OLD POST I WROTE AFTER EASTER 2016 RE: MY SISTER THERESA

OLD POST I WROTE AFTER EASTER 2016 RE:  MY SISTER THERESA

On Easter Weekend I went to Nottingham to visit my niece and brother and sister in law. I love going to see my niece, she is now 10, and we have a wonderful relationship. However when I return to Nottingham where I used to live, and where I met Simon and had my son and lived with my sister Theresa I always become very upset and distressed.

It was in Nottingham that Theresa and I shared four years of our lives together, and for the first time ever we were largely left alone by our immediate family to be together, who had for many years tried to keep us apart but failed miserably.

Theresa and I had such a special bond, she was 18 months old when I gave birth to Noleen, and so I turned to Theresa as a surrogate daughter, and raised her and my brother Michael along with my younger brother Martin. 

As my mother who was an alcoholic never left our home and stayed in bed all day.

My mother resented the relationship I had with Theresa, she was jealous of us, and so was Theresa's birth mother, my older sister who had abandoned her as a baby and gone to live in the UK leaving my mother to have sole custody of her.

Once I left left home, my mother did everything she could to keep me and Theresa apart, and it hurt both of us a lot, I was filled with anger and resentment because my mother and Theresa's birth mother didnt mind me doing all the hard work, potty training, taking her to school and collecting her each day, taking her to doctors and hospitals etc, but once all that was done, they then ganged up and tried to keep us away from each other.

Theresa and I had such a complex relationship, she was my niece, and my sister, but I raised her like a mother would, and we loved each other dearly and just wanted to be together, I always felt that I had to love her enough for two mothers, as both the mothers in her life had let her down so terribly.

So it was in Nottingham Theresa came to live with me and we finally had four wonderful years together to just be with each other and to share our days and our nights.

We spent most of our days singing which was our saving grace, music got us through all our bad times, and I would often find a new song and rush home to let her know I had bought it and we would spend hours practicing it.

In the spring and summer we would bike ride and go for long walks with my son and our dog, and we would just amble along singing and sharing time together.

However Nottingham was also where both Theresa and I entered into a living nightmare, Theresa began to remember that my father had sexually abused her, and I had began to recall memories of Noleen. 

And so we entered into a living hell of flashbacks and nightmares and despair as black as night.

We supported each other as best as we could, but the pain we both experienced was horrific, soul destroying, and debilitating.

Being together caused us pain, as we each reminded the other of our childhood, sometimes we would just see each other and experience the pain of our childhood, sometimes we would go for days without seeing each other, but we both missed the other one and hated being apart.

I always worried about her, I hated her being alone, she had friends but like me we never told our friends about our childhoods, we couldn't bear to be treated differently, or to share the shame we both felt.

Eventually a job opportunity for Simon meant that we had to move, and I will never forget how I felt for leaving her behind me, I asked her to come with us, but she had a good job and wanted to stay in Newark.

I couldn't believe that after all the years of fighting to stay together, I was now deciding to leave her behind me. 

But I felt we both needed space to deal with our past in our own ways.

She said she didn't mind my going, but deep inside I knew she did, as we didn't see each other again for 9 years, although we did write and phone each other when we could.

For that 9 years my heart was broken and my soul destroyed, I couldn't live or cope without her, we had such an attachment, I knew it wasn't healthy, and many commented on it over the years, but either was it healthy to have a child at the age of 11, and then to have to put all that maternal love and instinct on my niece, who was being raised as my sister, but who I was really fulfilling a mother role as I raised her.

It wasnt healthy what my mother did either, to allow me to raise her, and then for her and my sister her real mother to try to break that bond we had developed. None of it was healthy.

The next time I would see Theresa she was back living in Ireland, but she came to stay with me and support me when my parents and brother were arrested for abusing us and for murdering Noleen.

As always she was by my side through difficult times, but I could tell she was not coping and she was set adrift, wandering through life with no real purpose or place to rest or feel safe.

Sadly the next time I saw her after that, was only days before she ended her life, she had asked her family doctor to contact me, and give me her phone number, and when I rang her I knew immediately she needed me and I traveled to Ireland the next day to be with her.

