Saturday

This all feels so, so difficult.

I get the impression that to other people, this suicide attempt was less of a big deal than the previous one.

To me, it feels bigger.

It should have been enough, the dose I took. I shouldn’t still be here. But I am.

My head is a complete mess.

I’m trying really hard to be normal. Perhaps I’ve tried too hard, too soon. Whereas last time, I disappeared from the world for over a week, this time, I was back on the school run the morning after getting out of hospital. I’ve worked and cleaned and done my Tesco shopping and tried my very best to get back into real life.

I’m not sure how it looks from the outside, but inside, it’s breaking me.

It’s the first day of half-term and I’ve spent most of the day in bed.

I am so full of self-doubt and self-hatred. Such a big, guilty failure in every sense.

I’ve been relieved of Sunday school duty tomorrow, which is a relief as I really don’t think I could have done it this week, but I also know that I’m probably the worst possible person to be trying to teach children about the Lord in the light of my enormous sin.

For all that I trust, it’s hard to believe I can be forgiven.

I feel hypocritical when I read the Bible with my own children, when I pray with them before bed. How is it right that they hear this from me, when I’m struggling every single minute with the weight of what I’ve done, and the fact that it wasn’t a stupid, rash mistake – I really meant it.

I couldn’t face Bible study yesterday. I’m seriously worked up about church tomorrow. It has been my safe place throughout me being ill, but I feel so vulnerable now. There’s a group of people who know exactly what happened, and I feel so, so guilty about it, not to mention ashamed. There’s a bigger group that doesn’t know anything, or at least nothing specific, and I feel that I need to be Normal Lucy, put my brave face on and chat and laugh as I usually would. I don’t know if I can.

I spoke to my mum on the phone. I know she is consciously avoiding pressurising me to talk, but it left me wanting to scream. I know what happened; she knows what happened; how long are we going to pretend that nothing has happened and talk about the weather in Australia and Nick’s cats?

Then later, a Facebook message from her. ‘Hi darling, hope you’re okay and feeling better.’

Feeling better? A week after going to bed with the intention of not waking up again?

No. I’m not feeling better.

I feel so bad about what I’ve done to my children. Yesterday morning, I was coughing, and Tom said, ‘I don’t like it when you cough. It makes me think you’re getting poorly again.’ This afternoon, I popped out to the shop, and when I got home, Tom told me that Katie had been saying that I was never coming back.

I am kidding myself if I think they’re getting through this unscathed.

And Ian. He deserves so much more of a life than he has with me. Only a few days on from four days’ enforced single-parenting, yet again I have left him to deal with the children because I just can’t. Yesterday evening, he got home from football and I went straight to bed. He was hurt. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but I am so tired. I couldn’t face staying up for a deep and meaningful, even though I’m sure we need one.

Tonight, I’ll cook us a Valentine’s meal that I don’t feel like eating. I’ll go to bed, exhausted, and not sleep, again. I’ll send him to Willows with the children tomorrow afternoon and yet again feel the crushing guilt of being such an inadequate mother and wife.

This is such a lonely place to be.