THE LETTER

THE LETTER Friday 18 June, 2021

My Dearest Friend

It’s time to write to you in the most open format I can. I fear that you don’t listen to me and so never hear what I say; unless of course it sparks some desire in you to listen. I feel you may read this; well here’s hoping you do anyway.

I need to say first and foremost, I love you.

I truly and honestly love you. You are my soulmate, my twin flame, my best friend, my devoted partner, my housemate, my travel buddy (although little at the moment due to COVID19) and lastly, you are my loving lover. I am concerned that perhaps most of this list should be in the past tense. 

Too often you order me to move out, or get out, f*^+ off or otherwise. Even when I haven’t been drinking. I hear how bad I am, what I’ve done to you, how you would be better off without me, I just drag you down.

I already get dragged through the mud everytime I ask to see my three boys. You always have a go at me when you mention my ex - I don’t control him. He is a horrid piece of work and you know it.

So often I think it would be easier to not be here - it would be easier if I was dead. Sometimes I just sit, tears streaming down my face plotting out exactly how I’m going to do it. 

What are my options? Poison or drugs? Stab myself and bleed to death? Jump off a balcony or roof top? Drive the car off the Westgate or into a wall? Or am I just doing it to draw attention to myself? So many considerations.

All these factors I wonder about. Sometimes, I plot out how to do it and then think ‘should I leave a long detailed letter like this?’ I suppose that would explain for people, well somewhat. Maybe I’m just not altogether there - or here.

The first time I tried suicide I was twenty-three. I’d just found out I was pregnant. The truth was, I didn’t want to be pregnant - well not when I found out the father didn’t want anything to do with it. He hadn’t planned for it, had no savings, wasn’t the right time in his life, and other excuses. 

I certainly hadn’t planned it, but I did have savings, when was the right time in life to have a baby and what other excuses were there? 

He told me he would not be a part of it and thought it best I not have it. Otherwise he wouldn’t be a part of my life. I had, after all, just found him a few months earlier and decided I didn’t want to lose him.

One night just before the abortion date he

and I went out for a few drinks… and a few more… and too many more. We spoke about my baby, he spat ‘it’s not your baby yet, it’s not even formed.’ 

I bolted out the front door of the pub and straight out into moving traffic. People on the footpath were grabbing at me but I forced myself from their pissweak grips. Two cars in moving lanes slammed on brakes; you could smell the burnt rubber of her sporty tyres!

My eyes were blurry from tears and bright headlights; a horrid mixture able to bring on a mashing migraine. Fortunately, all I received was a huge hangover the next day. Aaarrgghh! Better than a migraine indeed!

The end of that night saw me escorted home by four lovely off-duty police officers. Thankfully they were so supportive of my predicament and advised me to get help. I explained I had.

They replied not with the baby, but with my suicidal thoughts. ‘Oohhh,’ I murmured into the background music of their car radio.  

‘Yes, best I do,’ I replied.

The next time was many, many years later… I was living with you.

Previously, I had been on the brink of death with my body commencing shutdown; kidneys, liver, etc. I was turning grey, dying and only the birth of my baby could ‘bring me back from beyond’. So, at just twenty-one and a half weeks, my baby was born, “Stillborn” the death certificate wrote and I read several months later. I mustn’t have heard them say it when it happened; I just never heard anyone in hospital use those words. It was always ‘you lost your baby’, never anything else.

Even after being on death's door I went into a massive hysteria late one night and an ambulance was called. I’d overdosed on some serious medications. A mix of a handful of A-grade stuff. All I remember thinking was at least if I die in hospital they don’t have far to take me.

‘I hope I head to heaven.’

Yet I also had another thought, ‘maybe they can take care of me.’ Maybe someone can find me someone. Someone who can help. There was this tiny glimpse of hope going on, my tiny saviour. 

I’d laid on that hospital rack for hours, overnight, awake most of the time. I’d assumed I was awake but a nurse mentioned how much I’d slept - I just recall thinking so much about everything the same as what your head would normally. So, so, so many thoughts filling such a small amount of space. Filling it with thoughts of self-destruction where you feel there is no way out of this maze; no sneaking through a hedge gap or climbing over a wall. Just a white, trapped, fluffy bunny with a broken foot.

And what do you know? They did get me someone to help, perhaps not what I expected, but they did get me someone. They released me into the awaiting arms of you. You came and picked me up the next morning. You were my grand saviour!

Grand gestures may go astray and I find myself falling into the biggest bunny hole now. A tobbogan ride down into a space full of wriggling worms, bastard bullants and mind-numbing musings.

Once again, I digress. The next time I was ambulanced to the local hospital I was an absolute wreck. Once again I had indulged in a concoction of A-grade drugs and this time all I wanted was to ensure I wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t even a consideration I could be admitted to a psychological unit. 

I wanted to be away from the pain that I endured every time my ex was mentioned. The chaos he inflicted on me was so painful. I just wanted to get out. I wanted it to end. It was over it. I was so, so over it. 

Every single negative thing that had happened in the last six months just built up into a horrid event as enormous as Pearl Harbour or Chernobyl. Everything about it was extraordinarily devastating and led to this night of turmoil. The internal, physical pain, the headaches, the vomiting, the unknown of where I’d end up or even if I’d end up coming out alive. Or dead.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t coming out. I even had more tablets in my bag just in case I wanted to double up my intake. Damn! I couldn’t reach them without falling off the bed. There was no one to get them for me either. Hhhmmm, maybe this was my undoing?

It felt like a million hours later and after the blood tests and urine tests it seemed the medical team had worked through my horrific dilemma. I had to speak to a psychologist and then a social worker before I could get any answers. It appeared I was ‘alright’.

One person had called my next of kin, you, and spoken to you for over an hour. Already an hour had been spent with me. One very patient fellow I would say. I don’t know what he extrapolated from me but he had the answers.

The outcome? You had promised to be my truest of true saviour. I was allowed to leave with you on a promise to take good care of me.

I left that day; totally amazed with the outcome. I don’t know what he’d said. I don’t know what you’d said. 

I was alive. I was able to live on. A kind of freedom.

Wow! A feeling of love from people around me gushed through me. I’m not sure what the gush felt like for sure. Was it melted Jaffa flavoured chocolate all creamy and delicious?

Or was it burning hot water?

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