Unbeknownst to me Theresa had planned her death meticulously, down to her funeral and who could attend, and what to do with her clothes and items, and her finances, she laid out all her wishes in a suicide note, addressed to me, and asked that I carry out those wishes. Little did I know that her plan was to have me travel over to Ireland and then she would put her plan into action, knowing I was in the Country to carry out her funeral arrangements.

Theresa was terrified of my father seeing her when she was dead, she remembered how when my brother had ended his life, they had viewed him and buried him with an uncle who was a prolific pedophile and who had abused my brother, she also knew that my parents planned on being buried in that grave.

The only thing keeping her alive was the fear they would view her and bury her with them, and that is why she needed me to be there when she ended her life because she trusted me to take care of all the necessary arrangements.

Her birth mother traveled over from the UK to be with my parents when she found out Theresa was dead, as did another sister, they both refused to come to the funeral because I had arranged it, her birth mother, signed a legal contract to say if the funeral was paid for, she would abide by Theresa's wishes, as she was her legal next of kin.

On the day the funeral was paid for, her birth mother rang the undertakers to check the bill had been paid and no monies was due to her, then she told the undertaker she had to return to the UK because her boyfriends mother was ill. Yes, you read that right, she left the Country without sending a flower, or a card, or paying the bill, or attending the funeral, of her daughter, having stayed with my father the man who raped her child, and caused her to end her life.

Just one other sister and niece attended the funeral, and helped to pay for it, with two of Theresa's friends, yes, three family members out of around 50 who could have come, attended.

It broke my heart that she meant as little in death to them as she did in life, at her Inquest, just one niece came, and told the Coroner that she too was abused by my father.

At Noleens inquest, Theresa's birth mother accused her of ending her life for "attention" she said that Theresa lied about the abuse, and was looking for attention. Throughout the four days of the Inquest, her birth mother sat with my father and with my older brother who had also sexually abused Theresa.

Theresa had named both of these men in her suicide note, and yet her mother openly supported both of them at the Inquest and gave evidence to protect them too.

And so this weekend I went back to Nottingham where I had last lived with Theresa, on my many previous visits in the Eleven years since she died, I had always avoided the street where she lived, if we even drove near the area I would become very upset and distressed.

But this weekend, I decided to face my fears and go back to the actual house where she lived, I bought some flowers and a little plaque with "Rest in Peace" on it.

Theresa had lived on a main road, so I felt it was ok to leave the flowers and the plaque there, because her house came onto the street with no garden, and I walked there in the rain and the dark.

I stood outside the house, remembering our good and bad times, and some of the songs we used to sing, our happy and sad times, our pain and our agony as the past caught up on us and pushed us apart.

I touched the windowsill where I knew her bedroom was, and I told her I loved her and I still missed her, and as I walked away I thought of the little plaque I had left with "Rest in peace" on it and I hoped that I could now find peace with that part of my life and the awful guilt I have always felt for leaving her there alone.

I thought to myself that she would be at peace, that she had gone through hell on earth, how her whole life she had been tormented and a tortured soul, and I felt comfort knowing that she was probably safe now and better out of this awful world.

And then it occurred to me how it is still awful, for me, with my legal battle, and all the lies my family still tell, and how they still protect those who done this to us, and I said to her "its still awful baby, my life is still awful, it hasn't got any better for me" as I realized I am still going through the same hell, that she had been going through when she lived in that house, or when she ended her life.

I realized that I was still here, and it was still awful, and not much had changed for me since she had died, and I felt comfort that she wasn't here to be experiencing the pain she had left this world to escape.

I hope now I can find some peace myself and a bit of comfort as I prepare to face Monday 4th April and my daughters 43rd anniversary which since Theresa died has always been even more difficult for me to cope with as I feel both of their losses.

I bought myself a little ornament when I was in Nottingham, this is the photo of it, a "mother" with her two daughters, it reminded me of Noleen and Theresa, and the two daughters I have lost.

"Rest in Peace" my two beautiful babies, mummy loves you".

MY SISTER THERESA'S 11TH ANNIVERSARY

MY SISTER THERESA'S 11TH ANNIVERSARY 

Today I want to talk about God and hope, and my beautiful sister Theresa.

Tomorrow is my sister Theresa's 11th anniversary. Theresa ended her life on 23 February 2005, just three weeks after my brother Michael was found dead.

