Repercussions

My Manager took control of things on the work side, ensuring that my job would be secure for when I was able to return.  Working together with the friend who I'd discovered had called the ambulance, he put into place a system of support.  He visited me at the hospital, ensuring that I had everything I needed.  Not only did he focus on work issues, but also offered his help and support in any other area that we needed.  He had only told those who absolutely had to know, exactly what had transpired.  Others, who asked, were told I had taken some time off.

Before being released from hospital, I was referred for a Psych evaluation.  Hah!  As if I didn’t know what was wrong already.  I was a useless waste of space who did not deserve to live and was nothing but trouble.

 

The Psych team were yet again, lovely people.  My one hour appointment lasted for about three hours and during that time, I realised things that I had never seen before.  My view of myself, the wreck I had made of my marriage, the way I had behaved as a teenager, my quest for acceptance in late childhood – it could all be traced back to one thing.  To one action.  To one person.  Alex.

I don’t think I have ever hated anyone as much as I hated him at the moment that the realisation hit me!  Here I was, a total emotional wreck and there he was, sitting in his lovely home, with his wonderful life, still pulling my strings, even though he wasn’t aware he was doing it.

How on earth could I have allowed this to happen?  What kind of an idiot was I that I had spent all these years letting him control me?  And ironically, all these years his family had treated me as though I was the second-rate citizen.  

It was time I took control.  I knew exactly what the Psyche team needed to hear so that they would allow me to be released, so I obliged.  Of course I realised that I had made a mistake (not!).  No, I would not do something so stupid again (hah!  Stupid to fail!).  Yes, I wanted to get help so that I could get better (Oh please, nothing could help except to go back 33 years and change it all).

But I wanted to stop wasting the staff's time at the hospital, so I said whatever was expected of me.  I knew deep down inside that it would only be a matter of time before I figured out a foolproof way to die.  One that would cause the least distress to those who would have to clear up after me and one that I could be sure would work!

Reactions

We all muddled our way through and the drowsiness certainly helped. 

In a way I am glad that my memories of that day are so sparse and cloudy.   I honestly don’t think that I could have dealt with it all, whilst trying to get myself back on my feet.  There were still so many terrifying things in my life and a person can only handle so much.

My mindset was not exactly positive.  To add to all my other feelings – low self-esteem, low confidence, guilt, anger – now was added feeling like a failure.  I couldn’t even kill myself!  And now I had to sit in a ward with other people who were genuinely ill, hoping and praying that they did not find out why I was there.  How would that have made them feel?  There they were fighting for their lives, next to me who wanted to give up mine more than anything else.

And still everyone was so nice to me.  Why couldn’t they have been disapproving and angry?  That would have been so much easier to deal with.  And there was still more to come.  Hilda had spoken to my middle son and told him that to her, what I had done was totally selfish and she did not want to see or speak to me as she didn’t think she could be civil.  This was probably the reaction that I expected from everyone, but when I heard that this had been said to my son!!  How could she be so inconsiderate?  For that matter, selfish?  And she called me selfish?

There was my son trying to deal with what I had done, or at least tried to do, and she was using him to vent?  The sister of the man who had set off the chain of events and experiences that had led me here?  Unbelievable!

And my brother, who had always seemed to need someone else to take control, had stepped up to the mark and was providing my boys with the love and support that they needed.  I have always had a less than perfect relationship with him and my feelings towards him and his family have been pretty ambivalent.  But at the end of the day, when we really needed him, he was there for us and more importantly, there for my boys.  For that I will be forever grateful.

Quite a few people showed their true colours during the next couple of weeks.  And funnily enough, with the exception of Hilda, they were all beautiful colours indeed.  

Another Failure

I actually remember very little of what happened the next day.  Maybe this is a blessing in a way, because it gives me less to hold onto when I look back and start throwing recriminations at myself.  Why did I fail?  How useless was I that I could not even get this right?  But I do remember a few snippets.  It is as though I was taking short film clips of the day.

The first thing I remember is when I woke up at about seven the next morning.  Never before have I felt that sick.  My stomach felt like it was trying to fold itself into a very small box and the nausea was unbelievable.  I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.  Surely I couldn’t still be alive?  What had I done wrong this time?  Maybe I needed to just tough it out.

I fought the nausea for as long as I could, but eventually I couldn’t hold it back anymore.  I rushed through to the bathroom and only just made it before I started vomiting.  The stomach cramps were like iron vices and the retching was strong.  Again, I could not figure out what I had done wrong.

After a few minutes, the vomiting subsided and I made my way back to my bedroom, where I think I passed out on the bed.  It must have been about half an hour later, that I was rushing to the bathroom again.  Had I miscalculated?  Had I taken the wrong tablets?  By this point I was distraught.  Not only could I not live my life right, but it seemed I could not die right either.  I felt like a complete failure.

