To all the daughters and sons who have lost a parent to suicide.

Dear children,

I am a mum of the most amazing daughter. Beautiful inside and out. Caring. Smart. Talented. Funny. Responsible. Trustworthy. Kind. Thoughtful. Warm Hearted.

This little gal (she isn’t that little, in fact she is taller than me and approaching adulthood, but to me of course she will forever remain my baby) makes my life, she truly does. She picks me up when I am down, and she calms me when I am anxious. She shares my sense of humour and love for music and movies. She is my best friend. We confide in each other and have no secrets. She knows me and I know her. We trust one another completely.

My days are filled with trying to better her life. Every day. She is never not on my mind. She is perfect and deserves only the happiest of moments filling her every minute of each hour in any day.

I am also engulfed in guilt. Breath-taking guilt. Deafening and heart-breaking guilt — you see at times I am so exhausted that I seek comfort in suicidal thoughts. I survived a suicide attempt in 2013 and if I had succeeded my daughter would have been so wrong if she had felt her love was not strong enough for my will to exist. Quite to the contrary, she had kept me alive, but my guilt was the burden that sought the end.

Allow for me to bring you back to my past to explain.

I had tried to commit suicide twice before my 15th birthday. My father had decided I was not his child when I was born, due to personal reasons, but continued to raise my sister 2 ½ years my senior. I heard all about their adventures which I was not allowed to be a part of. My mother brought me up, but our relationship was strained from the beginning due to the difficulties of fighting her ex-husband, my father, in court for years to acknowledge me. This all troubled me deeply subconsciously as a child. I could not yet rationalise what was happening, so I blamed myself and figured to be unlovable.

At 15 I made the executive decision to move into boarding school, which was funded by the state in Germany when they learned of my deteriorating mental wellbeing, as well as my usually top grades at school disappearing . I didn’t want to leave my family nor did they want me to leave, but I genuinely felt I would not survive the leap into adulthood if I didn’t remove myself from our family home. The guidance counsellor declared me suicidal.

At 18 I emigrated to Ireland in the hope of an ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ Cure.

At 23 I was a single mother in a foreign country with no family, nor long term friends around.

By the time I was 27 I was a single mum again, of a now 6-year-old beauty, divorcing a man who used his hands to communicate with me instead of his words, opening up childhood wounds which never quite got the chance to heal. I had a boyfriend prior to my marriage who would hit me occasionally too. A pattern had developed due to my lack of self esteem and romantic desperation to seek love.

At 27 my fighting spirit had not yet been diminished however and I was determined to rebuild our lives and make it better, I had the will. I had the brains. Everything was ahead of me still. I had lots to live for, most of all my beautiful girl and so I soldiered on doing everything in my power to provide my daughter with a loving home.

Then came the “next”.

I was 32 when I found out my then boyfriend was involved in drugs, storing cocaine in “our” (his) house for quick cash on the side. His “business” buddies threatened me with violence following my own threat of telling the police everything should the cocaine not be removed from the home I and my daughter resided in. I was freaking out when I learned the truth about him. For someone that is against hard drugs and very much an abiding citizen this was an unfathomable situation to find oneself in. Drugs in the house my daughter lives in? All I could see was danger. All I felt was protective.

Following his confession he provided me with a lot of information regarding illegal involvements besides his “storage unit” in the house. I now know he was testing my loyalty, back then all I felt was immediate danger for our safety. I threatened to call the police and tell all, about which he and his mates weren’t happy of course and so I found myself a prisoner in what I had called my home. My then boyfriend ran out into a car and drove off. Threats to the door by strangers followed. Threats via text messages by his buddies. I refused to leave my belongings behind with the knowledge of the impending homelessness. Where to go? What to do? I was stuck.

The next two days I drowned myself in alcohol, cigarettes and despair, trying to figure out my next move. My daughter thankfully away on holidays with her dad and unaware of the situation unravelling at home.

I could not fight again. And again is the predominant term in my own story of reaching hope to completely desert my being. I was too weak now. I was overcome by fear and could no longer see a tangible future. I had been searching for a simple life my whole life but history and present did not allow for that simple wish to become a reality. I was but a shell of myself, beaten down physically but most of all mentally.

