A teenager saved by strangers as she prepared to jump from a multi-storey car park wants to thank the people who helped her get her life back on track.
The 19-year-old, who was sexually, physically and mentally abused during her childhood, was pulled from the edge of Leighton’s West Street car park in April 2011.
Speaking to the LBO on Friday, the woman, who we agreed not to name, said: “One morning I just snapped and ran to the building.
“My mind wasn’t in the right place. I had been thinking about things from the past. Every now and then repressed memories come through from my childhood and that makes me freak out a bit.
“I didn’t have many people that I trusted and not many people liked me. So I just got to the stage when I thought no one will miss me.”
The woman, whose father was sent to prison when she was 12, describes herself as being “mentally unstable” from a young age and has suffered from depression, anxiety and low self-esteem.
She has been diagnosed by a psychiatrist in the past as having psychosis, which is a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
But she says her life changed when she was just 14, when she was raped by a boyfriend and had no-one to turn to for help.
“That was a big part of my life and that was actually the start of everything. I became self destructive.
“I would constantly drink and block out everyone from the world. It affected me a lot and that’s why I have a lot of distrust with people.
“I had tried to kill myself before, but that day was the closest I got to succeeding.
“Afterwards I started thinking that if I had gone through with it I wouldn’t have seen my sister grow up. I know now there are people who would care if I went.
“It was a big shock to me because in a way I was being really selfish. I just realised, ‘why would I do that to everyone else?’ not just myself.”
The teen says at the time she was resentful towards the help from kind strangers who gathered to look after her before the emergency services arrived, but now realises the impact they had on her life.
She said: “I was sitting on the edge and I saw some people coming towards me and I was just freaking out, crying and I couldn’t really hear or understand anything that was going on around me.
“There were some people behind me trying to talk me off the edge but I wasn’t listening to them. Then at the last minute this man grabbed me and then pulled me off.
“He said something like ‘no you don’t’ and pulled me to the floor. I was in shock and didn’t appreciate the help at the time.”
But now, two years on, the teenager is being treated for her disorder and is now looking for a full-time job, but says what has helped her to turn her life around was falling in love.
She said: “I have changed so much since then. I think I have my boyfriend to thank for that.
“I have actually considered writing an anonymous auto-biography to show what has happened and how I have overcome it, I have actually written quite a few pages already.”
“I’m finally ready to find who these people were so I can thank them. My life has become so great and I cherish every moment and I wouldn’t have all of this if it wasn’t for them.”
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