Escaping death

Depression is more common than we expect, we speak to someone who has lived it close to the edge.

By Ruth

When I was a teenager, I discovered what I thought was the wonderful world of relationships and BGR. Unfortunately, I had a bad habit – I picked the wrong men. Unbeknownst to me, this habit would pull me into a vicious cycle which would literally end up taking me to the brink of death and back.

My story starts when I met my first boyfriend, Neil, in junior college. Neil was a popular guy and when he showered me with attention, I fell head over heels in love with him. He made me feel important. I loved when he hugged me close and called me sweet names. But Neil could turn nasty when things did not go his way. He’d hurl biting words at me and call me names, like ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’, sometimes in front of his friends. This made me feel incredibly small. His degradation of me became a norm and even though he never laid a finger on me, I felt more and more insecure by the day and self-conscious of who or what I really was.

Needless to say, I lost a lot of respect for myself for letting him treat me the way he did. It loaded me with guilt and shame but I never walked away because I didn’t know if I deserved any better. I had begun to believe that what he said of me was who I really was. Through his remarks, I became even more conscious about my appearance and stopped eating to punish myself. When our relationship finally came to an end some years later, I felt isolated and worthless. Men who came into my life were strange beings from another world.

I had already been in the working world a few years when I met the arrogant Aiden. At the time when I met him, his arrogance attracted me because what I saw in him was an immense amount of confidence that I didn’t have. In my deluded eyes, it looked like we were a good match.

We were together for four years and he beat me up for two of them. At first he didn’t lay a finger on me, but the verbal abuse I knew only too well made me feel useless. He came from a rich family and I was somehow not ‘good enough’ for him or his family. My self-esteem plummeted.

Don’t ask me why I stuck around – I guess I was still reeling from my past with Neil. I was afraid to lose Aiden and spend my life alone. I didn’t think I deserved better and talked myself into thinking that no relationship was a bed of roses and this was all very normal.

Sometimes when things went out of hand, he would lose his temper and throw tantrums. Once, he threw a bowl of hot soup at the floor and shattered one of my favourite bowls. The soup scalded me but I got down on my knees and cleaned it up. I always forgave him when these things happened because he always said he was sorry and that he loved me with all his heart.

It all came to a head one day when Aiden threw one of his tantrums and kicked me in the stomach. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this but it most certainly was the first time my unborn baby took the blow – I lost the baby and decided it was time to wake up from my dream. So I plucked up the courage and walked out on Aiden forever.

Leaving him wasn’t the close of the chapter though - By this point, I felt completely lacking of self worth and that the relationship had been yet another failure in my life. I knew I was unable to change the past or rid myself of any of the emotions that I felt. I was so angry, sad and guilty all at the same time, that I cut myself to numb the emotional pain. Without really being conscious about what I was thinking or doing, I decided to end it all.

One night, I swallowed a lethal amount of painkillers and waited for the Grim Reaper to take me away. I had come to a point where I had such low self-worth and confidence that hurting my family and friends was all inconsequential. I figured I was just a blip in life’s routine and life would go on without me.

Fortunately for me, my sister found me on the floor of the bathroom in the nick of time and I was given another chance at life.

When I came to, I felt disappointed that I had failed to even see my ‘last act’ through. Obviously, I was afraid of the consequences of my actions and I now felt like I had to face the ‘embarrassment’ that would come with the taboo of attempting to take my own life. It had all gone, as they say in the army, FUBAR.

With a lot of love and care from my family and friends, I learnt a lot from what happened though: I’ve learnt that no matter how worthless or unloved you think you are, that there are always people out there who care; often a lot more than you think. Cliché as it sounds, I’ve learnt that there really is more to life and that what (literally) doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

As sad as it all was and as much as it was unpleasant, I do not regret or hate all that has happened to me. I guess the only thing I can say to people out there who might be contemplating suicide is ‘don’t’. Suicide is not the answer to life’s troubles. You might not be as lucky as me, and going to another world with your woes might just be worse.

For those who have loved ones who are in the same sort of despair; my only advice is that you be there for them. The sad thing about a suicidal person is that the only thing you can do to help is to support them through their crisis. At the end of the day, they need to go through the cycle and come out of it themselves. The worst thing to do would be to try to scold or scare them into coming to their senses.

They need to ‘discover’ this themselves and the best you can do is guide them towards that decision.

It might all have been a stroke of luck waking up again but I’m so glad I’ve been given another chance at life – and I intend to make it a good one.