My Stupidity — The Darkest Night of My Life

On the 1st of November, I reached one of the darkest moments I’ve ever lived through. I tried to end everything. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t myself. I honestly believed the world would be better without me.

I went to a local park, completely broken, and that’s where two police officers found me. They got me the help I needed, even though at the time I didn’t think I deserved it. I was taken to hospital and placed under a 24-hour safety hold.

But I survived.
And as awful as that moment was, it became a turning point.

Since then, I’ve moved in with my mum with my daughters, and we agreed it was safest for my son to split his time between my brothers and his dad. I’m under the Crisis Team, Talking Therapies, Stepping Stones, and I have my own therapist. I am getting better each day — even on the days when “better” looks tiny.

It’s still hard.
But I’m here.
And I’m learning that asking for help isn’t weakness — it’s survival.

**So what happened?

Here’s the truth — my truth.**

I made a terrible mistake. And it spiralled.

On the 31st of October, I came clean to my friend Ryan about something I should never have done.
I had been catfishing him.

The persona I used was based on someone I know — I’ll call her Lissy. She is real. Ryan believed he was talking to her. At first, I used that persona for something unrelated — to keep tabs on someone else. Lissy helped me at the start, but she told me to stop it.
I did.
For a while.

But then, without meaning to, I created a whole version of “her.”
A better version.
A version who wasn’t me — confident, funny, sorted. And Ryan liked her. And when he started to care, I felt things I shouldn’t have felt.

Every time he wanted to meet her, something got in the way.
Every time I should’ve ended it, I didn’t.
Because talking to him, even behind a lie, made me feel seen. Wanted. Alive. All the things  life had taken away from me.

I’d ring him at night pretending to be her.
We’d talk for hours.
And the more he fell for her, the more I fell for him.

Meanwhile I was spending time with Stefan — as a friend, sometimes more — and there were moments where his name nearly slipped out. Ryan’s name. And that’s when I realised everything was spiralling out of control.

I should have come clean earlier.
I should have stopped it.
But I was already drowning in guilt, shame, cancer fear, exhaustion, and mental collapse — and instead of reaching for help, I reached for destruction.

In the week before I told him the truth, I was barely coping.
I was struggling to wake up each morning.
My head was full of noise and darkness.
I felt like I was ruining everyone’s life — his, Stefan’s, my children’s, my own.

On the 30th of October, I hit my lowest point.
I left home with the intention of not coming back.
I didn’t care what happened.
I didn’t care about tomorrow.
I just wanted the pain — all of it — to stop.

But life has strange ways of pulling you back.
Memories.
Voices.
People who love you.
People who refuse to let you disappear.

A friend called me — “Don’t do it, Sue. Please.”
He told me he could tell Ryan the truth for me, right then, that second.
But I said no. I begged Deece not to, 

Not because I didn’t want help — but because I didn’t want Ryan to hear it through someone else.
I owed him the truth myself.

That moment snapped something in me.
I stopped.
I listened.
I reached out.

And that’s why I’m still here.

This isn’t a story of stupidity — it’s a story of pain and survival.

I made mistakes.
I hurt people.
I nearly destroyed myself.
I let guilt and shame eat me alive until I couldn’t breathe.

But I’m not hiding it anymore.
I’m not burying it.
I’m not pretending it didn’t happen.

This is my truth — messy, painful, human.

I am healing.
Slowly.
Roughly.
Honestly.

Some days I’m okay.
Some days I’m not.

But every day, I am choosing to stay.

And that is not stupidity.
That is courage.

Halloween — The Night Everything Came Out

On the 31st of October, everything came to a head.

He was working late, and my friend Deece had picked me up from Skegness. We drove toward Ryan’s street because I knew — finally — that I had to face this. I couldn’t keep running, couldn’t keep hiding behind screens and excuses.

On the drive, Deece gave me his password to his emails, repeating it like it was some kind of joke. I laughed, even though my stomach was in knots. He told me to take a picture when I got there and send it to Ryan, so he’d know I was outside.

So I did.

And I hated myself for dragging Deece into this mess.
He was a Security Analyst — proper job, proper risks — and there I was asking him to hack into Ryan’s computer and phone to delete everything. He’d done favours before for my mum and my ex, so in my head it didn’t feel like a huge ask.

But this time, he said no.

He told me straight:
He couldn’t do it.
And I had to face facts.
I’d made my bed — and I had to lie in it.

So I did the only thing left.
I logged into Gmail with the ridiculous password Ryan had once told me. Then I sent him proof I was there.

He came outside expecting to see Deece.
Instead… he saw me.

He went pale.
Like the blood just drained from his face.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

He sat down on the edge of the road.
I sat beside him.
And I came clean.

I told him he hadn’t been talking to “Lis.”
He’d been talking to me.

At first, he didn’t believe me.
He told me to prove it.

So I logged out of Deece’s Gmail and into Lissy’s — which took forever, and felt like peeling off my own skin — but I managed it. I sent him a message from Lis’s account while he watched.

And I watched his face fall.

I told him the truth — all of it.
That I’d fallen for him.
That I had no idea why I did it.
Loneliness?
Stupidity?
Desperation?
No fucking clue.

What I did know was:
I felt horrible.
Truly horrible.
But I couldn’t keep lying.

He told me things that night — things no one else knew.
And I told him I’d never repeat them.
And I meant it. We spent a good couple of hours there, I was expecting Ryan to Hit me , hey i would of let him, But he didn't we'd I'd try to explain and he'd sit there in silence,  I'd told him I'd rung Stefan while i was on my way there, i wanted to tell Stefan and say good bye  before Ryan could tell him Stefan was Angry at me, but he said he wanted to know how Ryan was,  Ryan made me ring my friend Who I'd use , so i rang her, at first she asked why and i said cos your beautiful and she was,  but later that night she rang me and wanted the hole truth so i told her, I'd used her, he knew her kids names she was pissed at me and she had every right,  She never wanted to talk to me again, and i said I'd never bother her again, and to this day i haven't .   I left and i went to Deeces sisters and when i got there i broke down  Deece hugged me and said, i had to give him time, But Stefan would never talk to me I'd practically told him i loved Ryan more, and i'd told Ryan i loved him, .