Theresa left a 35 page suicide note outlining the abuse she suffered at the hands of my father and my brother Peter, she also spoke about witnessing Michael being abused and how my brother Martin who ended his life in January 1995 told her many times about the abuse he too suffered by my father and brother Peter.

After Michael was found dead, Theresa began to get more memories of being abused by my father, this often happens to an abuse victim in that when we suffer a trauma it brings other traumatic memories to the surface. Theresa rang the officer over my case at Dunlaoghaire to report these new memories but the officer who was a friend of my fathers, reminded Theresa that "Me and your dad go back a long way". Put simply he refused to interview Theresa and refused to take her allegations.

This added to Theresa's torment, and when I saw her a few days before she ended her life she told me I was crazy if I believed that anyone would ever pay for what they did to us and to Noleen. I knew that Theresa had lost all hope and I begged her to hold on.

I told her about my solicitor Gerry and that he was on our side and that I believed that I would get convictions, but Theresa would look at me as if I had lost my mind and kept repeating "Sindy your crazy if you really think they will pay, mammy and daddy are too well in with the cops, you know that, they have too much on those cops, they have already got away with it, your mad if you think the cops will listen to you, when they are friends with da".

We both dealt with our horrific childhoods in different ways, Theresa saw it for what it was, so did Martin, they both could see something I couldnt, or wouldnt allow myself to see. They knew that my parents had got away with the abuse, they accepted that no one would ever pay for what was done to us, I couldnt, or wouldnt allow myself to see that. Because if I accepted that then there was no hope for me either.

Sometimes I get angry with myself, for being so stupid, for not being realistic, for not having the clarity that Theresa and Martin had, for believing in something that was so unbelievable, for ever even daring to hope they might pay. Sometimes I readily accept that Theresa and Martin were right, that all my efforts are wasted, that the last 23 years of fighting and hoping were for nothing, sometimes I wish I had never started this battle. Sometimes I wish I could just give in too or more aptly give up.

Theresa and Martin gave up, they knew there was no point, they knew that my parents had way too much over the cops, for the cops to have ever put them on a stand in a courtroom. That rang home to me when my mother was interviewed and one of the cops who sexually abused me, and I suspect sexually abused my brother Martin, sat beside my mother for the whole interview. Both of them sat there, together, what chance did I stand?

Theresa witnessed first hand, a cop, a good friend of my father's, walking my father out of the police station with his arm around my father telling my father to "Go home Peter and have a good Christmas, don't worry about this I will make sure nothing comes of it". This said to the man who raped me three Christmas days in a row by a police officer.

I often ask myself what is the difference between me and Theresa and Martin, why dont I see things as clearly as they saw it, why won't I accept and give in or give up? I wonder am I stupid to continue this battle. I ask every day where does it get me, I am angry at what it has stolen from me, and I get frustrated daily at the long indifference and silence from the Garda at Dunleary.

The officer over my case retired nearly five weeks ago, we didn't even know he was retiring, we found out in this newspaper article:

http://www.independent.ie/…/garda-chief-who-led-graham-dwye…

No one has been in touch to let us know he is gone, or to let us know who is taking over, they obviously knew for quite some time he was retiring, but no one thought to tell us. We met with them in August last year, they were supposed to be following specific lines of inquiry, that may have led to further action. At this moment in time I have not heard from them since August, not one word, to let us know where those inquires led or if they even followed them up.

At this moment in time, I am angry, frustrated, and feel like giving up, at this moment in time I empathise with Theresa and can see why she ended her life. I often think like this, when all my efforts go nowhere, when no one is listening, when it falls on deaf ears. I often whisper to her "you were so right darling, why, oh why, can't I just open my eyes and see it how it really is, why can't I have the clarity that you and Martin had, and why am I so stupid?"

At times like this I can fully understand why they gave up, why they gave in, and saved themselves the years and years of torment I have put myself and my family through. And then I always ask again, why am I different to them, and I remember that, while they chose suicide to cope with their awful horrors. I choose hope and my faith in God. Let me explain.........

I began to believe in God again after Martin died in 1995, Martin's death led me on a journey looking for answers, searching for a meaning in all this, wondering why it had all happened and why it had all gone so terribly wrong. My journey took me on several roads, it was long and searching and at times very confusing and overwhelming. The only thing I knew for sure was that somehow I had survived my awful childhood and somehow I was still here and still looking for answers.

