Well it is always hard it is over five years now and at times nothing seems any better. In many ways my life has improved in so many ways that I ought to have a continuous grin on my face, but always lurking in the background is the loss.

My wife Debbie died just over five years ago now, an overdose of the painkillers she had been prescribed to help her headaches. She had the headaches following the bursting of a cerebral aneurysm just over two years before that. Her problems started well before the problems with the aneurysm though. When we married I had no idea that she suffered with depression although if I had been older and wiser (I was only 23, Debbie was 29) perhaps I would have spotted the warning signs. Within six months of our wedding she had taken her first overdose whilst with me, but I then found out this wasn’t her first attempt and that she had been suffering with depression since around the age of 10. Over the next few years there were various half hearted attempts at suicide and we saw various different professionals with very little progress.

In actual fact although it was a very scary time and Debbie had to have surgery to close off the aneurysm it improved the situation. I think at the time Debbie had a real brush with death and it gave her a new enthusiasm for life, for about 15months after we had OUR best period together. She passed her motorcycle test and we started riding bikes together she started to develop herself in her job and took on new roles.

But soon enough the signs started to appear again the increased drinking the mood swings from absolute zealous mania to a level of depression that was too hard to control. The suicide attempts started again taking pills, cutting her wrists even dropping a live toaster in the bath to electrocute her self.

Eventually after taking a lethal overdose whilst staying at her cousin’s house she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital which she discharged her self from within a few days. She was readmitted to a different hospital after persuasion from me and her GP and was in and out of there over the next couple of months. Whilst on discharge she would be okay for the first couple of days and then there would be another attempt.

Eventually they discharged her with HER psychiatrist saying there was nothing they could do for her and that he did not believe Debbie was serious about killing her self.

Debbie died 4 days after she was discharged from hospital October 24th 1999, a lethal overdose of painkillers (co-proxamol) and cheap brandy. I was at work at the time a nurse working in Accident and Emergency looking after other people instead of my wife.

Debbie had seemed quite positive that morning and we had even talked about attending a meeting of the motorcycle club we belonged too that night. I had taken so much time off of work that I couldn’t take anymore and it looked like I was going to be the only person bringing money in to the house for a while. I last spoke to Debbie at around 10am I was rushed at the time and didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to her properly. When I arrived home that evening at around 9pm she was lying dead on the kitchen floor, a dish cloth in her hand, she had been doing the washing up.

The period after was just a blur and I never felt I ever got a chance to say goodbye to her properly.

Even now over 5 years after I can feel the pain eating away at me. I have since remarried and have a wonderful wife and now a wonderful daughter who is going to be 2years old soon, my life couldn’t be better.

But the pain is always there ready to cover me in its darkness and take away all the light of my life, the blackness surrounding and smothering me.