The Suicide Diary Read Free

overcome obstacles.
    They could have a field day with the old nature versus nurture debate over how my life has turned out. Personally I’m sat on the fence on this one, but I expect you might have guessed that.
    Whatever my reasoning, now I’ve put pen to paper it’s like a drug. It's difficult to describe how I feel now as the words pour from my heart and mind onto the page - maybe it's something similar to the release those who self-harm feel. It's painful to write down everything that I have done and allowed to happen in the past nine years, yet the pain feels strangely good. I know I've been in a dark place and I can't bear the thought of talking to anyone about everything that's happened in my life. The words always catch in my throat and I could win an award for putting on a smile.
    I learnt years ago that it causes less pain to those close to me if I just hide my real thoughts and feelings. Not one of my family or my very few friends knows the entire story. Although there are a few who could - if they were to sit down together - possibly piece together the fragments they each know and be closer to knowing my past. There are only two people I’ve known that I think saw more than I wanted them to. I wonder if either had known the truth if they would have let me go sooner when I pushed them away.
     
    Who is this other person? Alex wondered out loud.
    But then he suddenly doubted if he had been either of them. Had she written this before or after they had met? If he was one of the people she felt close to, then why did he suddenly feel like he hadn’t really known her at all? And who else would she have opened up to? Alex contemplated if, perhaps, there had been someone in her life he had no knowledge of, and not for the first time he thought he might regret seeking out her diary.
     
    Strangely it’s almost more painful to write this than it has been to go through it. I’ve always done what I can not to dwell on things and just tried to live in the present - some of my Mother's wisdom I actually heed. Perhaps that seems a contradiction since this diary is allowing me to delve into my past, but until today I’ve done my best to forget it all. I can’t bring myself to burden anyone with my troubles - or worse perhaps, I’ve thought they wouldn’t understand. I look forward in life with a sense of apathy, and since I rarely allow my real emotions to filter to the surface, few have gotten close enough to notice.
    I've always had reasonably good instincts, but unfortunately coupled with an inability to trust my own judgement and if you believe in such things, then being an indecisive Pisces hasn’t helped either and so I’ve invariably made the wrong choices in life. It would have been nice if I could find something to pin the blame on other than myself – my upbringing, my environment, my genes but it all comes up short.
    The way in which I was brought up is to be cherished, as from my earliest memories as a child, I was loved. Although, we were hardly wealthy, we were never left wanting and as the only girl with two brothers I suppose to an extent I was cosseted. Admittedly my Father did leave us when I was nine years old, nevertheless, my proud, beautiful Mother managed to keep her fears hidden and an open heart for her three young children.
    I don’t believe any of us really felt as if we missed out on anything. And partly as a result, I carried a ferocious, childlike love for her with me into adulthood. My Mother would probably describe me as wilful on a good day and stubborn on the not so good ones. And although I was close to my brothers in the shared bond of childhood, we have grown apart in the years since. Perhaps that is only natural that we should see less of each other as we figure out our own lives, but most of the time it feels like both my brothers found their paths in life with ease while I stumbled along mine.
    As for my genes, my Mother is a force to be reckoned with and I can only wish to