All I knew was that I had survived the night Noleen was murdered, and survived having given birth at the age of 11 with no medical treatment. I had also survived after my mother tried to kill me too that night. I then went on to survive another pregnancy, and many more years of abuse.

I went on to marry and to leave Ireland, and I somehow carved out a life for myself in the UK, but always at the back of my mind was the fact that one day. I would speak out and tell the world what they had done to me, and my daughter, and what they had got away with.

And in some ways that brings me back full circle, to when I did tell, in that I told with the hope that they would pay. I told for the purpose of them going to prison. But Theresa and Martin, knew, from the moment I told, that I was wasting my time, that I was up against too much, that the odds were stacked way against me and they coped by giving up. Where I coped by fighting.

So last night as I was thinking about my beautiful baby sister, who ended her life aged 33, accepting a fact I cannot accept, that no one would ever pay. I was filled with pain and disillusionment, as I wondered all over again, why, I wanted to fight, when Theresa wanted to give in. I was sat wondering how on earth I would get through tomorrow. How would I get through the day, because as it approaches Theresa's 11th anniversary. I am faced with the cold harsh truth, that it looks like this police inquiry is going nowhere, that they have let me down all over again, that they are not listening and that they do not hear me, and that they have no idea whatsoever about how their long hard silences affect my day to day living, and has done since they took this case up again in 2014.

I was beginning to despair, I was losing all hope, as I was haunted by memories of Theresa's death and funeral, and the fact that at the age of 43, I had to scatter her ashes, at the pier in Dunleary, of my beautiful sister aged only 33, because she had given up, because she had lost all hope.

How I was asking myself, how, will I get through Tuesday, when my phone beeped to let me know I had a new message, it was from my son, and it was about a man speaking at his wife's funeral, who had been killed in a car accident.

My son said, "Mum, watch this video its so inspirational, of a man whose wife was killed in a car accident last week, God is incredible, the strength he has given this man, if you believe in God, God believes in you".

https://youtu.be/PTEiYgYC09M

And so I watched the video and I remembered that through my faith in God, I had hope, that Gods love and mercy gave me hope, and that it was hope that had kept me alive, kept me fighting, kept me going, when all else had failed and is still failing, and at times like this when I want to give up, or give in. God always finds a way to remind me that he will give me the strenght to carry on.

The God I believe in is a God of my own understanding, which simply means using your own experiences and your own understanding of your life and applying your personal experiences to your understanding of God, and not the God of "religions". Believe in your own understanding of God. Trust in God, turn to God, and God will bring you hope and strength.

When I look back over my life and remember all that I had gone through, in such a short space of time, and at such a young age with no one to support me.

Aged 23, I had fled to the UK to escape a violent marriage with a four year old son, and found myself homeless. I had lost two children already by that age, and had suffered all that abuse.

By the age of 26 I was pregnant and homeless again in the UK, I left my sons father at 5 months pregnant because he was violent and a gambling addict, and was going through a divorce with my first husband. Shortly after my son was born I suffered a miscarriage.

I might have been forgiven for believing that after I had met my second hubby Simon, who I am still very happily married to for 28 years, that life would get easier for me.

But no sooner had I started off a life with him that would give me stability and security, that would give me a life with no abuse, a life that was almost as normal as the next person's life, then my whole world came crashing down around me, and my childhood reared its ugly head to haunt my every waking moment and set me off on a 23 year legal battle looking for Justice for Noleen.

When I look back over my life, and think of this legal battle I endured, 8 DPP decisions and every one of them was to tell me that there would be no prosecutions. Most people only experience this once in a criminal case but I had to go through it 8 times.

I also had to wait 2 years for my case to come back from Europe to tell me that they refused my case too. Then I had to wait for 4 years while Alan Shatter was my lawyer, supposedly bringing a private case for me, and that also fell through.

I had a four year wait with the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, to find out that they too have turned my case down. Desperate for recognition and acknowledgement I then admitted a case with the Criminal Injuries in Ireland in 2006, they have had my case TEN years and are no nearer making a decision now, than they were ten years ago.

