A Retrospective Look...

This year has really been a year of change and a year where I have grown up so much. I think at this point last year, I had all but given up on everything and everyone. I didn't care what happened to me and I didn't care whether the next day would be my last. I would cry so much because at 22 years old, I didn't want to think my life was over. At 21 I tried to take my own life.

I never really said much about what really happened there, but I kept a diary where I would write down everything I thought and felt. In the diary, I saw cycles of depression, dysfunctional relationships and a lack of just wanting to get through this. I had given up completely after my 1st year back on my HND, where I had been absent for 6-8 weeks, I can never remember how many exactly, but I always remembered the reason. This had all started and I had been so sick. All I can remember about the worst of it was trying to sleep at my then boyfriend's flat, then I remember waking up in Resus. I had never been in there before. It was so frightening. No one knew whether I was going to make it through that night. I was so unwell and I slept the next day just so that I could recover.

Instead of embracing the fact I had survived, I sank lower than ever and due to some really unpleasant and dysfunctional problems. I don't want to chew over the past and what exactly happened there because there is really no point now and it won't actually change or fix anything. I do remember that one day. It haunts me even now and I remember all the details, the words said and then an action that would change my life forever. It had been an argument about the housework. That was always an issue and I came to a devastating conclusion about life which made me feel so hopeless. I remember saying the words "People don't change."

How wrong I was.

I remember putting all my drawings away, back in the portfolio and sliding that back under the chair where I kept it at the time. I remember the numb feeling of calm that had come over me. It was like nothing else mattered now and I didn't want to find out what would happen next. I was so calm and collected as I walked in to the kitchen and looked at it. In the freezer board, there it sat, this enormous knife. It was massive and it had sharp, jagged teeth and I ran it over my arm. Blood went everywhere and I automatically snapped out of my trance. I got myself to hospital where my wound was cleaned and stitched. This is where it all began.

Since getting out of that flat, my life has improved and my confidence has returned. I don't look back on the past and lament it. Why should I lament something that really doesn't matter now. The past is the past. We can't buy back yesterday nor can we change what we've done/said or anything else. All we can do is learn and grow. That is what life is. We learn, we grow and we mature. I know now that the tests I went through have built me a strong character and a LOT of resolve. I've seen some of the worst of human nature and I did even worse things to myself. I hurt myself because I was convinced that I was the one who was bad. It was all my fault and that I couldn't ever work out how I felt.

I looked in to who I was as a person. I realised that I have so much more strength than I ever thought one person could have. I had to accept myself for WHO I was and WHAT I am. I had to learn to like myself and appreciate everything thats precious to me and keep that brave little smile and a song in my heart to keep my own moral up and my hope alive. My hopes for the next year are to finally free myself from everything that has been problematic and finally cast aside that old life. Never to return to it again. I hope to get back in to education and continue to go from strength to strength with my relationship with Tom.

Tom saved me. In every way that one person can save another. He helped me realise a lot about myself and even learn to love that person and enjoy being her.

Loves
Wendy xx