I had always convinced myself it would be third time lucky. It was my time up, my time to leave this world that had become absolutely unbearable. Having suffered mental health problems for as long as I can remember now, I would go to any lengths to make myself suffer, to somehow justify the sadness and the pain that had been consuming me for years. It had been my fault hadn’t it? The successive list of people that had vowed to helped me but made me worse, made me even more despairing claiming I was “too entrenched” or “too severe” in my illnesses to be helped. Hope of leaving for University was what got me through 3 years at home trying to pitifully achieve GCSEs and A levels in order to become a person that I believed would be  worthy of living. The summer of 2011 I made a deal with myself in order to survive until the dreaded 6^th November, the day that always lures me to the edge. I had to find out the results of my A levels, hold my new born niece and to experience some of my degree. Getting good A levels always spurred me on to get my ticket to University.  In September 19^th I moved into halls which completely shattered my dreams of my amazing get away to a new life. I was so nervous and so determined to be happy, but the last words of my doctor was still ringing in my ears that my problems would just travel down the A1 behind me if I didn’t change my way of thinking. She was right, I magically thought that moving to University would make me happy but it didn’t, moving over a hundred miles from home away from the sleepy town I’ve lived in all my life, but here I was surrounded by people I didn’t know, people who I wanted to be friends with but was too afraid of my insecurities. So there I was alone and depressed. Luckily I met a fantastic girl on my course that made my stay at University so much more bearable despite the work being excruciatingly hard we would always find time to smile in our misery knowing that we weren’t alone in finding the transition from our previous lives to now.

Things got a bit better when I started making an effort with my flat mates they are all so lovely. The end of October saw me doing something I knew I would regret but all the while knowing the intoxicating desire to have him back in my life. Previous years before had seen me make my first overdose attempt after loving someone though a difficult emotional time in my life. I made contact with him knowing too well I was falling into my depressive state. As the 6^th November loomed I started counting down the days until I could make my attempt to finally be free from the life I desperately wanted to escape from. When the day finally arrived I started my induction at a charity that prevents people from committing suicide my stupidity of taking up the day trying to understand and stop other people from attempting suicide provided the slippery slope I was all too willing to consider it myself.  That night I overdosed. With his voice the last I hoped I’d hear. The following day brought disappointment and even more heart ache.  Looking back now I regret some things but everything happens for a reason. I survived that night but it took someone’s life. A girl I didn’t know in the corridor above me but I was mortified that I was still alive, still depressed and at an all-time low when someone committed suicide the night I failed.  It felt wrong; I feel guilty every day that it wasn’t me that died that night. I left university a month or so after that realising that my passion for the subject I loved had fizzled away another casualty of my depression.  I take one day at a time knowing that even that there is a bad day there’s always going to be hope and happiness to be sought in tomorrow. Despite all that depression, anorexia and borderline personality disorder has made me suffer I still know that I just need time to discover my purpose. To never give up believing in better places, better opportunities and a better you. There is always hope.

In memory of Melanie Sheen. May you rest in peace.