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Back What I Did Save as PDF
Chapters (87)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Seventy-One
  75. Seventy-Two
  76. Seventy-Three
  77. Seventy-Four
  78. Seventy-Five
  79. Seventy-Six
  80. Seventy-Seven
  81. Seventy-Eight
  82. Seventy-Nine
  83. Eighty
  84. Epilogue
  85. Acknowledgements
  86. Extract from To Keep You Safe
  87. About the Author

One of my darkest secrets was that by the time Jack had started school, I was already on the merry-go-round of drug dependency, hanging on (look-no-hands!) and enjoying the whizzing lights. It was inevitable that those who lived with me knew I was an addict. I accept that they did not get to see the bright lights, only the dulled, vomitus side of me. But still I held on, with white-knuckled determination.

Addicts are determined – you have to be to deal with the criticism, the shame and the hassle of getting hold of the good shit. And as an agency nurse, who was clever and determined, it was all too possible to get hold of what I needed.

But as much as I totally accept that being an addict was my fault, the start of my addiction was not.

After a terrible pregnancy, where I’d nearly been hospitalised twice for dehydration because even a sip of water would make me throw up, the midwife assured me: ‘You’ll have a lovely birth. Very straightforward – it’s always the way if you’ve had a tough pregnancy.’ But it wasn’t the case.

I woke in the night and Nick drove me to hospital. Within minutes my ankles were up in stirrups. I was given pethidine which made me feel very sick, very spaced out. Everything slowed down, until Jack’s heart rate showed he was in distress, then his birth became very fast. I remember feeling so cheated it wasn’t the promise of the “lovely” birth that had kept me going through the tough times.

I remember the fluorescent lights, the blinding agony and the panic as a more experienced doctor was paged. A midwife later hinted darkly that I’d mistakenly been given too much pethidine, and I certainly felt like I was tripping, with the strangest and strongest certainty that I was in a horror film, and when the senior doctor all but pushed the younger medic aside and came at me with something held high and glinting in the light, I think I started screaming and screaming.

When Jack was finally out, he was whisked away from me to check for skull damage before I could even hold him. I was whizzed down to surgery. Afterwards, a nurse felt she could confide to me as a fellow nurse, that mine was the worst birthing injury she’d ever seen. ‘Honey,’ she said, her hand on my shoulder, ‘you were split so badly front to back, that if it had been any worse, you’d been peeing through your ear.’

I smiled back at her, not caring because by then I had a syringe driver full of morphine. All my fear for my tiny son and my own pain was dulled from a shrill scream to the smallest of whispers, as the morphine washed contentment through my veins.