My heart goes out to you Pinkvixen! I've often seen those stories on current affairs programmes but never really given much thought to how it affects the children who may be living in those conditions as they usually just show the parents. Thanks for giving us an insight into your childhood and an even bigger thank you for your determination not to repeat that cycle with your own children. You are an amazing woman!

Oh Deb I am sitting here crying. I know part of your pain just as you know part of mine. It is not something anyone should have to face.

Our children have been inflicted with a disease, the same as anyone else who might have a disease called a brain tumor or liver disease. As far as I am concerned our children did not ask for this so I never, ever let anyone put my son down.

He did not ask for the pain he was in, he did not ask to be different and I am certain your son didn't either. The drugs are a way for a lot of these young people to try and stop whatever is happening in their heads but unfortunately what they do not realise is that it only makes it worse.

Josh did try dope for a short time but somehow he must have known it was not helping him because he stopped using it and we knew when he died that the medical examiner would find no drugs in his system and that is exactly what they told us so that helped a little.

I understand what your mother said but I have said so many times that even if I could have Josh back I would not want it to happen unless I could have him back whole in both body and mind. My child suffered enough already without me wanting his pain to continue,

Thank you for your compassion, I know you feel helpless in this situation. If ever you would like to talk just let me know.

I know what you are saying about wanting the pain to end. Sometimes I have looked at the gallery of pictures of my baby from when he was born to being a grown adult, I see his dazzling smile and the pure happiness on his face as a youngster and wonder how and why it all went wrong and in such a fast space of time.

Stay strong, that is all you can do. There is nothing anyone can do or say that will make you feel better but sometimes just knowing that someone cares and is standing behind you in the rough moments is enough to get you through.

When I was young

My earliest memory is of 2 ladies from child services telling me (five) and my 2 sisters (eight) and (eleven) that we were going to be taken away from our mother. You see my mum is one of those people you see on A Current Affair type programmes that live in a house that sometimes seems dirtier then the local dump. I grew up in a house that constantly had cockroaches, mice and 9-17 cats at any one time. With that many cats in a small 3 bedroom fibro home you can only imagine the smell that came out of the front door. Everywhere you looked there was cat droppings or mouldy food. My sisters and I would always be told by our mother that it was all our fault the house was the way it was and that we were disgusting children and deserved to be taken away. Her life would have been so much better off if weren't there for her to clean up after. We spent all of our time outside of school cleaning while she sat and ate chocolate and watched TV. We would go to school smelling of cat urine, unwashed and dirty clothes. We didn't get taken away. And that's when the beatings started. She always found a reason to beat on us. We walked infront of her program, took too long to get ready, didn't wash the floor properly, there was always something. It didn't matter how clean the house was she always found something wrong with it. And if she couldn't fault it, she would empty the garbage bin over the newly washed floor.

Over the years I have tried to understand why my mother treated us so bad but I don't believe there is any excuse to do that to your own flesh and blood. I am a mother of 2 and I am making sure my children know exactly how much I love them and I will never let them live in a place like I did. I missed out on a childhood and I am going to make sure my kids get everything I missed out on. Thank you for reading. I believe everyone has a choice to be a victim or a survivor. I am a SURVIVOR.

depression

O how my heart goes out to you,
I have lived with a person who has suffered with manic depression for many many years..in a matter of seconds he can be happy, sad,even violent.
Depression is so very hard for the sufferer,there emotions are all over the place.
I wish you every happiness for the future....x

Josh

Hi everyone my name is Netta and I am a BL junkie. Just thought I would throw that in from the start. I have debated over and over again with myself whether or not I would actually write anything in this section. It is personal and I was not sure I was ready to do that just yet but my daughter has been looking over my shoulder and she wants me to do this as she says it is therapy, so here goes. My heart is beating faster than a train just thinking about anyone reading this.

My husband and I met when I was only 16 and he was just 18, he whistled at me and I flirted right back and from that day on you could say destiny had a major hand in our lives. We married when I was 21 and started our family a 18 months later. We purchased our first house when our first born was just 2 months old and in quick succession our other two children were born.

I am the mother of 3 beautiful children, well they are not really children anymore, they are all adults, my oldest in 27 the next my daughter is 25 and my baby will be forever 20.

I always new Josh was different to other kids', he was a go getter, a kid in charge and someone that others flocked to. There was always someone looking for him whether it was for good reasons or bad he was always involved in everything going.

This kid started climbing out of his cot long before he could walk. When he was in Pre School they had to call me one day because my darling child had climbed to the top of the flag pole and was happily sitting up the top just laughing at them all as they called him down and there was no way known he was coming down until he was ready. That was Josh the kid in charge even at the age of 4.

I can't tell you how many times I had to rush him down to the doctor for stitches or tetnus shoots, far too many to remember. He was always a kid in a hurry and somehow always found trouble if there was trouble to be found.