Since the internet had given me the ‘recipe’, I decided to look again to try and find out where I had messed up.  And of course, I had missed something out.  Too much Paracetamol makes you nauseous, so as a method of suicide, an anti-emetic needs to be taken first!  In between rushing to the bathroom to relieve the nausea and cramps, and trying to find a way out of my situation on the internet, another half hour or so passed quickly.  I didn’t know what to do.  I wanted the suffering to be over – I wanted to die.  But I didn’t want to be this ill.  The stomach pains were incredible and my back and neck muscles were starting to ache.  I hated vomiting at the best of times, but this was truly frightening.

Then I have another gap, though I couldn't say how long.  I remember the paramedics arriving.  Then there is a great big gap and I was in the hospital.   Because I had already started vomiting, it was not necessary to pump out my stomach, but the doctor had set up a drip to try to protect my liver from further damage.  Despite the fact that my suffering was entirely self-inflicted, he also prescribed something to stop the nausea.  I felt like a total waste of space.  A fraud.

Here I was, having made myself ill, taking up the bed space that was needed by someone far more deserving than me.  The nurses and staff were absolutely phenomenal.  My heart was monitored, as was my liver function.  They were so kind and caring and I remember feeling so awful.  How could they be taking so much care of me when there were others out there who were genuinely in need of them.

Next, I was in the critical care unit.  I don't remember being taken there and there's very little else that I recall of the next few hours.  What sticks in my mind for some reason is that the unit was lovely and cool and I was hooked up to all sorts of machines and monitors, which I found really frightening.  Probably because I was in and out of consciousness, they explained very little to me about what was going on.  By this stage, I wanted to die more than ever - I truly did not feel worthy of all the help I was getting and felt guilty that I was costing the NHS so much.  When would they realise that I wasn't worth saving?  Couldn't they see that it would just be better to let me go?  

Around mid-afternoon, I woke up and I was in another unit and my son, brother and sister-in-law were allowed to come in to see me.  Everyone was subdued, as you would expect and I just didn’t know what to say. 

The thing is, I wasn’t sorry I had done it, only sorry that I had failed.  

How do you explain this to those closest to you, who so obviously care?  Especially when you know that you don’t deserve their love?

The nausea reared its ugly head again, and the consultant prescribed something to settle it down.  They ran more blood tests and as the level of paracetamol was still too high, another drip was set up to counteract it.  I was more aware of what was going on by this stage, though my mind was still a bit foggy.  It was then that I realised that I still wasn’t in the clear and there was a large part of me that hoped my system would just shut down.

But that wasn’t to be.  I had to face the fact that not only had I failed, but I now had to deal with the repercussions.  How do you explain to people the level of desperation you feel when you can see no other way than to take your own life?  Is there any way to explain that you do not deserve their love or caring?  That you are nothing but a dirty fraud?

The Final Step

So on Friday 16th July 2010, I got things ready for the final step.  I phoned my best friend for a chat, to ensure that she would not ring me later.  I apologised to my sons for my moods.  I got the letters ready to be emailed to the relevant recipients. 

Through the internet I had learned that the tablets were easier to absorb if they were crushed up and less likely to come back up.  I’d also found out that taking them with too much liquid could cause vomiting.  Additionally, if the tablets were crushed, they would be quicker to take and th body would absorb them faster, thereby reducing the risk of passing out before taking them all.  One site advised that it was important to have the tablets ready and out of their wrappers so that it was quicker and easier to take them.

So I laid out my collection, 140 tablets in all.  I crushed half of them and mixed the resultant powder into a small amount of fruit juice.  The balance of the tablets I removed from their wrappers and placed them ready beside my bed, together with the fruit juice cocktail and another glass of water.

I made sure that all my washing up had been done and that everything in my flat was in order, especially property belonging to the service.  I put my phone on silent so that I would not be disturbed.  I had already developed the habit of putting the phone on silent at work and had frequently forgotten to reactivate the sound afterwards, so no one would wonder about it.

And then I went out onto my balcony for one final look at the view.  I took my time and I suppose there was a part of me that was wondering if I was doing the right thing.  Maybe there was a part of me that hoped that someone would sense that something was wrong and come around to check that I was alright.  But I honestly believed that everyone would be better off, even happier without me around.

Then I went through to my bedroom, where everything was laid out ready and waiting.  I started taking handfuls of tablets with the ‘cocktail’.  Once the cocktail ran out, I used the water.  And I finally cried.  Not so much because I did not want to die, but because I wished that there was someone out there who loved and cared about me.  But I knew that this would never be possible.  Why would anyone in their right mind care about someone like me?  I didn’t deserve it, so how could I expect it.

