The next House

I can't really say that I ever 'lived' in that house.

Our first night there is lost to me. No matter how hard I think I cannot bring it back into reality. There were odd things that were alien to me. The toilet was not in the main bathroom, the kitchen small and the garden unloved. They are things that would become my norm over the passing months.

As I stepped out of that car - my life had changed beyond all recognition - I just didn't know it.

There was just the three of us now. My mum, my sister and I. My brothers 19 and 18 chose not to make the move with us and there was this unsaid vibe that stopped me from asking about the whereabouts of my father.

Yet boxes and boxes of my brothers unwanted belongings filled the largest bedroom of the tiny little house and my sister and I crammed in on top of each other in a room no bigger than the bunk bed that we shared.

It's easy to see now, that I was in shock. I was nine years old, leaving school on Friday to be wrenched away from everything that I knew to be true.

Monday for me meant a new school. I had come from a small town. Everyone knew everyone else. All of my siblings had passed through the schools before me, my two best friends were born one day either side of me, our mothers meeting whilst confined to the hospital ward and us children thrown together in friendship forever (or so we thought).

I had never had to do anything alone before. Strength in numbers - if my siblings reputation didn't proceed me. Today really was the first day of the rest of my life.

I can't recall going there, to school with my mum on my first day - but I know (hope) that she wouldn't have sent me alone. Again - another marker of that traumatic time in my young life that is missing from my memory.

I do remember a few things from that first day - like what I was wearing (homemade maroon dungarees), what was for lunch (fish fingers and chips) and that from that very first day, my card was marked.

The Beginning??????

To be honest, it is very difficult to know where to begin, because I'm not really sure where the beginning is.

I think that I was a normal happy kid till we were wrenched away from our middle class suburban lifestyle shortly after my 9th birthday. Suddenly, one day my dad no longer went to work and our beautiful house - the one that I loved and adored with all my heart went up for sale. No one told me why. Suddenly there was no money. My beloved ballet classes had to stop, my parents friends stopped visiting and no one told me why.

I suppose with hind sight my parents did manage to shield me from all that was going on but at nine you are not a baby. As I look back now - I recall some people coming to view my beautiful house - the one that I loved. I knew that my parents were trying to sell it and deep down I knew that ultimately meant me leaving everything that I had ever known and I was clinging to my happy life with everything that I had.

It must have been in the winter, cause it was dark enough for my dad to need light to show the people my bedroom. The room was big - large enough to have two light switches. I hid behind the wardrobe, next to my Animal Crackers poster and pulled the light cord (just slightly). I knew that this would stop him from being able to put on the main light. I don't know how I knew this. He was frantically flicking the main switch and I could feel his anger.

"I am really sorry" he kept saying - "I have no idea why this light isn't working - maybe it's the bulb?"

My room was big (or at least in my memory it was big.) I shared it with my sister - we had shared since I was born. At sixteen, she is seven years older than me. She must have known what was going on - but no one told me.

Then one day the removal men came, I tried to hide so that they couldn't take me too. First all the furniture and then everything else - even the carpets. I sat in my bedroom, my beautiful bedroom with my dog and cried and cried and cried. I pulled at the floor boards because I could see lost toys and bits of lego not wanting to be left behind. I would gladly have changed places with them and stayed there lost forever.

An Introduction

When I was 21 years old I thought that there was no place for me on this earth. Though I had a family, a child, an estranged husband, a boyfriend and friends - no one chose to help me. Some would later say that they had known that I "wasn't right" yet I remained alone with the demons that would try to end my life.

The positive to this sad, sad story is that fifteen years and a whole life time later I am now living a happy life with a family that I love and who love me with all our hearts. Through my story I reach out to all those sad and vulnerable people who can't see an end to the pain. I hope that what I have to say offers some hope to a positive life.