Suicidal Mate

By Sammy Jo Dancey

Suicidal mate is the much-anticipated sequel to Sammy Jo Dancey’s “Suicidal State”

The book sees Sammy enter therapy, disclose her Post Traumatic Stress and gain Post Traumatic Growth through the process.

She becomes a fully qualified Post Traumatic Stress Practitioner and writes groundbreaking Continued Professiona

• Language: English
• Publisher: EC Publishing LLC
• Release date: Apr 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781970160840

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

GRIEF DEPRESSION AND ADJUSTMENT

The void came at the end of July, the apartment was empty, her litigation over, her father dead. Now came the grief, she cried, she felt like a huge weight was pressing on her chest. This was a depression. She continued taking the anti - depressant Fluoxetine but wanted to get off them. A visit to the Dr and a good chat eased her grief somewhat and the GP suggested she started to reduce the medication, take one every other day. She did so with no adverse affects.

She kept expecting more mail from the solicitor, she also expected someone from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs to send her a letter asking her to pay a tax bill or some other penalty.

It was deathly quiet after the two years of constant emails, invoices and anxiety. Her weight had increased with the stress and her temper shortened. She remembered her Queens Counsel saying,

You should write book!

So she did just that. It was a cathartic process, and she knew that she needed to make some sense of it all.

Her new apartment was beautiful, but she wanted a distraction so she began to style it. She sold the furniture she didn’t want on eBay and replaced it with something more suitable. Turning the second bedroom into an office she purchased office furniture in black with two leather high backed office chairs, and an Apple Mac. The floors were laid with rustic oak Karndeen flooring and she purchased some contemporary panelled artwork in red and black to hang in the lounge. A five panel picture of a pagoda, a sea scape and a lady standing on the beach looking out to sea. With the Juliet balcony doors open, the sound of the sea was constant and relaxing. A smoked glass table in black and a matching plasma wall fire made the apartment homely. She invested in a HomePod and a black leather corner sofa with matching captains chair.

Over Christmas she met her neighbours and got into the community spirit of where she lived. Her next door neighbour was a retired Lieutenant Colonel who had served 28 years in the Army and like her lived alone. Their building comprised of 6 apartments, his and hers were on the 2nd floor. His was a duplex penthouse with outstanding views of the bay. She often heard a cacophony of classical and military music emanating from his place, it made her smile.

She watched the sea from her window for hours and began to adjust to her new life once more. It was just what she needed.

She had never been able to make a secure attachment since the age of 18 months. Her studies had shown she had a disorganised attachment style. Intimate relationships were difficult to maintain. It was also a classic symptom of Post Traumatic Stress.

She made friends with the salesman Leo who had sold her the apartment, he still worked on site in the sales office downstairs and she was a regular visitor for coffee and a natter. In his 40’s and always smartly dressed and smiling, he had a welcoming aura and a kind smile that drew one in. His father was a policeman although they were estranged. Leo was homosexual and she felt safe, she attended his parties in his apartment which was a few miles away. He also had a penthouse flat with a roof top terrace which he had designed to perfection. Astro turf had been laid neatly across half of the space and a picket fence enclosed it. A water fountain with silver metallic domes glistened in the sunlight. He held a party for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and had decorated the terrace with union jacks. She wore a union jack tee shirt and blue cut off shorts. It bucketed it down with rain and everyone was soaked but in good spirits.

She had never really socialised with homosexual men before and found them to be charming, they could be terribly bitchy though, it amused her. You’re not wearing that with those shoes? was one of their catch phrases.

They became firm friends and often had breakfast in a local cafe in The Square which was the local Lesbian Gay BiSexual and Transvestite area. He was the go to guy for anything to do with interior design or names of contractors.

She enrolled on a distance learning course in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Management and saw her own maladaptive behaviour in the symptoms, several key ‘aha’ moments transpired as she sat reading the course material.

It resonated so easily when she saw it on paper. One of the key pieces of advice given if you had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was to make few major life changes.

In reality that’s not so easy, Post Traumatic Stress can turn your life upside down and into an avalanche with everything snowballing on top of you at once.

Like a game of Jenga, without a solid foundation, or one that was constantly having the blocks pulled away through trauma, a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would struggle to build a stable life. Like being immersed in quicksand, they would fall into maladaptive coping mechanisms when another trauma came, be that an assault, a road traffic collision, theatre of war, man made or natural disaster. Their fight, flight or freeze response would go into action to protect them, or they would disassociate for self protection. If a client was already diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress and then got separated or divorced from their partner which in turn led to selling their property, and separation from their children, their stress levels would increase. A difficult cycle to break, but one she hoped she could learn to assist clients with through her counselling practice.

It felt good to be out of fight/flight mode herself and to have some breathing space. Homeostasis was her goal. She slept a lot, her favourite thing was to sleep with the balcony doors open and listen to the ocean. There was no sound more relaxing.

The nightmares of being raped and stabbed were getting fewer and further in between and the night terrors stopped. She was now no longer too scared to go to sleep and she got some good quality rest. The cats were a comfort and had adjusted well to their new environment.

CHAPTER TWO

EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION

It had been ten years since she had completed her Level 2 counselling training as she had side stepped into the security industry and become an instructor. It was her way of finding her courage again. However, she felt compelled to complete her counsellor’s training as she’d left it on the back burner. A well know maxim was to Always finish what you started.

Her local college were running courses so she enrolled and started Level 3 Counselling & Psychotherapy in February. The class were friendly and she soon fitted in. She was pleased to be in an environment of like minded scholars and got on well with her tutor who had worked for the Ministry of Defence.

The course work was consuming, the reading list comprehensive and the classroom practice sessions enjoyable. There was a lot of reflexive work and self discovery over the first term. She had to keep a portfolio of her evidence based achievements which proved her competency. She loved it and thrived. Having a goal and a purpose was good for her mental health. She met a very special lady who was to remain a life long friend. They were similar in background, starting again and harbouring a thirst for knowledge and personal growth. They met outside of college and their friendship deepened over the year.

Martha was slightly older than Sammy,