One hundred and forty tablets later, I realised that I needed my parents with me, so I got their photographs and placed them beside my bed.  And I just lay on my side, waiting for sleep to claim me and after that, oblivion.  Still I cried.  I cannot explain what it feels like to believe that there is not one person on earth who cares whether you live or die.  The word loneliness just doesn’t cover it.  I cried for the girl I could have been, if only Alex had not decided to destroy my life 33 years ago.

Spiraling downwards

Then other things began to go wrong.  The funding for my position was called into question due to budget cuts and my bosses were concerned.  Work colleagues kept on trying to reassure me that I would be okay.  But I did not want them to worry about me.  Couldn’t they see that I wasn’t worth it?  Didn’t they know that it was only a matter of time before it came out that they had all been fooled and I was in fact useless? 

My landlord was granted a court order to take possession of my flat.  And the date set was before the date I had selected to end it all.  My sons kindly offered to let me move in with them until I could sort out an alternative.  Now I was hurting my boys!  This just wasn’t on.  I had to do something.  I couldn’t allow my mess to affect anyone else’s lives.  But what could I do?

I don’t know why, but I started to take it out on those that I cared about the most – my boys.  I started arguing with them over silly things, to a point where it was affecting their lives.  It was time to act.

Planning

With everything else that was going on this was the one thing that I did not want to hear.  At no point in the past had I been that angry at Alex.  I finally realised that he had done this to me.  It was all his fault.  What he had done to me had set in motion a chain of events that I was powerless to halt.  My life was a total wreck and there he was, sitting pretty with a wonderful family, his parents still in his life, a successful career, nice home, everything.  And I had nothing!  If this was the way the rest of my life was going to be, what was the point in carrying on? 

The idea of ending my life started to take shape in my mind.  My suffering would be over and the rest of my family would be able to get on with their lives without me to drag them down.  Because that was all I was to them, just a burden.  No-one really cared one way or the other whether I lived or died and they would not be overly upset by my death.  And even if they were, they would get over it soon enough and be able to carry on living happy and successful lives.

So I planned it out carefully.  I went to the doctor and told him I was suffering from severe back pain.  I had suffered with this before and I knew that there was no way he could verify what I said.  I was right and he prescribed a good supply of anti-inflammatory/painkilling tablets.  I stocked up on a large quantity of Diclofenac, Ibuprofen, Co-codamal and Paracetamol.  I then returned to the doctor, this time telling him about not being able to sleep.  This was true, but I had another plan for the tablets.  I looked at suicide websites on the internet to find out what would be sufficient quantities to be successful and doubled it. 

I looked at the calendar and selected a date – 30^th July.  It needed to be a Friday night, because no one would miss me until Sunday lunchtime, at which point it would be too late.  I started drafting up final letters for the people I cared about and of course, one for Alex. 

At work, I tried to get things set up so that someone could step in and take over without too much difficulty.  I cancelled my car insurance, let the tax run out and the MOT too.  I started to tidy up my flat, getting everything into order so that it would be easy to clear. 

I still kept the happy face on.  I did not want to worry anyone.  That was something that was reserved for people who mattered.   And naturally, I didn’t matter.

As the weeks passed things fell into place and I was getting really good at saying all the right things at the right time.  I was proud of the fact that no one suspected anything.  Just how I wanted it.

Back to Depression

At first, it seemed that I was right.  I revelled in the idea that I could make it without the medication and that I wasn’t a total failure.  But after a couple of months I noticed symptoms of the depression re-emerging.  I was having trouble sleeping again.  My levels of motivation for everything except my work dropped.  I could not seem to get interested in anything.  And I was avoiding things that I did not like doing.  There is nothing like burying your head in the sand when you don’t want to deal with something.

In March 2010 I took my boys to South Africa on holiday – a holiday of a lifetime with no expense spared and the word ‘no’ left behind in England.  I was sure that this would turn me around and stop my slide back into Depression.  We had an absolutely fantastic time and I convinced myself that I felt better.  We spent a month travelling the country, from one end to the other, meeting family, experiencing all kinds of new things and seeing a part of the world that was familiar to my boys, but not clearly remembered. 

When we returned to England however, I resorted to my head in the sand behaviour.  While we were on holiday my rent had failed to come out of my account and my landlord was going ballistic.  Within a week of the payment having failed he had served a ‘Notice to Quit’ on me.  I called him and tried to explain what had happened, but he was not listening.  His terms were – pay a year’s rent up front or get out in June!

