About 4 months after treatment ended, hubby rejoined a ship, it meant an easing of the financial stress but it meant for the next year he would only be home for a few months. It was time to get back to a sense of normality, I'd been doing the navy wife thing for years, I was used to it, but it was different this time. For the first time I felt vulnerable, a little insecure, a lot off balance. One day at a time became my mantra and sad to say a couple of drinks at night became the norm, I still had shocking insomnia, 3-4 hours sleep was a good night, even with alcohol. It was during the first 3 month stint of him being away that I got sick, extremely sick, driving to the doctors with a temperature of 39.8 degrees was scary, for 3 days I barely moved from my bed, thank god my children were old enough to fend for themselves, getting up to go to the toilet exhausted me. What would have been the flu for most people had got hold of my ravaged system and turned into the worst chest infection of my life. I was nearly hospitalised as it turned to pneumonia.
It took me weeks to recover, being the start of autumn it meant I was in for a bad flu season, I never really recovered until the end of winter, I spent so much time at home, I was unwell in both body and spirit, but instead of the support I so badly needed from some so called friends, I was berated and belittled for not being at the beck and call of their problems, apparently I had used up all the help and sympathy I could expect from them. When I was unable to drop everything to rush to their aid, I was labeled a bad friend, inconsiderate, selfish, how dare I be sick when they needed to dump a child on me at the last minute, how dare I miss a Tupperware party, when was I going to get over myself, it wasn't as if I had anything serious to be struggling with.
By now I was chatting to a phone counsellor, my doctor was concerned I had depression, I kept saying I was just tired, I just needed some rest. Looking back now it seems so obvious what I was experiencing, I was self medicating with alcohol, I was alternating between reclusive and the life of the party, I was a mess, on a collision course with disaster, but my so called friends ignored it. I hid it from my hubby, my family, myself in a way, to admit it meant I was in trouble and that scared me even more. My husband left for a 6 month trip meaning he would miss my birthday, our sons 16th birthday, Christmas, our 10th wedding anniversary and valentines day.
For the first month I was fine, getting routines established, focusing on expanding a new venture I had started 6 months earlier, living and trying to heal. Then the shit hit the fan, a friend turned against me, swayed by the lies of a vicious vindictive woman, it was that final straw, it broke me and it broke me badly, I hit rock bottom and there was no way up. Late one night I sat looking at a bottle of vodka and a bottle of pain pills, I had given up, I was done, it was too hard, all the fight in me was gone, you can only swim so far against the current before you become exhausted and swept away.
Then I looked up at a picture of my boys, it was my boys that would find me if I did this, I would destroy them, how could I put them through this after all they had gone through, so I poured the pills down the sink and got very drunk, then I cried, I'm not sure for how long, but I felt lighter somehow when I was finished. The next day I went to my doctor, I told him what I had nearly done, I cried some more, then we worked out a plan of action, to help me find stable ground again.
I shudder when I think back to that day now, how did I let myself get so low, to even contemplate taking my own life, it was because I held everything in, I tried to conquer my problems on my own, to proud to ask for help, don't be to proud, there is help out there for us all, we just need to ask for it. Please remember there is always someone who can help!!
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