All that and much more, my three siblings deaths, and Theresa and Michaels Inquests and funerals, scattering Theresa's ashes, Noleens Inquest, and much more. All that heartache and let downs and betrayals. I could be forgiven for approaching tomorrow, full of despair and with no hope, and wondering where on earth I would find the strength to get through tomorrow with my heart broken, and such a heavy burden.

And I could be forgiven for being reminded again, that Theresa was gone 11 years, and STILL no one had paid, the police did not even give her suicide note to the DPP, and my parents, or my brother Peter was not even interviewed about the allegations Theresa made in her note.

Theresa addressed her note to me and the officer who would not take her allegations seriously, she felt if he would not let her speak about the abuse in life, he could read about them in her death note. And then she gave up and found a place to rest, where no one could ever hurt her again, she went in search of light and peace.

And so tomorrow I will watch that video again, and remind myself, that I have got the strenght to get through this, that I have hope, and that most of all I have faith, a faith in a God, that while giving me a heavy load to bear, a mountain to move and a heart of sorrow, he is there for me and with me, and while God is for me who can be against me? I do not do this through my own strength, I do this through God's strength.

I know and completely believe that the places I go to in my mind, the depths of despair I reach, the blackness that surrounds me, that when I go there, I am not humanly capable of coming back from those places.

I am not capable as a human being of finding the strength to return from those places. I believe that only God has that strength to reach down there, and to pick me up, and hold me gently in his arms, to bring me back from that awful place in my mind, and in my heart, and to put me on a rock and to place me back on an even path where I can begin my journey all over again.

And so tomorrow I will take time out to think about my beautiful sister Theresa, and to remember our good and our bad times, to love her and to miss her, and to mourn her, and then the day after. I will place my eyes on the Lord, and I will ask him, to reach down into the darkest deepest place in my mind and in my heart and in my soul, and I will ask him to meet me down there, in the depths of despair and to reach down and gently pick me up and place me back on that rock. Where I can look ahead of me, and see the path ahead of me, and find the strength to put one foot in front of the other and start all over again, on my path for justice and truth, for acknowledgement and glory.

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".

In loving memory of Theresa Murphy 23rd August 1971 to 23rd February 2005.

http://www.independent.ie/…/a-beautiful-life-lost-to-utter-…

Thank you for listening.

Cynthia Owen BA (Hons).

APPLE OWES IRELAND 3BILLION IN UNPAID TAXES

APPLE OWES IRELAND 3BILLION IN UNPAID TAXES

Sometimes I really wonder what kind of world we live in, with the news that Apple owe Ireland 13bn in Tax and the even more disturbing news that Enda has said Ireland wont take the tax off Apple?

Yesterday I visited a University town near where I live, they had spent £40m on a new "arts centre" and I wanted to have a look around, before I did I walked up the High Street and was really saddened to see shop after shop shut down and boarded up. I hadnt visited this town for a long time and so I was upset to see what it had become.

So................. off to view this new building, it boasted 3 cafes/bars, one cinema, and one lecture room, the rest of it was vast open spaces inside the building, that were not being used for any purpose and given that each University building already had their own lecture rooms, and cafes I couldnt help but feel shocked and stunned at this huge waste of money, that provided one lecture room.

Leaving the building I pointed out to my son's girlfriend that £40m had just been completely wasted on an almost empty building, while just streets away peoples businesses and livelihoods lay in ruins.

It also made me remember Holyhead Port, and how Holyhead is also a ghost town and I feel the same way each time I visit there too, to view empty rows of shops, while Holyhead paid out £7m for a bridge to link the port with the town, at a time when Stena stopped thier day trips into Holyhead from Dublin, and at a time when most people come into Holyhead to get a train to London, or drive off the ferry and go on thier way.

The bridge which is mostly used by school kids, was a huge waste of money because while it does lead to the High Street, there are no shops there to visit, and no one gets off the ferry and visits the High Street.

Some years ago I remember being blasted on a Dunleary page for pointing out that the 32m Euro being wasted on the library in Dunleary was scandalous when Dunleary had the highest population of homelessness in the Country, I was told that it would be a lovely place for children to learn and a building to be proud of, despite the fact that Dunleary too, just like Holyhead and the University town I visited yesterday has rows of empty shops.