I started to pay off the arrears, but still he would not back down.  After talking with a friend and taking into consideration the fact that my landlord was holding a deposit equivalent to three months rent, I decided to wait and see what would happen.  Still, he refused to withdraw the ‘Notice to Quit’.

My mood spiralled ever downward.  There was now no way I could not be aware that the depression was back, but in my head I believed that if I did not deal with it, then it couldn’t be real.  So I soldiered on.  

But in May I eventually gave in and returned to the Doctor.  He confirmed that the depression had indeed returned.  And he suggested that there was a strong chance that I would be fighting it on and off for the rest of my life.

Recovery?

The trip to South Africa in April 2009 was really good for me and represented a turning point.  During the trip I managed to come to terms with the loss of my parents and the great gaping hole that it had left in my life.  Seeing so many of my father's family certainly helped.  They are wonderful, caring people and when I was with them I felt like I belonged and again felt part of a family.

I started to question whether maybe I wasn’t as worthless as I had thought, but deep down inside I knew that I had been right all along.

I put on a happy, smiling face and came across as this confident and totally together person.  The act was helped along by the genuine passion that I had for my work.  How could anything be as amazing as helping people for a living?  Who knows, maybe I had even been involved in saving someone’s life. 

And I began to wait for the tap on my shoulder that would be my bosses discovering that I was a fake.

Upon my return to England, I threw myself back into my work.  And I began to wait for the tap on my shoulder that would be my bosses discovering that I was a fake.

Friendships at work blossomed, but I was still of the belief that people could not really like me because in truth they didn’t even know the real me.  And if they had a chance to get to know the real me, they would run a mile.  So my sense of isolation grew further.

I hid behind my work in many ways and it took over my life.  Nothing else was as important.  Slowly but surely my act became more and more real to me and I started to believe that I was feeling better.  That I was getting over the depression.  By November that year, I was totally convinced that I had won the battle and took myself off the anti-depressants.

Things start to look up

As time passed by, more and more responsibility was given to me within my section.  When internal funding ran out for my position, a successful bid was made to a local partnership, enabling the service to keep me on. 

I became more and more involved in the job and it provided me with a feeling of having achieved something.  The depression seemed to fade, but what I didn’t know was that a combination of the effect of the medication and the enjoyment of my job was merely masking it. 

There was a part of me, I think, that realised this was the truth, but there was another part that wanted to be able to stand up on my own without the medication.

My brother and I had inherited some money and I took the opportunity to make some changes in my life.  I moved into a flat of my own, furnishing it with only things that I really liked.  My home was beautiful.  My rent was paid up six months in advance.  I treated my sons and ensured that they were taken care of too.

It looked as though finally my life was on the right track.  My life was full and busy.  There was so much going on that I rarely had time to really stop and think.  And I felt that my past was finally behind me.  The only thing that still bothered me was the way that I had lost my father - so quickly with no warning.  I could not come to terms with the fact that he had seemed to be getting over the loss of my mother and it was just so unfair that he should be struck down.

So, I booked the trip to South Africa that I had been planning with him.  

The plan was to travel to all the places that he and my mother had loved, as well as to visit my father’s family.  I hoped that this would give me an opportunity to share in their memories and to finally let go of them.  

Life was good, I had so much to be grateful for and yet the depression still lurked just below the surface.

Returning to work

My aunt and uncle were not well either.  I believed that the only way I could deal with what had happened was to confront Alex, who had moved to Australia with his wife and their family.  But how could I destroy my whole family and subject my aunt and uncle to such a distressing situation?  I wasn’t worth it.

Eventually, I resorted to registering with a temping agency.  I was no great catch and surely any work, even part time, would be better than nothing?  Boy was that move a good decision, one of the few I have ever made.

I was placed with the Fire Service on a four day contract.  My job was to answer the phones when the other ladies were out of the office.  Not exactly challenging, but considering where I was mentally, ideal.  

But I was bored out of my mind.

As a result of my constantly asking if there was any other work I could do to help out, a senior manager asked if I would be willing to sort out his new office.  The previous occupant had departed the organisation, leaving a great deal of old paperwork and documents.  I would be required to go through everything, figuring out what would still be useful and what wouldn’t.  The hope was that I could turn the office into something approaching habitable.

I attacked the job with relish and within one day, I completed the task.  He was impressed and got to talking to me about my work background, experience and skills.  Out of that four day contract came an offer of a three month contract, with a possible additional three months.  I jumped at the opportunity.

 

The post was to coordinate a large multi-agency presentation in secondary schools throughout our county.  The challenge was huge and exactly what I needed.  And as the work involved a form of safety education, I got to help people into the bargain. 

