a parent, I don't need to tell you this, but listen anyway.  Every day, love your children.  They are the best thing that will ever happen to you.