On the 23-November-2020 I received a message while at work that something had happened to my eldest daughter. I drove home thinking that maybe she’s hurt herself but is ok, I needed the hope. It wasn’t till I entered the house and see my partner and my other daughter crying I knew she was gone.
Next came the dreaded call I never thought I would ever hear, the call to say that my daughter had passed away. I was in total shock.
My beautiful daughter struggled in life, we tried so hard over the years to get a diagnosis for her to no avail, being passed from one professional to the next for several years. The system failed her. She was later diagnosed with Autism at age 16 and BPD border line personality disorder at 18.
At 16 she moved away to another town 100 miles away, we tried to prevent her from going and even asked child services to help stop her as she was classed as a vulnerable person, but she wouldn’t listen, she knew her own mind she said. She wanted a new start from the people that had called her names and bullied her in her own town because they simply didnt understand her. We knew that she would be leaving a loving family and support network behind that she so needed.
She later became pregnant at age 17, we disapproved at first due to her age but then offered our support and guidance. Initially she didn’t want to go ahead with the baby as she felt she wasn’t ready, although her boyfriend said that he would leave her if she didn’t keep it.
Her boyfriend’s family then subjected her to even more bulling and she was controlled by her partner. He would read her messages and listen in to phone calls, tell her what to do while he sat and played on his pc. We reported this so many times to child services and offered them evidence but they just didn’t want to know.
We were on call to our daughter for 6 to 8 hours per day and we even travelled over to help her.
We called around to find services that could help, although due to the lock down it was via phone only and not face to face.
We told her so many times to come home as she had mentioned that she wanted with the baby.
His family prevented her from doing so.
When the baby was two months old my daughter was struggling due to the lockdown and receiving no help from her partner or his family, she in the end had a melt down and his family took the baby into their custody.
She later became pregnant again and feared the baby would also being taken away.
She decided to have a termination, we said that we would support her either way and to think before making a decision. She decided that having another baby wasn’t the right time, this destroyed her.
She had been fighting in courts for her baby with our help for the past 8 months.
The proceedings have now been postponed until she’s laid to rest.
They had beaten her down mentally and, in the end, she took her own life.
I feel that I have failed her as a father, I should have done more to protect her.
She had so much going on and it became too much for her. I still can’t accept that she is gone, my poor girl went through all this. I so wanted her to come home.
I considered joining her and later realised the additional heartache it would cause for my partner and other daughter.
I feel like my purpose in life is gone, I don’t know what to think.
just to offer my love x