“This little girl is excited and doesn’t understand why so many people have stopped by. Why are people bringing us food? Not realizing that her world is about to change. Her mom had been holding a secret.”
‘Don’t let him move back in, he’s going to kill you.’ I’d been living through hell in a horrible marriage. Most said, ‘Wow we thought you were so happy.’ I didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘I was pushed around, thrown into chairs by a group of older kids. I was kicked with such force I actually passed out.’
“I fell to the floor and cried like I have never cried in my life and talked about driving off a bridge. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for my mum to see her 6 foot, 8 inch, 18 stone son breaking down in front of her.”
‘I begged for you to stay the night, but you said you had to go. I gave you a big hug, not knowing it would be the last. You told me you would see me soon. I believed you.’
“As it hit midnight, I felt this overwhelming urge to call you. I knew something wasn’t right. I fell to the floor in shock. ‘Your sister has taken her life.’ I could not believe you were gone.”
‘I received a text from my mother: ‘Can you come home after work please, I want to talk to you about the results of my CT scan.’ I raced home. My heart sank.’
“To this day, I thank God she was in that room. ‘There is no heart rate on the monitor,’ she said. We pressed the emergency button and the nurses and doctor came running in. The minutes that followed were very scary, very intense.”
‘Everything went dark, and when I came to, I had no idea if I had been out for 5 minutes or 5 hours. There was no one left to call, and no one was coming.’
“I started drinking at what felt like a normal age – 12 or 13 years old. I was in 7th grade. I had no idea pretty, little girls from affluent East Coast towns could wind up alcoholic.”
‘I get it. I finally get it. You see moms committing suicide. And I couldn’t understand it. How do you leave your kids behind like that?’
“And then everybody posts, ‘Oh, I never knew. She didn’t say anything. She seemed okay.’ She TOLD you.”
‘He always had a quick temper. In the beginning, his temper was sexy. The sheer strength of this man, MY man, made me feel a sense of safety. I couldn’t have been more wrong.’
“I remember him sobbing, telling me I am the only woman ‘strong enough’ to fight back, so why didn’t I fight back? These were the types of questions he would ask me. I would try to change my behavior, walk on egg shells, try not to poke the bear so to speak… it just got worse.”
‘He tried committing suicide by hanging. By the time he was found, he had no sign of life left in him. ‘No, no this can’t be happening. This can’t be real!’’
“I went home to an empty house that night and that’s when the nightmares began. My heart is racing. I’m panicking and crying.”
‘Nobody thought I had a problem, I was just the life of the party. I was reaching out for help, but doctors didn’t believe me. I was even suicidal on my wedding day.’
“I knew something was terribly wrong. I was in law school about to collapse on the floor of my dorm room when I realized my life would never be the same again. It was like an all-night-long strobe light party in my brain.”
‘I am 8 years old, coming home from a fun weekend with my dad. I walk into an unusually crowded and somber house to the words, ‘Your Uncle Dale has killed himself.”
“In the blink of an eye, the word suicide is a part of my vocabulary and my family story.”
