Hitting rock bottom and fighting back to finding myself

Life’s Journey

Hitting rock bottom and fighting back to finding myself

“It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars”

There I was back in 2004 and 21 years of age in love and about to get married in less than 6 months, in the Caribbean, what a beautiful setting for a wedding. In the months leading up to the wedding and being engaged in all the organising, didn’t give me much time to think about how I really felt about marrying my fiancé, and my gut feeling that followed me deep inside my stomach. Every day getting bigger and bigger, I kept the feeling buried deep inside me, not sharing the way I felt with anyone and continuing with the motions of organising my wedding, right up until the day we fly to the Caribbean and what should have been the happiest time of my life, to marry a man, I was to spend the rest of my life with.

This was surely just cold feet, it is natural to feel this way right?

The day arrived, time to board the plane and fly to the Caribbean, with everything organised and ready to go. All that was left was to relax and enjoy a few days by the pool, before the big day. As we arrived in paradise and time to reflect on what I was about to embark on and my gut feeling at large inside. Nothing to keep my mind occupied to forget how I really felt, I felt trapped and with no way of escape. We had decided to get married and combine our wedding as a honeymoon and do this just ourselves and have a party on our return with family and friends. So there I was completely on my own, with no one to share how I felt and how I didn’t want to go through with the wedding. The morning of the wedding arrived, waking up lying next to my future husband, I felt numb, unable to move and get out of bed. The day was here and I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day. We had the morning to relax by the pool before going our separate ways to get ready, as my hair and makeup was getting done, I held back the tears that were on the verge of running down my face, exposing how I felt, everyone, making a fuss around me and telling me how beautiful I was and how lucky I was on this day.

If only they knew, the real story….

I was now up in the room, standing in front of the mirror in my wedding dress, completely on my own, I stood there frozen staring at myself, with tears rolling down my face, thinking I am about to embark on a decision that would change my life forever……………….

A year later……

There I was laying in the bathtub under the running shower, sobbing, consumed with fear and wanting to be free of the pain, the pain deep inside me, the pain I wanted to end so badly. The darkness had been consuming my every waking second, suffocating my mind, body and soul, hardly able to keep my head above the water of life. Behind the bathroom door lay the unknown of what was going to happen next, I couldn’t take the pain any longer. Stripped of who I was, laid bare, naked in the shower, with nothing left to give and nothing more to do. The light right there in my hand, I took the razor in my right hand over to my left wrist, I would be free soon, free of the pain I had come to dread each day. There I sat about to end it all and something made me stop in my tracks, and I couldn’t go through with it. I became overcome with anger at myself for not being able to free myself of the pain and how I come to be living a life, controlled by someone who was meant to love me and how had I let this happen, how did I hit rock bottom in such a short space of time.

At that moment, I remember the day I stood in my wedding dress and how I felt wanting to run away…..

From that day I made a decision I was going to free myself from the pain, find my way out of the darkness and into the light, by looking within and reaching out for help, to confide in another to help with the journey back to finding myself.

In this journey I have learnt to:

Love me

Open my heart and be vulnerable again

Never regret the decisions I have made

Never give up myself, no matter how hard life gets

There is always light out of the darkness

Talk to someone and not let the pain of the past control the present and the future.

“Experience is the hardest teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward” Oscar Wilde.

Out of the darkness and into the light

Melanie Wood