On visiting hell - reposted from 2007

The first time she went missing I was on the phone to some nurse, I wanted to be the one asking questions but the nurse was so very slow, quizzing me about information I didn't want to give and stalling on telling me anything medical at all. Later I wondered. "What if she had been faster?" "What if I had just called triple 0 instead?...."

We ran to the car and swung the headlights everywhere we could think then we went up the streets and down them right out to the highway. We couldn't see her anywhere so then we wondered if she had been at home all the time, if we had somehow missed her? Could we have? We didn't ask again once the car reached the top of the driveway because there she was, coming out of her flat all smiles and asking for her friend. She didn't believe me when I said her friend wasn't with us and as relief flooded me we led her into her bedroom and helped her put her pyjamas on. I grabbed the bright blue long sleeved flanelette set for her. She yelled at me, where was the top? where was her bed? Where were her friends? My hands were shaking, we got her into bed and gave her a basin incase she had an accident. Later I wondered if I should have just stuck my fingers down her throat right then and been done with it.

She asked me to take her to the toilet then when I got her back to bed, she closed her eyes and it was only seconds before she seemed to mutter in her sleep.

Upstairs we sat in silence, my husband and I, and the tv droned on enough to calm me. It might have been 10 minutes but it wouldnt have been anymore before I decided I should check on her again. My husband was grabbing the blankets as we had decided it was best we spent the night down stairs with her.

I guess I wasn't really surprised when I found her bed was empty. This time I knew there was no mistake. She was gone.

We ran to the car again, not stopping to tell the boys a thing, we thought for sure that this time we would find her, that she couldn't have got that far. We drove and shouted and peered desperately into the darkness. We checked as far as we thought she could have got before we again doubted ourselves and rushed back home. I ran upstairs while S searched her flat again. I banged on the boys doors and begged for their help. We called the neighbours over and they began searching too, we wondered if she was hiding somewhere in the garden after all, or under their house or in another neighbours yard, or, or, or.....

I checked the floor, under the bed, in the bathroom, everywhere I could think of for her blue pyjamas but they were gone. Then I looked for her favourite shoes and for missing outfits. Nothing seemed to be gone. This meant my daughter was barefooted out somewhere in the night wearing nothing but her blue flannelette pyjamas.

My husband called the police then while my neighbour and I drove around again. We went out to the highway and past the big resort. I felt my skin prickle as I imagined her floating in a golf course water hazard or bleeding and dying after being hit by a car. I couldn't believe she could have reached out of our search zone unless she had been picked up in car. I knew she had no phone or any way of contacting her friends so if she had been picked up it had to have been by a stranger. That just sent me back to searching closer to home. She had to be somewhere close I thought and when the police woman rang back to say that they had more important things to worry about and we were probably worrying about nothing I wanted to believe her far more than she was able to convince me.

When time passes sometimes it is as if it has turned to molassas. I walked around and around the garden, looking underneath, beside, behind...underneath, beside, behind....underneath beside behind. My feet just kept moving, trudging through the slow syrup of frustration, searching again and again. My husband was out in the car somewhere. He came and he left, friends called to say they were looking too. We called her friends though we knew it was impossible that she could be with them. Ink called his schoolfriends and asked those who knew her to keep an eye out. It may have been about 11pm, it couldnt have been much later. We had been searching for her for nearly two hours. I could not understand where she could have gone. I wanted to panic and scream and cry but I just kept walking and walking. I was carrying both the home phone and my mobile in my hands, I strayed too far and I home phone cut out, I checked the neighbours garden again and again and again. I prayed. I felt like I was in hell. My hell was dark and hollow, I couldn't see into the shadows and as the darkness engulfed me I thought my heart was a deflated balloon, I could barely breathe.

Then my mobile rang. It was my son. She had called my husband. She was alive.

She had run six kilometres to the only nightclub in town. She didn't know how she had got there and had only come to when she has asked the bouncer to let her in and looked past him to see people staring at her. The bouncer told her that she couldn't go in wearing no shoes. She looked down and saw she was barefoot and wearing pyjamas.

She ran out of there and into the only open shop nearby. A restaurant. The owner let her use the phone. I guess we owe him more than even he may realise.

Ecstacy & alcohol. Peer pressure and stupidity. I know who gave her the drugs, I know she was too drunk to even know she was taking them. I know I want to call the police and get the stupid little arsehole locked up for life. I know that won't happen but I on Saturday night for the longest 2 hours since my life began, I thought my daughter was dead and now she is downstairs saying that she wishes she was and I am not sure I have ever felt so useless and angry and so very, very sad.

She told me later tht it wasn't ecstacy she took. It was something called 'Pink Skippy' Later still she told me what she took had been laced with acid...maybe she just told me that because she thinks that is what I want to hear? I don't know but the fact that she still seems to think it is reasonable to be taking pills she has no idea/or have any chance of knowing what they contain just mortifies me. "But my friends know what hey are doing"...Right..great!!! I am her mother, she listens to nothing that I say.....Four weeks ago (12 Mar 07) I found out she took a pill again. I was in shock fr a week, now I just feel numb and f*cking terrified