Look what I`ve done

I had done as directed and was now at work and `paying my way`. My Father, though in work, was poorly paid meaning my Mother, rather than keeping her own funds for her own use, was now forced to subsidise his wage and contribute to the household costs more. 

That meant less Bingo and less shopping sprees.

.

I was out of the house all day, 5 days a week which meant her managing with a reduced staff too ! All of this fuelled a bout of self pitying, attention seeking, hysteria.

My Father, growing older, and weary from hard work in a job he disliked, years of heavy smoking and the toll of coping with her, had become less reactive to her demands for attention, he quite simply didn`t have the energy.

As for me, I was growing up and beginning to build a life of my own, for different reasons we were both less at her beck and call, couple this with her lack of free spending and something had to give.

One morning, my father downstairs, I was just coming out of my bedroom, off to catch the bus to work, when she sprang from her own room, as if she had been laying in wait for me. "Look what I`ve done Mand" she announced in her most pitiful voice.

She presented me with both her wrists, each slashed superficially, the veins thankfully intact but the skin broken on each. "I did it with a razor blade" she announced proudly, dripping a few spots of blood on the landing carpet which instantly got lost in its garishly busy pattern. I grabbed a towel quickly and wrapped them up, yelled for my Father and whilst he was on his way up to her I went to call an ambulance and then work to say I would be late and why. Though shaken I was fast acting and calm considering I was 16.

She spent a few hours in A & E and arrived home later with a satisfied expression, a nice selection of medication and the advice that she needed to go to a day centre once a week as she was greatly lacking in support and company. Yes, I kid you not.

She went once and complained they weren`t a very nice bunch, the room was drafty and they only had one cup of tea the whole time she was there {which was 3 hours}

She was also eager to know who had been told about her `suicide attempt` and what they had said on hearing. Had I told them at my work, what was their reaction, when I said that they were very concerned she glowed with gratification and replied graciously in her actress voice "OH, how nice"