On the day of my second overdose, my Mum did not take me to the hospital.

She told me I was being selfish.

She told me I thought of no one else.

She told me that she didn’t understand why, I had nothing to be sad about.

When the ambulance came, she would not come to it.

I weeped to the man in the ambulance about how she didn’t care, and he said “I’m not surprised with what you put her through”.

The man told me I shouldn’t be doing this to my family. He asked me about my siblings, I told him, “I have two sisters”. And he replied “What would they think of you?”

He made me feel ashamed. I’d just tried to take my life, yet I felt like the world hated me more, and all I wanted was to disappear.

The man told me that no one liked to see horrible scars, when he saw them. He told me that the first thing I do when I see my Dad is apologise for what I’m putting him through.

Nothing else. No word of why it was okay for me to stay on this Earth.

When I arrived at the hospital, I saw my Dad and cried, the first thing I said was “I’m sorry”.

The ambulance man smiled at my Dad and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve given her a good telling off”.

I was being told off for being ill, by a man who was meant to look after me. I was told I only thought of myself, by a woman who should have always been there for when I was sick.

The lack of understanding surrounding mental illnesses is becoming increasingly worrying, and I will not have one more mentally ill person made to feel like they had a choice over their illness.

It’s time to change the stigma, and remind people that it is an illness that cannot be helped.