Trigger warning for rape and suicide
New Art in my mental health series
Title Wendy MacKenzie
Wendy’s Story in her words – My name is Wendy Mackenzie and I will be 70 years old in July. I’ve suffered from Clinical Depression since I was about 9 years old and my parents’ marriage began to disintegrate. I was diagnosed with PTSD and a mild form of Bipolar Disorder in my 50s.
When I was 6 months old I was diagnosed with Atopic Eczema and I suffered from this throughout my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. I was bullied about my skin condition all through school. Ignorant parents told their children not to play with me in case what I had was contagious and I was thrown out of the local swimming pool because of the rash on my skin. I made my first suicide attempt when I was 11 – bought a large bottle of aspirin and took the lot. They sent me to a “Child Psychiatrist” who did nothing for me at all.
Throughout my early life I appeared confident & outgoing – a smokescreen to cover my depression. The bullying theme continued into my working life and I began self-harming in my late teens. I drifted from job to job and I also drifted from one unsuitable relationship to another. Then when they ended badly, as they always did, I became steadily more suicidal. I held it together until I was in my late thirties when my then husband consistently failed to pay the mortgage on our house and we received an eviction notice. We were in Scotland by then so I sent him back to England and started divorce proceedings. I had just found somewhere to rent when I lost my job and had a breakdown, cutting my wrists.
I was eventually able to keep the rented house but it turned put to be a bad decision, as the married owner of the property assumed that I would sleep with him as part of the deal. He raped me – not violently but because we both knew that my continued tenancy depended on me allowing him to use me whenever he felt like it.
Within 2 years I married again and escaped. This was my 3rd and current marriage. It had a very rocky start and is still very challenging at times. After my fourth suicide attempt (aged 52) I managed to get help and therapy not to mention a clear diagnosis. After years of counselling I am now relatively stable and I understand my conditions well enough to live with them. Onward & upward!