I started work near the end of 2008 and immediately immersed myself in the job.  There was so much to do and not a lot of time to get everything in place.  It was right up my street and suited my personality exactly.  I was doing something that would ultimately make a difference in people’s lives and was working under pressure which allowed me to bury my problems.

My alternative Bella was accepted without question and everyone believed that I was this confident, strong and capable woman.  Whenever there was a lull in my workload, I was quick to offer my assistance to members of other teams within my department.  If there is one thing I hate, it is having nothing to do.  So this further perpetuated the false impression.

New start?

This was the first time I seriously considered taking my life.  

Surely everyone would be better off without me?  No-one would really miss me and no-one would be particularly upset by my passing.  I planned it all out and started to get things into place, but I did not have the courage to take the final step.  I constantly told myself that I did not deserve to live, but I couldn’t do anything about it.  I felt even worse for being a coward.

I couldn’t save my parents, I was not there to protect my children when they needed me.  What was I good for?  Nothing, that’s what.

My mood spiralled further and further downward, whilst I maintained the public face.  I became even better at portraying the other Bella and everyone was taken in by the deception.  I shut myself away, stopped paying bills, didn’t open my post, in fact I hardly ventured out of the house.  As the year passed me by, I became more and more depressed and drew closer and closer to the precipice that threatened my very existence.

I can’t really remember what made me go to the doctor, but I remember it had something to do with my middle son’s interference.  He pushed me into it.  It was a good thing he did.  I was diagnosed with Depression and prescribed with the appropriate anti-depressants.  Within a couple of weeks, I was starting to pull back from the abyss only to be met by the horror of what I had allowed to happen.  

My rent was so far in arrears, I had no hope of sorting it out.  All the bills were unpaid and there was just no solution in sight.

Enter Zimbabwe Rhodesians Worldwide Assistance Fund again.  Although they could not assist me with my debts, they paid for the boys and me to move to a new flat in Eastbourne, paying our deposit and moving costs.  A new year, a new home and a new start.  My mood improved and I felt that I was finally on the road to recovery.  It didn’t occur to me that until I dealt with the issues at the root of my depression, it would just keep coming back and knocking me off kilter again.

My job hunting was not going well and only one of the boys was working, despite the fact that they had all left school.  What kind of mother was I that I couldn’t look after myself, let alone raise my sons properly?

The medication helped to a certain extent, but the truth of the matter was that I needed to get to the source of the depression.  But I couldn’t or wouldn’t deal with it.

Lower and lower

I turned to my father to distract myself from my own problems.  

Whilst I was staying with him in May, a friend of my son’s phoned me to let me know that my son had fallen from a window the day before and was in hospital with a broken leg.  I rushed home, blaming myself yet again for not having been there to protect my child. 

The leg was severely broken – in fact smashed would be a better description and surgery followed to attach plates and pins to his crushed tibia and fibula.  We were warned that it would take a long time for such a serious injury to heal and in the end it took more than a year.

Between looking after my son and trying to help my father, my personal issues were boxed up yet again.  It took a lot of coaxing to get my father back to normal again and we started to plan a dream trip.  

The idea was to travel to South Africa so that my father could visit his family there and we could have some time together to come to terms with the loss of my mother.

But no sooner did we manage to get him smiling again and he was struck down with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.  His fight with the disease only lasted two weeks and ended in June.

And the depression hit me full force.  Everything came flooding back.  

Nobody needed me anymore.  My parents were both gone and my sons were all grown up.  I was just a worthless waste of space who was nothing but trouble.  Nobody deserved to be saddled with me.  In public, I put on a happy face, telling everyone that I was fine.  In private I was just a shell filled with pain.

Six months of hell

Then began what I call my six months of hell.  We lost my mother at the beginning of 2007.  My father was devastated.  In fact, we were all shocked at how hard he took it.  He seemed to lose the will to live and withdrew into himself. 

I put myself forward again and travelled frequently between my home and his, working all day, then spending the evenings taking care of my father’s needs.  I immersed myself in his life and again, it shielded me from my own misery.

Then in March he rang me, very upset.  I had been on my way to bank the stores takings from the day before, but dropped everything to go and be with my father.  Stupidly, instead of locking the money back into the safe, I hid it in my bedroom, intending to deposit it the next day.

I rushed to my father’s side and in amongst all the upset, I completely forgot about the money.  I stayed with my father for a couple of days and helped him to reach a slightly better place, before returning home in the early hours of the next morning.

When I went to get the money to take it to be deposited, I discovered that some of it was missing.  I had no idea what I should do.  I had failed in my duty by not securing the money, so how did I now explain to my bosses what I had done.  I decided instead to stall until pay day, replace the money and deposit it.  That way no one would be any the wiser.

