Psyke.org

Kelly

Untitled

Copyright, Kelly

I’m Kelly Bradford. I’m a girl who needs help but yet I’m invisible to everyone. No one will reach out to help me. I sit in my room every night listening to the most depressing music wanting to talk to someone but there’s no one that I can talk to. I hide behind a mask when I’m at home, school, work. because I think my life’s too shitty and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt by it. My life was a gift from satan. I have no meaning. I have no hope. I have no pride. I have no feelings. My mind feels like it’s shut off. My parents treat me like a prisoner. They’re living their life through me. They don’t listen to the truth. It smacks them right in the face and yet they think I’m a worthless child who doesn’t know one damn thing. I have a black heart. I feel like I’m already dead. There’s nothing out there for me. I’m living a lie. I’m reaching my hand out from the deep quicksand but no one will grab it to pull me to safety. So I sink back slowly into the darkness.

Untitled

Copyright, Kelly

I have been cutting myself for over three years now. My mom took me to counselling and all it did was have me cut places where it wasn’t visible. Nobody even cares no more, they don’t even ask how I’m doing. I took myself off anti-depressants but my family thinks I’m still taking them. Recently everything is going crazy again, mainly failure and I’m scared cause I can’t hide it any more, I honestly do not want the attention or help. I just want to die but I’m almost as scared to die as I am to live. I don’t know what to do and my friends aren’t helping at all they just keep talking down to me and telling me all my plans for the future are going to fail. I know I won’t make it in life. But do you think the afterlife is any better?

Kelly

Copyright, Kelly

I guess my self injury all started around freshman year in high school. I didn’t even know what it was but all I know is what I did was helpful but shameful. I just didn’t do it everyday, I did it about 10-20 times a day because I couldn’t cope with life. But it was either cutting or suicide. I wanted to die, and I have attempted many times, but I just ended up in the mental hospital which isn’t a very nice place to stay. Cutting was just a way to pass the time when I was in agony with my depression. It would keep me from suicide somehow. I couldn’t get out of bed, dress, shower or anything, there was just no need to. Cutting gave me relief from these demonic feelings even if it was only for a little bit. Once I made those deep gashes in my arms, I could breathe again. I wouldn’t feel happy , but I wouldn’t feel sad. All I would feel was the pain of the razor blade digging in my skin. That was better than what I was feeling inside. But once I started gettin these horrible scars all on my arms, people would notice no matter how hard I tried to hide them. So I started doing it anywhere I could so people wouldn’t see. But one time I cut myself so bad, I passed out in the bathroom and had to go to the emergency room. I don’t remember everything that happened, but after they stitched me up they got me help. They put me on some meds for my major depression and got me some counseling for my cutting. I’m not gonna say it all got better in a day, it still isn’t all that great. But I haven’t been cutting so much. It’s hard, it’s like kicking heroin for a junkie. But I try really hard becuase I know one day I will see the light. One day maybe I’ll wake up and say I can get out of bed. And maybe the day after that a razor can be in front of me and I would just use it to shave, and not cut away the darkness.

Untitled

Copyright, Kelly

Before I begin I would like to thank my family who has stood by me through all of this, and my Mom, she has been a strong supportive person through all of this. I love you all.

This may be very triggering for some so if you read be careful, it is pretty detailed.

Wearing a yellow ribbon stands for suicide prevention, and I wear my yellow ribbon as a reminder to myself and to anyone who see it that there are people who care. Not so very long ago, I myself did not recognize that there are people to turn to when you feel that the only way to end your pain is to end your life.

I, 19 year old Kelly-Ann Lambert, tried to commit suicide. Suicide is an ugly word but I want each and everyone of you to remember it because it is a reality. I think that if everyone who ever thought about suicide actually committed it then we’d almost all be dead.

You are probably all wondering what was so wrong, so hard in my life that it provoked me to try to end my life altogether. Well my Dad died when I was 13 and I was Daddy’s little girl so that was hard, my mom had cancer and had to have surgery, but probably the biggest thing that was affecting my life was the fact that I was sexually abused for 5 years between the ages of 6 to 11, for 2 to 3 weeks each year. I haven’t seen the guy since I was 11 and frankly I don’t care to, but the reality is, I might have to face him in court. Right now we are waiting on plea day which is October 4th, 2000. Over a year after my statement was taken.

I kept the sexual abuse bottled up inside me for 12 long years. Finally on the 11th and 12th of September 1999 I finally had the courage to let my family know by writing a letter. Needless to say they were all pretty shocked.