Josh had 2 mates that were destined to be part of our lives forever, Jeff and Ashley. They came home with him one day in grade 2 and I think they stayed pretty much until they all finished school or that is how it seemed at times. I love these boys like they are my own and I know they love me too. The 3 of them were like a dynamite stick waiting to go off and after a couple of years in the same class at school they were seperated and we were told they could never be put in the same class again. They were too much for the teacher to handle apparently. They were not bad kids but they were mischievious and if there was mischief to get into you could bet they would find it.

I remember getting my own skull cracked by a game Josh and his mates were playing and they forgot to tell me that they had proped the gate with a star picket and down she came CRACK right on my head. I had to have the tetnus shoot that time. It almost gave those boys a fit when they realised I had been hurt but they were only kids' playing in the side yard they certainly didn't mean to harm anyone, especially me, after all I was the one who fed them.

My boy was alway happy, he was the Sunshine in my life and that is what I always called him, either that or baby but he hated being called baby even when I told him no matter how old he was he would always be my baby. The Sunshine left my life on July 8th , 2005 just 4 weeks short of his 21st, and I thought I might die then too but somehow you keep going because you have to.

My oldest son did not deal with his brothers death and he had a breakdown. All I knew was that as a mother I needed to get my children through this in one piece. There are support groups for parents but not a lot for siblings. Oh I know they advertise that there are support groups for all ages but trust me there aren't! I looked everywhere but all I was offered was the mental health unit and there was no way I was putting my child in there so we looked after him with the help of some of his friends. These friends could not have been better, they took him to stay with them and when I was not capable of doing some things they did them for him.

My boy found his brother and that is something no one should have to go through, and for a long time he could not get that out of his mind. It took him a long time to come to terms with what happened and it was a good 18 months before I would say he had come back to us and was getting on with his life.

I love my son dearly and would do anything to have him back but only if he was whole and not going through the tortue that he must have endured for things to end this way.

I beleive that my son had Bi Polar. When I look back he had signs of it but was not diagnosed. I also believe that Josh hid things from us so that we did not feel the pain he was going through, cerainly any anger he had he did not let us see he always took himself away from the house when he was angry, so in that way he was protecting us from this unseen demon.

I look back and can clearly see so many things now that at the time you might think are strange but you know no different so how could you do anything. I think that even had we of realised the extent of Josh's pain he was so strong willed he would not have accepted help and then the panic and paranoia set in so that took him over more and more I think. I call them the Demons, that is what took Josh over some unseeing thing that attacked his brain and made him leave us.

Bipolar and depression is the number one killer of our young men, it is called the new cancer for young people aged 14 - 25, more of our young die because of depression related diseases than car accidents. Some turn to drugs and that makes the depression even worse. We were lucky that did not happen in our case but we have heard some dreadful stories from other parents. I consider we were lucky compared to many others out there.

I also know that the day he died he was not my Josh anymore he was already gone when he walked out of the house that last time, and please if you have any feelings about this I don't want to know as I have already had more than enough said to me on this subject by a lot of supposedly all knowing people.

If I did not have the family that I have in my husband, son and daughter and the job and boss that I have I am not sure I would have gotten through this in one piece myself. I owe a lot to my boss she is a wonderful person who let me come and go as I pleased and told me that I was to do whatever I needed to do in order to keep myself sane and in one piece. Not many people think like that.

I know my son was not selfish, he did not have a selfish bone in his body, he was not greedy, but he was hurting and this must have been his only way out and I hold no blame on him or anyone. If you think about it clearly there is no one in their sane mind that could do this.

I hurt everyday because I could not help my child and only a mother how has faced this could know just how I feel. I do not want pity or sympathy, I am at peace with where Josh is and I know he is in a better world than he was in with us. I feel him around me all the time and I feel happiness that I was chosen to be his mother and that I had him for almost 21 years. That is more than some mothers have.

I thought I was a compassionate person but I have learnt a lot about compassion since my baby went away. I do not like to see darkness in anyone, I hate being around people who I feel bring me down emotionally and I always try and see good everyday. That is how I survive. I see sunflowers and I think of my baby. Josh grew sunflowers. I release ballons every year on his birthday just to let him know I love him and I talk to him and about him everyday so that no one ever forgets I have a son called Josh.

I always knew Josh was like 3 kids' rolled into one and I think he was given the life he had with the mates he had all his life for a reason. That reason was that he was just not meant to be with us any longer than he was. Call it fate or whatever you want, he is in a place where no one or no thing can hurt him anymore.

Thanks for reading my story. I wrote this because there are a lot of people here who talk about depression and how it makes them feel. What I want to say to them is get help, talk to the people you love, the ones' who can help you and support you through this. It is too late for my son but there may be someone out there who this story may help and if so I am glad.

Josh never told me what he was feeling or how bad life was for him. I knew he was struggling with things at times but it seemed no different to what a lot of young ones' go through, if only I had known maybe my story would be different.

We did not know that things were this bad for Josh, maybe we should have I really do not know anymore. Of course we knew he had withdrawn from people but never once did I ever think that my child would die. I never knew his demons were so bad.

So if you know someone who you think is in danger of depression or is not coping with life please take the time to talk to them, take the time to see that they are alright. I can not turn back time and I would not want to unless my baby could be whole again in body and mind but maybe his story will help someone else.