My beauty gal undoubtedly loved me strongly and unconditionally. I was and am her everything and so is she mine. But that very thought of being everything to her also destroyed me. I couldn’t give her the life she so very much deserved. I continuously failed her. Year after year I introduced her to sadness and struggles. No real home filled with joyous memories. A norm to many children. I failed at the simplest task of providing my daughter with a safe space to live.

I was known as the funny, strong and pretty girl amongst my friends, I liked it that way. It was my escape from reality when in their company, but dealing with all your hurt by yourself will break you and my body and mind had started to crumble in isolation exponentially.

Determination was slackening. Fast disappearing. I was nothing but an imbecile. A failure. I told myself. So, sitting in that house covered in tears and hopelessness, no fight left in me, I raided the pill cupboard and a homemade poitín bottle.

I am unsure how to convey to you what it feels like when you cannot, regardless of how much you try and want it, see a future. When looking back into the past all you see is sadness. When hope for a better has deserted you. When all you feel is heartbreak. When all glimmer of aspirations had been sucked out of you by every failure endured. When there is too much fight ahead of you, waking up simply breathing a difficulty. Though that undying love for your child very much vibrant. I am unsure how possibly I can justify my thoughts and actions to you when love is still apparent but anguish is winning the race.

I wrote a goodbye email to my older sister, my daughter’s dad and herself (unread by her and deleted from her account the very next day while in hospital recovering from my suicide attempt). I swallowed one pill after another and then laid down on the couch, awaiting the end. I no longer longed for anything at all; I was obviously unlovable. I was an inadequacy. Now all I longed for was peace & quiet. I longed to not have to try any more. I longed to stop failing my daughter. I longed for it to be over. I longed to not cry anymore and feel no further pain. I wasn’t just broken, I was vanquished by years of abuse.

I cried myself to “sleep” thoughts only of my precious child. I felt her pain, I very much did, the pain she would feel herself knowing her mum had left her. I knew she would be ever so heartbroken, and her tears wouldn’t stop falling. She would miss me so much and wished for her mum still to be there with her, sharing a laugh, hugging her, loving her. I knew she would blame herself. I knew she could never forgive me. I knew she would feel abandoned. I knew she would feel rage. I knew she would never ever be able to get over my death. I had so much love for her. I cared so much about her, but I was a broken woman, and I couldn’t face another day. I simply couldn’t. The mum she deserved had long died. The life that she deserved had long been taken away from her. Living meant we’d be homeless as soon as I walked out that door. A fight yet again. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t have that 11-year-old girl be thrust into a life of uncertainty AGAIN. Her dad was stable, he would give her a better life without me in it. She would never again have to endure any further hardship due to her mum’s incompetence at living.

I am writing this letter to you because I have read so many troubling writings and also recently watched the documentary “The Kindom Of Us”, in which surviving children voiced their despair & hurt of their father leaving them. They thought of their parent to be selfish and that their love wasn’t enough to keep their beloved dad alive. “Did they not truly love them?” was a recurring question in their own quest to find peace of mind in their parent’s self-inflicted death.

Please let me assure you, being a mum of the most beautiful child ever, having attempted suicide, your love was enough. So very enough, yet it felt as though it was not deserved and with that, that very love caused pain. Pain of not being that parent one would have hoped to be and deserving of. Dreams high, yet reality very different.

I am 39 now and at times I still fall back into that mindset when things get tough and because I have survived my attempt I was able to tell my daughter the truth when eventually she learned about my attempted suicide. It was never her fault I felt so low. It was never a question of the strength of our love that I felt a desertion of fight. It was never her joy that had too little of an impact to reach me. It did reach me, but my mind was scarred by everything that wasn’t her and I believed I had failed her — that she would be better off without me.

Dear children it is not easy to write this. Just know, please know, your love was everything to your parent and it kept them going for as long as they breathed the same air as you. There is nothing you could have done; you could have said. Unfortunately, a suicidal mind is burdened by a pain that is incapable of seeing the beauty surrounding it. It is not and never was you, it’s a helplessness, a void that weakened all of your parent into believing they are not worth yours nor anyone’s time and love. Trust me when I say, and I know this does not make it ok, but I know you were their last thought on their mind because I have been there, and I was the one not strong enough for her.

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always!”

Sincerely

A loving mum.