Caydee's Story - The story of caydence

I was born on December 27th. My birth was complicated and traumatizing. I almost died, and so did my mum. We had to spend months in the hospital due to both of us having a staph infection. The doctor who delivered me didn’t change her clothes for two days because she was always on duty due to the hospital being understaffed. I still have a little bald spot on my head from where they had to stick the heart monitor onto me to make sure I was still alive.

Fast forward to me being brought home and growing up. We moved cities when I was five, to a place I didn’t recognize. To a place I didn’t know. I got used to it quickly, though, and adjusted to the changes. It was hard at first, but I made it through. After a few years of my parents arguing, they got divorced. My dad moved out and left my mum with the house, car, kids, and the dog. My mum took me to her friend’s house, and we stayed there. We didn’t leave. After a week of us staying there, my dad had to come and get my brother from the house, because my mum didn’t take him with us and left him there. I went a while without seeing my brother, which really hurt me.

Every week, there was a new fight going on with my mum and her boyfriend. Every week, I was faced with the worry of where I would sleep that night. I was 8 years old. Eight years old, worrying if I would have to get up and go in the middle of the night. Eight years old, facing the challenge of calming my mum down after her fight. Eight years old, with more responsibilities than I needed, than I deserved.

I ended up going to my aunt’s house for a while. After a while of living with my mum at her “friend’s” (boyfriend🙄) house and my aunt’s house, I went to see my dad at his new house with his girlfriend (my stepmum), her son (my stepbrother), and my brother. Just like what happened at my mum’s boyfriend’s house, I stayed there and didn’t go home. After a couple of months, I had completely moved in. At this point, I was in year three. Surfacing from the stress of being bounced from one place to another was refreshing. I ended up seeing my mum every two weeks. I then had to go through another round of expectations not being met by the same person who set them in the first place.

I was getting promised that my mum would have a proper house, getting promised I would be able to have a regularly scheduled relationship with my mother. "Scheduled" is the operative word here because nothing about that relationship was going to be considered “normal,” considering most people’s relationships with their mothers. I ended up moving schools in year 4, a school near my dad’s house. A school that didn’t make me get up at 6 in the morning and travel on public transport for 2 hours just for some boring maths lesson.

I had short hair when I was in year 4 because I had a skin condition that made me cut my hair to manage it properly. Now, being a girl with short hair, I got names hurled at me for that. And, as you would expect year 4 children (mainly boys) to do, as a bit of a tubby girl, I inevitably got called all types of names ranging from megalodon to hippopotamus. If there was a word that meant fat, I got called it.

After putting up with that for 3 years (not including my previous schools) and the added stress from home life, I tried to take my own life at 11 years old. I found out there were pills I had access to that you could overdose on and jumped at the chance. I had already had thoughts but never acted on them until now. I woke up and got my brother, thinking he would know about the pills considering they were his. He got my step mum and my dad, and we had a talk about it. I cleaned up my vomit (the main reason I got my brother) and tried to go back to sleep. Thankful I didn’t have school the next day, I brought myself to go outside and go to the shops.

I can’t really explain it, but everything was... more. More colorful, more loud, more bright. It was like it took the near experience of nothing to notice everything. I ended up getting into the process of getting therapy. Things started to get stressful again, and I started cutting. I found ways to help myself and started to stop. I found a few apps that helped me. And here I am now. Twelve years old. 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, and 7 hours sober.

Now that I look back on everything, I am grateful for waking up that night. I am grateful for receiving a second chance at life because some people don’t get to.