On October 9th, 1999 I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat on my bed and wrote a suicide note. Suprisingly I wasn’t home alone, my mom and my friend was here. I finished my letter walked out into the kitchen and counted out some pills. There was enough there to put me to sleep where I would never wake up again. I put the pills into my pocket and poured up a glass of water and headed back into my room. I stayed in there for a few minutes so my friend wouldn’t suspect anything. Next I went to the washroom and began taking the pills. I took 2 and thought, ‘Kelly, what are you doing?’ I took 2 more, then 2 more and soon my hand was up to my mouth and half the pills were gone, I took a mouthful of water and then I took the rest of the pills. I went back into my room and my friend asked what was wrong. I told her nothing.

I lay across my bed thinking how easy it would be to just go to sleep and fade out of life. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I didn’t want to die, I was only 18 years old, I had my whole entire life ahead of me. I turned my suicide note over, wrote on the back and when I finished I told my friend to come on. I walked past my mom and said I’d “be back in a second”. Little did she know the next time she saw me we would be rushing to get me to Gander Hospital in time.

After a while of asking me what was wrong my friend went and got a friend of mine who has been there from the beginning. He was older and would know what to do. He asked me what was wrong. I began to cry and I handed him the letter and said “here, this explaines everything”. At this point I really didn’t know how to control myself, I was getting weak and dizzy and scared. He read the first 2 lines looked up and asked “Did you do it?” I didn’t answer, He said “Kelly, answer me, did you do it?” I wispered “yes”.

Right away he grabbed me and helped me to walk and got my brother, and they got Mom. The next thing I knew we were on the way to the hospital. We stopped in Gambo at a friend’s house and called the ambulance. Within minutes it arrived. They put me on a stretcher and into the ambulance and then we were on our way again. The attendant took my vitals and told me I had to stay awake, so he kept asking me questions. They gave me oxygen because it was hard to breathe, and there was pain in my chest.

When we arrived at the hospital they moved me to an emergency bed, there were nurses and doctors and hospital staff all around me. They did an EKG and then they put an IV into my right hand which fed me glucose and water. They did a blood test and took all my vitals. Then they fed me this thick brown liquid that saved my liver and my life. The liquid would make me throw up and hopefully rid my body of all the drugs. My choice was drink it and throw up or not drink it and risk liver failure and a trip to Halifax Hospital for surgery. Needless to say I drank it. They made me drink apple juice which I didn’t like before and can’t even look at it now without getting sick. I can say one thing for sure, I never want to throw up like that again.

When my blood test results came back they changed my IV from glucose and water to an antidote. Then they stuck another IV into my left hand with potassium going into it.

When they finally moved me out of emergency, I was put in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) observation where I was hooked up to a heart monitor and had a nurse watching over me at all times. I couldn’t get out of bed because of the heart monitor and IV’s. I felt like someone had beaten me with a stick, both inside and out. I was called a “special” which meant I couldn’t be left alone at any time for any reason. Personally I didn’t feel very special.

My first night there I spent 34 hours without sleeping. My glucose was taken 5 times a day, blood taken 3 times in 6 and a half hours, temperature taken every little while, my blood pressure taken every hour and to top all this off, everytime I so much as coughed or moved my heart moniter would go off. They switched the IV in my right hand with another antidote that would take 16 hours to go into my system.

My second night there I barely slept because of similar problems. On my third night there I was finally unhooked from everything. Then I was moved from another room which was still in ICU but there wasn’t any heartmonitors. I was still considered a “special”. I couldn’t even go down the hall, unless a nurse was with me.

I didn’t get to spend the night there because they moved me to pediatrics. I was moved two more times before I was released on October 13th, 1999.

As you can see it’s not a very pretty situation to be in. I learned some very valuable lessons while I was in the hospital. One was that no matter how hard life seems, it is not so bad that you have to take your own life and end it all. I really found out who my friends are and now I understand how much they were hurt, and how much more they would have been hurt if I had succeeded.

I thank the ambulance attendants, doctors, nurses and staff of James Payton Memorial Hospital for saving my life, and I thank all my friends, family, and the staff of Jane Collins Academy for being there for me. I have to say a special thank you to Melissa Feltham and Dean Wells for getting me help that night. I know that without any of the above people I probably wouldn’t be here today. Thank you to my best friends Glenda and Mary. Also a thank you to Mr. Jeff Penney, Karen Wall, Ed Oldford, Eileen Smith, all the social workers, doctors, Lori (my victim service worker), Kerry (my psyhcologist), Dr. Cantwell, and so many others who I can’t mention right now. You all know who you are. A special thank you to all the friends I have made at barbados chat. You also know who you are.

I now know that no matter what happens that it is not so bad and I will get through it. I want you to remember that no matter how dark the future looks, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you will get to it.

Statistics show that immediately after “attempting” suicide, the person desperately wants to live. Not die, which makes it sadder to think about those who do succeed.

I was luckey enough to figure that out before too much damage was done and I was able to be helped. I wish I had known all this before, but by teling all of you maybe I can help someone.

If I have helped just one person, touched their heart or changed their life by telling my story than this was all worth while.

 

Permanent location: http://www.psyke.org/personal/k/kelly