I am left with an indescribable sense of emptiness. I tried to keep up to date on the variety of medications she went through – antidepressants, antianxiety and sleeping medications – meanwhile asking myself how the medication could work while she binged and vomited several times a day.Īlcohol joined in the mix over the last year. I sat waiting in another emergency ward, waiting to have her self-inflicted arm cuts stitched, as she was humiliated by the doctor who told her she was ‘wasting their time’ by doing this to herself. I sat with her in the emergency ward for days, waiting for a bed in an overcrowded psych ward where there were not adequate facilities or staff to deal with her depressed, suicidal, bulimic condition. I saw her beg for relief from her mental exhaustion. Somehow this same feeling didn’t occur to Jessie. I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, so it would be a steady road to improvement from then on. This was such a low that I felt that it was our turning point. Following her second unsuccessful attempt, I had a giddy, euphoric sense of optimism. Even so, the mind plays strange games with us. So we knew the possibilities and because of that, I felt that some little corner of my mind had to prepare itself for that worst possible of outcomes. Our own circumstances differed in that we watched our daughter battle her demons for six years and through two previous attempts of suicide. I remember thinking at the time that to lose a child to suicide must be the most painful thing that could befall a parent. They had had no prior indication of his mental turmoil. His parents, neighbours of my family, were shocked and devastated. Before my daughter Jessie took her own life in February 2002, I had personally known only one other person who had died by suicide. I have difficulty saying the word suicide. Reprinted from “Families” issue of Visions Journal,2004, 2(3), pp. Jessie’s Hope Jessie’s Hope – A mother’s reflection on her daughter’s life by Diana Budden
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