I can already hear some of you say, that the money allocated to these huge wastes of money is separate money to that for housing and poverty and for small businesses, and I already know that anyway, but who thinks up these monstrosities and giants of architecture which seem to fly in the face of reality and in the face of children queuing up with their parents at food banks, and who or what organisation gives the go ahead for these huge wastes of money??

These buildings could actually house so many families, and as I pointed out when I wrote about the library, children with empty stomachs or with no home of their own, would prefer a bed or a meal before somewhere to read a book, and would prefer if their mammy or daddy's shop stayed open to earn them a living, they would even prefer if Enda took the 13m Tax money from Apple, so that he could build them a house and get them out of hotel rooms where they have been living for years in cramped and often damp conditions away from their extended families.

Isnt it time, these morons were stopped reaching their architecture dreams, were stopped being allowed to use scandalous amounts of money in an era where our kids are hungry or homeless, build houses, not libraries, or bridges for no one to cross and not arts centers which when we asked the receptionist yesterday what part of the building that was in told us "there is no point going there its never open, we dont really use it" some wont agree with my saying this but if Jesus was alive today, he would hang his head in shame and confusion.

Has no one even had an idea that money should be pooled together not kept in separate accounts that are used for things our societies dont need, or want anymore, how can anyone in authority justify any of these disgraceful wastes of money, while ignoring empty high streets, homeless children and unemployment????

In this day and age can these learned men and women not come up with the simple idea to pool all available money together and then see where it is most needed? And allocate that money to human needs, not to a few who dream about lavish buildings and bridges that no one needs or wants?

This isnt rocket science, its time to do things differently. Oh and of course its time for Enda to get some sense and take the money, please sign the petition below. Thank you.

Michael Noonan, take the tax

The EU just ruled that Apple owe Ireland €13 billion in unpaid taxes. But as we speak, Apple are trying to weasel their way out of paying their fair share. They’re trying to get our Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to appeal the decision, using our taxes.…

UPLIFT.IE

Is mental Health an excuse to kill?

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/stop-making-excuses-for-alan-hawe-he-killed-three-sons-and-wife-with-hatchet-and-knives-35024458.html

IS MENTAL HEALTH AN EXCUSE TO KILL?

I think this photo, is very true when we think of the dividing opinions of Irish Society to the murders of Clodagh Hawes and her three children last week in Cavan. Never before have I seen the Country so divided over what would have been a murder case had the murderer Alan Hawes lived. 

It was very obvious that many needed to see this case as a "mental health" issue, rather than a domestic violence issue.

For me it dragged up so much, some of it I can mention, some of it I wont, out of respect to the four victims, I couldnt help but identify with the children, having as an 11 year old child myself, witnessed my own mother stab my daughter to death, Noleen was stabbed 40 times, she died of one stab wound, the other 39 were needless savagery.

The night my mother murdered Noleen, she also tried to kill me too, three times, but I survived and I am here to remember that night, 4th April 1973, when as an 11 year old child I gave birth to another child with 5 adults in my family home, and two other men out in the garden, one of them a police officer waiting to help my parents clean up the scene.

So it was expected for me that I would identify with the little children who Alan Hawes murdered because my own mother tried to murder me and I witnessed a murder when I was a similar age to the three young children Alan Hawes murdered.

This case has caused me considerable anguish, for all sorts of reasons, and I cant help but wonder if my parents had of been apprehended by the police when they murdered my daughter, would the country excuse them too and put it down to "mental health"?

I am no expert, but looking back, and having discussed my parents with my own psychologists over the years, there is no doubt that both my parents had serious mental health issues, neither of them were "diagnosed" by a doctor. 

But my psychologists have confirmed that they did suffer from mental health issues, however, my father worked his whole life, and never took a day off work, and when the police did begin to investigate them both, they were both capable of evading justice and putting a good fight up to ensure they didnt get convicted, they also protected other abusers and made sure they didnt face prosecution either so just how mentally ill were my parents? 

And even if we knew how ill they were, would that excuse the many years they allowed their children to be sexually abused by others outside of our family, for payment, and the many years of abuse they put us through?

My mother knew that she had to pay her TV licence on time or she would be prosecuted, so she understood the law. Both of them knew to keep the abuse secret and to threaten us daily if we told, so they understood that abusing their own children was breaking the law.