Little did I know that the finance department would pick up the fact that the money had not been deposited and would start questioning where it had gone.  The day before payday, I could no longer handle the pressure.  I phoned up my manager and confessed to what I had done.  I was suspended immediately, and dismissed two weeks later.  I didn’t even bother to try and defend myself, despite the fact I had caught the culprit and the majority of the money had been returned.

My mother deteriorates

In June 2006 my mother had her first stroke.  I took time off work to be there for her and my father.  Further strokes followed with alarming rapidity, and the mother I loved and admired disappeared before my eyes.  

My father needed me more at this point than at any other time in his life.  So much fell on his shoulders and I revelled in being able to be there for him.  As we watched her slip away from us, my father and I drew closer together.  

Settling down

We landed in England on 24^th March 2002.  The cold came as something of a shock, considering we had come from a country where winter temperatures rarely dropped into single figures, let alone negatives.  My brother and his wife kindly took us in and we set about trying to start our lives all over again.  Again.

I got the boys into school and found myself a job, working in a local pub.  The work was enjoyable, but not exactly what I was used to.  It was by no means mentally challenging and my mind needed to be busy.  But try as I might, with no references in England, I was finding it hard to find any meaningful work.

The job at the pub did provide me with distraction though.  I got along well with the customers and came to realise that working in this type of position, I could get a sense of achievement.  If I could make someone’s day brighter as I served them, then I was doing something good.  I was still struggling with low self-esteem and more and more frequently became the confident and outgoing Bella.  The public face was now a part of me and the turmoil I was experiencing inside was totally hidden.

The boys and I moved to West Sussex at the end of the year and I started working at a local pub there.  The instability inside me was starting to overflow and I sought help from a local doctor.  His response to me was to take a deep breath and pull myself together.  So I tried.  I still tried to focus on my parents, who needed me.

As my mother deteriorated, my father needed more and more help from me and this kept me going.  My boys were having problems at school, which provided further distraction from my personal issues.  

And I constantly had to face Alex... not the easiest thing to do.  I had to be civil to his face and not allow my pain and anger to show.  If I did, how did I explain it to the rest of the family?  And I couldn’t let the truth come out.  That would hurt my aunt and uncle and that was something I was not willing to do.

I soldiered on, burying myself in my parent’s lives and keeping myself as busy as possible.  I do believe that at this point Alex was avoiding me.  Many a time when he was due to attend a family gathering, he would cry off at the last minute.  Maybe this was for other reasons, but it would be nice to think that he did have a conscience.

The boys and I moved again, to Crowborough in East Sussex and I took up employment as a manager with a local supermarket chain.  One thing I can say with confidence is that I was a brilliant manager.  Not because of any particular work related skill, but because of my ability and willingness to consider the personal well-being of my staff.  Getting involved and helping them out with their personal problems helped me and of course, the upshot was that I had a workforce who was willing to go that extra mile for me.

And off to England again

In 2001 my mother started to become ill and she and my father needed me.  I loved helping them, doing things for them.  I felt that I was finally paying them back for all that had gone before.  As my mother’s health deteriorated and the doctor’s in Zimbabwe failed to come up with a diagnosis, I became more and more involved in my parent’s lives and drew closer and closer to them both.

It was a bitter blow when the doctors told us that my mother needed medical care that was not available in Zimbabwe.  Without it she was not likely to live for more than another six months.  I jumped up to the plate and took over.  I contacted my brother who was living in England, explained the situation and suggested that if he wanted to see our mother again, he would need to fly over as soon as possible.  She was deteriorating rapidly and was suffering from more and more frequent periods of confusion.

My brother phoned us back an hour later to inform us that a charity, Zimbabwe Rhodesians Worldwide Assistance Fund was willing to pay for my mother to fly to England to see her son and his family and to seek medical treatment there.  We didn’t hold out much hope that she would get better, but we knew she needed to see her son and meet her three young grandsons.

My father took some convincing, as he had a particular aversion to the cold, but in the end he saw that there was no choice.  She could not fly to England on her own and to keep her in Zimbabwe would be condemning her to death.  So off they went, leaving me to pack up their home and sell up their property.  I immersed myself in it, using the activity as a shield between myself and the misery that was taking hold inside me.  My aunt and uncle were there for me once more, but were also due to move back to England at the end of the year. 

Again, this gave me something to take my mind off my own miserable life.  I was never happier than when I was helping someone else.  This was all part and parcel of feeling worthless and needing to be there for someone else to justify my own existence.  And there was just so much to cope with.  Not only the clearing of my parent’s home and my aunt and uncle’s home, but also the eventual diagnosis of my mother’s illness.

