The Function to Breathe

Twenty Three

1999 - 2004

I did get better, but it took a long time.

They kept me in hospital over Christmas, dosed up on painkillers, sleeping tablets and anti-depressants. Tara stayed in London, she had been due to go home to Cornwall, in fact I had been due to go with her for part of the holiday, but she insisted on staying in London so that she could visit me every day.

I was visited once by the surgeon who'd stitched my wrists; an elderly gentleman, stooped and with thinning grey hair, who seemed to take great pleasure in telling me how stupid I'd been. I had regular visits from the psychologist as well and a social worker came once. She seemed quite nice, but I wondered what she was doing visiting me.

Then on New Year's Eve Katie, my favourite nurse, came to remove the stitches from my wrists. She was nice, I'd seen her several times over the course of my stay and I'd come to like her. She chatted away to me as she unwrapped the bandages that still covered my wounds, they were lighter ones now though, not as thick and heavy and they had enabled me to actually use my hands a bit more over the last few days. To begin with I hadn't really been able to use my hands, my left one in particular; the bandages were so thick and any movement pulled painfully at the wounds. For the first few days I had only been able to hold a spoon in my right hand to feed myself or turn the pages of a magazine, but that was about it.

Once the bandages were off Katie carefully started to remove the stitches, one by one. It hurt a bit as she took them out, tugged at the skin, but her cheerful chatter about the party she was going to that evening and the dress she was going to wear took my mind off the discomfort a bit.

It was only when the stitches were all out that she sighed and looked a little sad. "Do you want to look?"

"I don't know." I hadn't seen my wrists at all yet, had purposely not looked when the dressings had been changed, but I knew I'd have to look some time and I guessed that now would be as good a time as any. "I suppose so."

"The scarring will improve," Katie said, taking hold of my hands and gently turning them over so that my inner wrists were exposed.

Slowly I looked down at my wrists, preparing myself for the worst. But even that didn't help, they looked worse than I could possibly have imagined. They looked awful, especially the left one, the one I'd had most trouble cutting. The scars were red and raised, jagged and uneven against my pale skin; a permanent reminder of what I'd done. I couldn't speak. I didn't want to look any more, but I couldn't tear my gaze away.

Once again, big hot tears started to flow down my cheeks as I collapsed into Katie's warm embrace. I cried for a long time, so much so that eventually a doctor came along with a syringe and a vial of liquid that he injected into my arm to knock me out.

*~*~*~*~*

They decided that I was nowhere near in a fit state to go home but they needed my bed so couple of days later I was sent to a psychiatric hospital. I spent two months there, living in a small, plain, soul-less room that overlooked the car park, going to daily therapy sessions both alone and as part of a group. I couldn't tell if they helped or not – I didn't particularly feel any better or any worse, in fact I didn't feel much of anything – but eventually the doctor in charge of my treatment decided I was well enough to leave.

I wasn't thought to be strong enough to live completely independently though. My aunt and uncle offered to have me stay with them, but I didn't want to. I knew they meant well, but I knew they'd want to talk about what had happened, about my father, about whether I was feeling better, what I was going to do now. I knew I couldn't cope with that so I took the other option offered to me; a room in a shared house for young adults suffering from mental health problems.

I moved in on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, a support worker meeting my taxi and helping me bring my meagre belongings inside. I don't know exactly how it had happened, but it seemed that I owned even less now than when I first left Leeds and it didn't take me long to have everything unpacked and arranged in the small room I was allocated.

The shared house was a pretty scary place, there were five of us; me, another girl who suffered from severe anxiety and three lads with a variety of problems. They were loud and unpredictable, particularly the one who was bipolar. He'd be high as a kite one minute, planning the most outrageous activities which would be completely forgotten when he crashed into a dark depression sometimes only hours later.

I got used to it though in the end, initially by forcing myself to talk to them, urged on by the staff that visited us every day to provide support and advice. After I'd been there a while though I began to form some tentative friendships, realising that I didn't really have a choice but to try and get along with my housemates.

The support staff helped me to find a job; by then I'd taken too much time away from my studies to have a hope of catching up and completing my degree that year. It was only a basic job in an office, filing, making tea, taking messages. Even though I knew I was capable of more it was all I could cope with.

For the next few years I drifted from boring office job to boring office job, finally earning enough money to rent a tiny flat of my own. I kept myself to myself, basically only left the flat to go to work and to do essential food shopping and errands that had to be done. I rarely socialised with any of my workmates and tried hard not to be out alone after dark, even though I was now living in a quiet little town in Kent where there was never any trouble at all. When I could get leave from work and when I had enough money I'd get the train down to Cornwall to see Tara, who'd moved back there as soon as she'd graduated and after a one night stand now had a baby daughter.

Then I met Gavin.