Have you ever had those moments when life just isn't worth living? Have you ever had those moments where you just deep down felt that your child would be much better off without you being in their life?

Have you ever been on the edge of the depths of darkness, where there is no way back? Have you spiralled all the way down to the bottom? Have you decided this is it, this is the time to go. This is the time to relieve all of those around you. Relieve some of the toxic, poisonous life that you are creating.........

How and when it all started

Let me take you back to when I was a happy-go-lucky little girl, age eight, in primary school. Not a care in the world. But during my ninth year, before I reached my ninth birthday, my world slowly began to cave in. I became the victim of a bully. And her entourage. Every night, when the school bell rang. I ran, ran as fast as I could. Eyes darting everywhere, looking behind me, in front of me, knowing it didn't matter how far I ran; the bully would be waiting for me underneath the underpass.

There she was, night after night after night. Name-calling, hair pulling, prodding, poking. It's horrendous for me and 12-14 other eight to nine-year-old youngsters standing there watching it all happen. The hair pulling, the throwing to the ground, the name calling, the abuse went on and on and on., until I turned 11.

At this time, myself and the bully went to separate high schools, I was free. Between the ages of 11 and 13, I had a wonderful, wonderful time. A small glimmer of the once happy-go-lucky youngster was beginning to emerge.

Then, at t3, the bully came when the high schools amalgamated back, and like a radar. She found me...............There in the corner of the schoolyard, once again, the taunting, the name calling, the pushing, the shoving, throwing to the ground, the hair pulling all began again, and that would carry on till the age of 16, the physical bullying, the mental bullying. Then, at the age of 16. Yep, I left school all right. But I wasn't free.

A Mental Bully was watching me…

The mental bullying wasn't just at school. The mental bullying went on in my personal life, too. The taunting began with your fat. You're stupid. You'll not amount to much. You're a mistake.

You were a hole in a condom. Wow! At the age of 10, I was pretty naive and unsure what that meant, so I asked a friend at school. Horrified. Felt unwanted. That's what, as a young girl, I had to go through. At the age of 16, I left school, went to work and met my future husband on the first day of work; I was full of laughter despite what was happening behind the scenes.

That laughter, as I thought, would continue forever when, at the age of 19, I got married. But no. I jumped out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire, and the mental bullying carried on year after year after year. "You are not good enough.

Who the hell do you think you are? Get down off your pedestal? I'm not a f***ing light switch you can turn on and off" enough! That's what I had to endure: all the pressure of all the years of bullying, all the pressure of all the mental bullying. I began to spiral to the edge of the depths of darkness, depths of despair, in the grasp of clinical depression,

Clinical Depression? Agoraphobia? Suicide?

Yep, I survived them all...........

Clinical Depression? You are either depressed or you're not depressed, or that's what I thought I didn't realise Clinical Depression was an actual mental illness. A chemical imbalance in the brain. Brilliant. All the things I was taught as I was growing up. "You're useless; you will not amount to much. You're thick. Who do you think you are? I had a mental illness; I just proved them all right. My brain was dysfunctional. I had a chemical imbalance.

It spiralled me out of control. Then agoraphobia kicked in. I couldn't speak to people. I couldn't go out. I was lost alone. Spiralling, not knowing what to do, where to go, who to talk to, spiralling into the depths of no return. Three attempts of suicide later. The last one, I should never have survived. For whatever reason, I did survive, and that started the journey back from the depths of despair, which started the journey to climb out of the darkness that had been my life for so long.

But it was a struggle, an almighty struggle, I reached out to someone who I believed could help me, and give them their due, they did get me a certain part of the way. But then, history repeated itself. As the person crossed over the line and found feelings for me, they began to control me, blame me, and tell me, you know, it was all my fault. We couldn't continue like this; we had to end the relationship. But we didn't have a relationship, did we? We didn't.

My Son. My Saviour.

All this time, when I was going through my clinical depression, my little boy, between the ages of 8 and 10. Even before then, at the age of five, I witnessed a mum who was out of control. However hard, I tried to hide everything from him. I knew I was a toxic person in his life. And that toxicity was the reason why I kept saying I needed to be out of his life.

I didn't care about anyone else. I didn't care about my ex-husband. I didn't care about my family. But actually, I cared very deeply about each and every one of them, especially my son. And then, because I cared for them so much, I believed the best thing for me to do was not have a place on this earth. And I tried three times to remove the toxicity from all of their lives.

It wasn't until later that I realised why I had been saved. But the thing that got me on my true journey to recovery was one night in bed. I woke up alone in bed with an empty red wine bottle in my hand. Ex-husband gone. My little boy is asleep in his room next door.

"Oh, f***! I had my 'oh shit' moment!

As I looked down at that bottle of red wine. I thought, Oh, shit. My son was next door, asleep. He could come in here and find me in this mess, and then it happened..................

Call it hallucination. Call it sixth sense. Call it imagination. Call it what the hell you want. But I saw my little boy's face right in front of me. The expression on that face, the tears in those eyes, was the thing that gave me the reason to climb back out of the darkness. It took me a while, yes, but I found Light at the end of the tunnel.

Six years, in fact, but I did come out of the end of that tunnel—that "oh shit" moment. My little boy's face in front of me changed my life, changed my life for the better. I worked damn hard on myself to create the person I am today. Yes, there were lots of ups and downs. Lots of them. But all the wanting, needing and loving in my heart for that little boy stopped me from giving up fighting the war full of battles and adversities.

Adversity to Triumph

But I did turn those adversities into triumphs by overcoming all the battles and winning the war. At the age of 47, I gained a first-class honours degree. Me, the thick one! Who the hell did I think I was? Get down off my pedestal, first-class honours degree! Wow!

Then, in 2012, I completed a 12-day Inca Trail trek, raising three and a half thousand pounds for a children's disability charity, despite, on the first day, falling and damaging my leg. I carried on not for me but for all those children who would benefit from me getting to the end.

What boosted me and pushed me on was that little face I saw that night moving me forward, pushing me forward, bringing me to an end and making me realise that I was worth something. Then, I qualified as a holistic and human development counsellor, meditation teacher, and emotional resilience consultant. Winning the war helped me realise, I was not a victim, on reflection I was someone who allowed others to take continuous control of my life from an early age.

Centre Stage

Now, I do have a bloody purpose on this earth. I have stepped out of the shadows of the wings of my adversities and now I stand centre stage as my own Leading Lady, making a positive difference in other women's lives.

I Chose LIFE, I Chose FREEDOM, I Chose ME.

AND SO CAN YOU..........