Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are available by clicking each number.

Trigger Warning: mention of suicide.

The Return to School.

CAMHS had been informed of my suicide attempt of course, but we still had no response from them. It was a case of biding our time.

By this time mum was seeing countless doctors and specialists, and I had completely lost track of them. I could barely keep track of my own existence. I only knew that mum had occasional asthma attacks, and the overactive thyroid was causing the odd bout of weight loss and sickness, but again, it didn’t appear to be too drastic.

I decided to return to the same high school, despite my previous treatment. The teaching standards were high, and I knew that I could make new friends, who would be trustworthy and kind. After a few weeks fighting, the school agreed to give me an assistant to help me in lessons and around the building. I would be taking AS-level Maths, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics; I would need help with experiments, and fetching equipment and books. I would also need regular access to painkillers, as I was stepping up the work-load by a huge amount. I would also need someone to befriend me over the first few days as I tried to make new friends. I found it hard to trust new people, so the first part would be rather lonely.

The only problem that remained was transport to and from school. Mum still couldn’t push the wheelchair because of her bad asthma, and Dad worked 30 miles away. We applied for council transport, but we were turned down due to a lack of funding, even after appeal. The reasons stated were “not being able to get down (our) road”, and “(I) didn’t legally have to be in education”, as I was over sixteen.

School refused to help at first, so we relied on other people to push me back from school. Dad managed to push me in every morning. The friends in our community helped greatly, but most of them had children of their own to pick up, or were elderly, or had jobs to attend. School frustrated me, as they expected me to get straight A’s, but refused to help me at every little step. Having to fight for the smallest of resources put a huge strain on me, and I knew that if it continued for much longer my grades would really begin to suffer. Then, to add insult to injury, I noticed how school helped the kids who didn’t work, and who purposefully underachieved. They got transport to and from school despite perfect health, and trips out on a regular basis. It seemed really unfair.

Eventually, schools health and safety officer noticed how bad our situation was becoming. He looked over legal forms, discussed financing, and after plenty of arguing with officious members of the admin team, it was decided that one of the care assistants could push me home every night, if dad pushed me in every morning. This arrangement was perfect and worked smoothly. It was a great relief to us

The assistant who was given the job was kind and friendly. She enjoyed pushing the wheelchair as it gave her a break of fresh air every evening, before returning to staff meetings.

As soon as this was all arranged, my school life became a lot easier, and I began to really enjoy my lessons. I was doing subjects I enjoyed, and didn’t have to bother with the things I didn’t like. My carers were happy to help fetch and carry equipment for me, and were thrilled to aid me in experiments, which were often fun. They became friends, and I could talk openly with most of them.

As time progressed, there were a few issues with lesson lateness, and access to respite care, but these issues were resolved as speedily as possible. They were annoying while they lasted; but all of a sudden school had become a lot more willing to support me. Maybe they had recognised how much effort and care I put into my work, but maybe pressure had been applied by the head teacher to support me more. I never found out, to this day.

My old friends mostly ignored me. This hurt me of course, but as I made new friends, I soon realised what a false friendship ours had been anyway, and was glad to be well shot of it. It did pain me to see how little I mattered to them, but my new friends were supportive. We were a mixed group; it was wonderful to be surrounded by such diversity.

In class, I had friendships with people who shared the same passions with me. I bonded best with the girls, unusually for me. However, most of the boys were nice too, and I formed some strong friendships with them. Very few of my class members judged me, and I returned the favour by not judging them. We were from all different backgrounds, and lifestyles. We were all different. Yet we all shared similar interests. The new found friends greatly eased the depression, and my studies distracted me. I threw myself into them with all the vigour that I could muster up. I had found happiness again.

I loved my subjects. Despite miserable grades at the beginning (D’s and E’s), I still found enthusiasm and passion for them. I felt that for someone my age, in my condition, I was doing well.

Maths was hard, and not all of what we learnt was useful, however, I learnt lots of logic skills.

Physics was a very small group, 4 of us all told. This meant we got a lot of attention of the teacher, and we had a lot of fun. The seemingly ridiculous ideas and theories that Physics proposes became perfectly sensible to me.

Chemistry was mostly about industry, and was both useful and interesting. I found plenty of time to practice my logic skills, and also developed a lot of memory aids, as Chemistry required quite a bit of memorising equations.

Biology was my favourite. It opened a door to me; there were things the human body could do, that I never even had dreamed of. I saw how beautiful and precious life was. I learnt how a single heartbeat is controlled, how disease spreads, the inner workings of the lungs, and the digestive system. I studied DNA, microbes, plants, animals, taxonomy, epidemiology, and humans. I was in love. I didn’t want to leave the lab at the end of the lesson, and often went home and studied hard. It never felt like study because I loved it so much, I knew that this was what I wanted to do as my career, for the rest of my life.

It was a relief to my parents that AS-levels were such a joy to me. For the first time in just under two years, I was happy. I actually wanted to get out of bed and attend school every day. There were rough patches, but the good outweighed the bad.

Parts 6 and 7 are available by clicking each number.