She had cirrhosis of the liver.  Yet she was not then, nor ever had been, a drinker.  It did not make sense.  Added to the cirrhosis, there was damage to one of her heart valves, so she not only needed a liver transplant, but also a heart valve replacement.  Neither organ was strong enough to survive the surgery on the other, but the risks of operating on both at the same time were too high, so a decision was made to merely try to stabilise her, thereby giving her more time.

My parents at this point were staying with my brother and his family in England, whilst my aunt and uncle had moved in with their daughter.  I was the last member of the family left in Zimbabwe and I finally took the decision to move to England with my sons.

This decision was not without its problems.  The boy’s father, despite the fact that he did not help to support them and rarely saw them, did not want me to take them away from him to another country, so far away.  Because of various political issues in Zimbabwe, the boys also did not have passports and their entitlement was unclear.  But I eventually managed to get things arranged and after some other political complications, yet another story, we flew to England in March 2002.

Disaster

I still believe that something in me sensed the mental problems in him, and that was what drew me to him.  He needed me and I needed to be needed.

The marriage only lasted a few months, which really were a few months longer than it should have.  

The final straw came when I found out that he had been physically and emotionally abusing my boys.  I was absolutely devastated.  A young woman, who lived on our property had witnessed a number of incidents.  On one occasion she had seen him chasing my eldest son, brandishing a hammer, on another he had locked my boys outside the garden and left them sitting beside the road, in 35 degree heat, until shortly before I was due home from work.  I could not believe that I had let them down!  When they needed me most I had retreated so far inside that I had not picked up any of this.  I immediately confronted him and a massive physical argument ensued.  But this time I kept my head.

I managed to get him out of the house and yelled for my sons to run to my parents house and get help.  Unfortunately, my rock refused to leave me!  Having no other choice, I ran back into the house and locked the doors before my husband could follow me in.  The boys were almost hysterical with fear, clinging to me as they sobbed.  How could I have allowed this to happen?

My rock, always the most level headed of the boys, came up with a plan.  We could escape together through his bedroom window.  He insisted that there was no way he would leave without me.  I knew deep down that I had to stay to distract my husband.  A line had been crossed when I finally stood up to him and there was no way that he would allow us to leave without a fight.  I managed to convince the boys that I would distract him whilst they got out of the window and would follow on right behind them.  They were not to look back and must not wait for me.  They were to run as fast as they could to my parents.

As soon as the boys were ready to go, I moved to the other side of the house and made sure that my husband followed me.  I made as if to let him in which naturally drew him right up to door, out of sight of my rock's bedroom window.  I desperately tried to calm my husband down, but once he realised that I was not going to let him in, he started to smash the lounge windows, beside the door.  I knew that I did not have long before he got in, but I had to give my boys enough time to get away.

To this day, I don't know how I managed to get my keys into my hand, but when he was through the window and trying to restrain me with one hand as he hit as he punched me with the other I started to strike out at him with the bunch of keys in my hand.  All I could think of was giving my boys time to get away.  Then I heard my rock calling me!

He had urged his brothers to run to my parents house, but he had remained to wait for me!  I could not believe it.  So I ran, screaming for my rock to keep ahead.  My husband followed behind me, kicking at me and hitting me from behind, no longer trying to restrain me, but rather screaming profanities at me.

I was in such I panic, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but the next thing I knew our local doctor and his brother were restraining my husband, instructing me to "Just go!  Don't look back, don't worry!  When you are safe, call the Police".

So I did!  I ran to my parents house, from where we called the Police.  Fortunately, the complex where my parents lived had a security fence and gates, which we locked.  When my husband finally made it there, the Police had arrived and he was arrested and taken away.

So my boys and I came out the other side, a little bruised, but otherwise okay.  The depression had faded or maybe just been hidden by all the other things going on in my life.  But either way, I felt that I was on the right track. 

Yes, I was lonely.  But maybe I had finally learnt my lesson.  Men were obviously not for me and I plainly suffered from poor judgement.  It didn’t occur to me that I was being drawn to needy men.  It wasn’t the man who attracted me, but rather the need that I sensed within him.  I plodded along, from day to day, determined to keep my heart well hidden.

The walls were high and thick and as time passed I fortified them further and further.  I engrossed myself in the lives of those around me.  My home was often filled with the youngsters from our town.  They were going through all the usual trials and tribulations that came with their age and I could provide them with a mentor and hopefully, a level head.  It's strange how I could always maintain an objective and supportive role in their lives, no matter what they were going through and yet I had absolutely no control over my own inner self.

I managed to keep my own pain and sadness locked deep inside, only taking it out at night to reinforce the knowledge that on my own, I was worthless.  I hid myself behind my sons, my parents and the group of young people who I enjoyed watching over.  I envied there joy in life and felt that if just a little rubbed off on me, then my life would be bearable.  And it was.  I hope that I gave those youngsters enough in return.  I look at them now and am proud to say that I have been a part of their lives and could be there for them when they needed me.

