My first blog

Well here I am, thinking of what to write. I guess I should start with why Im starting such a thing. Blogs seem to be these things that no one reads, like its a diary that someone writes in whenever but it doesn't have a lock on it - yet not many people read them. Oh well, ya get that. 

I have a story to tell,  everyone has a story and they are all fascinating in their own way. My aim is to eventually write what I wrote in my diary last year while in a mental health hospital, about the people I met and the doctors and nurses I had to deal with, my diagnosis of depression, borderline personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and my ongoing fight with suicide. It will hurt people what I wrote, it will surprise some people what I wrote and it will make some people angry that such a thing can happen. But it can and lets face it - if it doesn't affect you its going to affect someone you know.

So, I guess a little background info is a good thing on how I got to this point.

Mine starts last year as the beginning of what I thought was the end. It really starts back when I was 7 or 8yrs old and in Camperdown Childrens Hospital in the oncology ward for what they thought was leukemia. In the end it was a peanut in my lung which had calcified, making that lung collapse and then putting pressure on my other lung, it had started to collapsed. Well, long story short, the peanut came out and I still have it in a jar.

But this peanut wasn't the start of my down fall. It was the friendship that I had built with Stephen (and I remember it being 'ph' and not 'v' because it was 'funny'), the boy in the bed next to me. He had that typical sick cancer look - pale, no hair and tubes coming out of him like crazy. He had the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen. We would sneek off to the toy room and play and if he wasn't able to get out of bed I would sit on his bed and draw, colour in, read books together or laugh along with the other 2 kids in our room. I would have brekky in the morning but he never had it with me - well not that I remember.

I remember coming back to my room after my operation and he was no longer there. I wasn't sure where he was. Maybe off having another scan, but why was there someone else in his bed?  I eventually asked a nurse where he was - I wanted to share my jatz with him, and she said that he had died. Dead. Gone. Not coming back. Dead! I was 7 or 8, I knew what death was and I dont think I gave it much thought after that and never asked questions about it, I just accepted it. Life went on. I was discharged and came home with asthma - brought on by the trauma on my lungs.

So what other things do I remember??
 Laying in bed unable to breath, biting into my bed and banging on the wall for someone to come and help me. To this day I can still vividly remember the fear of dying from not being able to breath.
The day Mum picked me up from school to take me up to Camperdown - Mr Dawson was my teacher (I was in yr 2). He told me years later when I bumped into him at work he thought that would be the last time he would see me.
I remember visiting Dad at work 20min later and then I remember driving into the carpark at the hospital.

My memories over the next few years are filled with asthma attacks - yet again not being able to breath. Nightmares of dying. I use to lay in bed and couldn't stop that feeling of being really big in my room, like I was floating above everyone else. And when I told this to the psychiatrist last year she looked at me with wide eyes and said 'ahhh, yes that makes total sense'. Does it?? Obviously to her!!

Then in 1994 my beloved Kurt Cobain died. Oh I looooved Nirvana!!!! And when I heard on the news he had suicided I was really upset but at the same time proud of him - but proud for what?? I wasn't sure until last yr. When Mum said to me that he had died and how he was such an idiot I was shocked! How dare she say he was an idiot!! He had the strength to do something that lots of others didn't - suicide. In my thinking as a 13yr old those who fought it were weak. They were strong if they did commit suicide. Irrational thinking?? Oh its only just begun!!

Then one night, not sure when it fits into the chronology of everything, Emily - my sister, dared me to take a WHOLE ventolin. So, being the big sister who cannt be a woose (is that how you spell it??) did exactly that - the entire 250 puffs all in about a few minutes. As you can imagine, something happened....not sure what it was but Mum and Dad were there at my bedroom door asking how many puffs I took....I said 15. Lying?? Oh its only just begun!!

I was ok, but that feeling of being high is just awesome!! You lose the feeling of what reality is. You feel numb to everything. The head spins, the white fuzz around everything, the fast heart rate, everything physiological was awesome with having too much in one go. So over the years I progressed from having 7 puffs in one go, to 21....then it was 50....and then by the time I was nearly 16 I was having atleast 1 entire ventolin a day.

I was sneaky, I was a lier!! I used every excuse under the sun why I needed to get a new ventolin out of Mums stash - I lost it, I left it at school, I need a new one for basketball, I need a new one for skating, for a sleep over....I would sneak into Mums room at night while she was sleeping and take one out of the box - i remember getting caught and saying that I couldn't find it and that I was struggling to breath. Yet another excuse to use....I was loving it!!

It wasn't until I was on a youth group camp in late November 1997 that Sonia and Gail noticed that I wasn't sleeping, was jittery, hyper and irrational. Gail, being pretty darn straight to the point that she is, came straight out and asked me 'How much ventolin are you using Laura?'. I just laughed at her. She confiscated the 7 I had in my bag for the 3 day camp.......

All I can say it that for that week, I didnt sleep, I felt sick, anxious.....and eventually a few months later VERY suicidal.

So, Ill leave it there for now......uni is calling and Im great at procrastinating.