Social services WERE involved in our family life, and visited my family home, I have records to show that, at least four of my siblings were under the care of the children's division of St John of God, and were seeing psychologists, and yet they didnt detect any mental illness in my parents, or any need to take us into care.

My parents were both cold and sadistic bastards, who knew what they were doing, and knew how to get away with what they were doing, to their dying day, they evaded justice, and died "innocent".

So is mental health an excuse to murder innocent children? NO, I dont believe it is.

I have suffered from mental health issues since the day my daughter was killed in front of me, I have been diagnosed with having severe depression, anxiety and PTSD, I have always engaged with my doctor and actively sought out help from all the helping services over the years and still do to this day.

I am on medication and in long term therapy, and I have reached places in my mind that it is nearly impossible to come back from.

Like other abuse victims I have suicide ideology.

But rather than end my life and take my whole family with me, I like the many other abuse victims who have contacted me over the years, have felt that my family would be better off without me. 

I felt I was a burden to my family, that I was holding them back, that if I ended my life I would be freeing them up, or releasing them from having to live with me with my mental health issues.

And I know speaking to others over the years that is how they felt, when they suffer with depression and mental health, when they think of taking their lives too.

That they felt they were letting their families down, that we were failures in some ways and that if we were to end our lives we would be doing our family a service. 

We never for one minute thought that our families couldn't live without us, like Alan Hawks did, we never for one minute thought that we had that right to decide, to play God.

We felt we were a burden to those we loved, because we couldnt shake off the depression, because we couldnt live a normal life, because we couldnt do what other normal families do. We felt we had failed those we loved, and we wanted them to go on and live a full life without us holding them back.

This is the first time I have ever spoken so openly about my mental health, or about others who contact me every day struggling to survive against all the odds. 

I feel that it needs to be spoken about, that there are many of us out there struggling, with poverty, with depression, with mental illness, with loss, with poor housing, or homelessness, with being a single parent and with employment, or with debt.

And yet, in the wake of Alan Hawes, who didnt seem to have any money worries, or other such pressures, I cant help but feel that those of us, out there in the real world, living in the real day to day world of failure and debt and depression and darkness. 

That our realities have been forgotten or almost over looked when the Country rushed to defend Alan Hawes and his actions by lumping him in the same category as those of us who suffer every single day, week after week, year after unbearable year.

Because it was people like us that you rushed to place Alan Hawes into the same category as so that gives me a right to respond even though I will no doubt be attacked for doing so.

And yet, its not hard to compare myself to Alan Hawes, to ask myself "could I have reached the places he did in his mind that led up to him doing what he did" and the answer is no, plain and simple no.

I dont care how bad it got for me, I dont care where I go to in my mind, how far down, it would never ever occur to me to take the life of another, or others, that I love.

No doubt some of you will slam me for this post, I will be attacked or accused of all sorts, but I know pain, and I know struggle, I know darkness and despair. And I know what its like to see someone you love being wiped out in front of you, I know how long it takes for that someone to actually die.

I know what its like to have your own parent try to end your life too, three times in one night, and to have to live with that parent knowing they tried to kill you.

I know mental health, I lived with two people who had serious mental health problems and I know suicide, thoughts of suicide are my frequent companion, and three of my siblings ended their lives but took no one with them having battled for years with their own mental health issues.

Alan Hawes would have had all the services available to him in his area being a vice principal, he would have had ongoing support from his peers and he would have had a vast knowledge of what services he could have accessed. 

Unlike thousands of us, he also had the money to pay for private care if he felt he needed it, do I believe he snapped? No, I do not, do I believe he had a choice? Yes I do, do I believe he should be pited or excused or forgiven? NO, I do not.

I make the choice every day to live, against all the odds, against all the blackness and despair, against all the injustice, I choose to live, when for me it would be so easy to die, so very easy.

I speak to people all the time that also choose to live, when for them dying would be so easy, its harder to live when your in my shoes, than it is to die.

Alan Hawes had choices too.

This post is for all of those people out there who like me, live with suicidal thoughts every single day, who struggle to stay alive every single day, and who like me are insulted to be placed in the same category as a man who murdered his wife and innocent children and has been excused because he "must have mental health issues".