A totally unexpected side affect of my support for them though, was when my second husband started to harass me, phoning me at home and at work, turning up outside my house, following me whenever I went out.  He constantly begged me to take him back, threatening to kill himself if I didn't.  I admit, I was torn, but I also knew that I could not afford to put my children back under his control, no matter how much he supposedly needed me.

One night, when he had followed me to the local bowls club, I admitted to the group of young people what he had been doing.  I was afraid to go home, because I knew that he would stand outside, yelling for me to let him in, trying to break through the security fencing.

The youngsters took control.  They managed to sneak me out of the club through a back door and one of the lads got his older brother to meet me on the road and drive me home.  Once there, they then called the Police.  When my husband arrived, the Police were waiting for him, arrested him again and took him away.

I don't know what the Police said or did to him that night, but I never heard from him again.  The fear did not disappear immediately, but eventually became something that was so much a part of my life that I could live with it.  I can never thank those youngsters enough for the support that they gave me.

Married again

I moved back to Redcliff towards the end of 1996.  I was in a terrible state and as I said, it was one of the lowest points of my life.  I managed to get a job, my parents helped me to find a house and helped me to get my boys into school.  Family were there for me, both mine and my soon to be ex-husband’s and helped us out with furniture and even clothes.

I had lost a lot of weight, probably because I stopped eating and partly because of my involvement in the theatre.  Life settled into a kind of rhythm and I slowly began the process of recovery.  But still I was not dealing with the main problem.  Still I was not acknowledging that something that happened when I was just a child could be affecting my life nearly twenty years later.  

That part of my life stayed in its little box, only to be taken out late at night when I was alone.

I joined the theatre in a nearby town and assisted them with the choreography and dancing in one of their shows.  Then my mother, seeing how much the theatre helped me, agreed to produce and direct a pantomime.  That too helped me to further bury my problems and gave me the chance to escape into my other world.  It also gave me the chance to meet Danni, who turned out to be the best friend anyone could ever wish for.  Obviously I didn’t know that at the time though and continued on with my life, hiding from everything that was really me.

I progressed well at work.  Being a fundamentally lazy person, but also someone with the ability to see things from a different angle, I was very good at streamlining processes and procedures and this brought me a lot of attention.  I was rapidly promoted and was soon in a position where I could support myself and my boys without assistance from family.  I was not receiving any form of support or maintenance from the boy’s father; in fact I even ended paying for the entire divorce myself, despite being granted the costs by the Courts.  But some fights just did not seem worth fighting and to me at that point in my life, this was one of them.

And without realising it, I started my hunt for another man.  One who would need me and therefore provide a purpose in my life.  I moved from one short term relationship to another, slipping quickly back into the habits of my teenage years.  It wasn't that I was seeking meaningless sex, but the misconception that there was a link between sex and love.  I truly believed that if I gave myself totally to a man, he would love me for it.

But I was of course, also looking for a man who I could support.  

Eventually, I found him in 1999, in the form of a man who had mental issues of his own.  Unbeknownst to me, he was Bi-polar, something he managed to keep hidden until after we were married.  Until then, he was a dream man – loving, attentive, amazing with the boys.  Once we were married however, he stopped taking his medication and my private hell returned.  

He was overly possessive, even jealous of any attention I paid to my sons.  If I so much as looked in the direction of another man, he was convinced that I was having an affair.  Our arguments were frequent and violent.  But how could I tell anyone what was happening?  I was already obviously a failure and was now in a position where I could not face the recriminations that I believed I would face if I told anyone what was happening.  I could not admit to anyone that I had messed up yet again.

So I put up with it.  The verbal, psychological and physical abuse.  As long as he was good with my sons, I would put up with anything.  I obviously deserved the treatment I was getting.  I was a bad person who pretended to be something that she was not.  Deep down inside I was dirty and needed to be punished.

I slowly retreated inside myself and the 'other' Bella was dragged out for public performances.  At work and socially, I gave no sign that anything was amiss.  In private, behind closed doors I was someone else entirely.  My lack of confidence and low self-esteem were clear to be seen.  I remember on occasions, when he was particularly vicious, shutting my 'self' away.  It was almost as though I had turned off a switch and was no longer there.  The first I would know of it however, was when I 'came back' and had no recollection of what had happened in the previous few hours.  

I suppose this was a form of protection.  I don't remember ever having done it at any other time in my life, either before or after, but looking back at it now, it positively terrifies me.  How could I have so totally withdrawn from myself?  What did it mean?