"I thought my family would be better off without me" - brave Rotherham mum reveals how close she came to suicide

SARAH wipes away tears as she bravely relives the feelings that drove her to the brink of killing herself.

“I did not see the point in being here any more,” says the 30-year-old mum.

“I thought I was worthless, useless, and it wouldn’t matter if I went. 

“I thought my family would be better off without me because I caused them so much upset and hurt and losing me would just be a drop in the ocean.”

Sarah was in despair after her college workload piled up, her grandad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she suffered a serious injury.

At the point of seriously considering suicide, she finally told her worried parents what was going through her mind — and they set her on the road to recovery.

Ten years on, Sarah — whose full name is Sarah Barnes-Cannadine — has bravely come forward to tell her story in support of the Be The One campaign, which urges people considering suicide to speak up and encourages everyone to look out for signs someone may be in emotional turmoil.

“It all came to a head for me in February 2009,” recalled Sarah (pictured above). “I think I had been ill for some time actually but did not know. 

“I was studying on a really full-on course and my grandad was battling cancer, which ended up being diagnosed as terminal on my birthday. 

“I also suffered quite a severe ankle injury and I was a competitive runner at the time, so that was difficult. 

“I lost another member of my family that year as well.

“It was like the culmination of a lot of things really. A lot of stress and a lot of pressure.

“It got to the point where I couldn’t cope any more.

“I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat and I couldn’t concentrate on anything.”

Sarah took a break from university and moved back in with her parents in Rotherham — but things didn’t improve.

She said: “I drank a lot at weekends, binge drinking, until I got to the point where I thought: ‘This is just too hard and too painful and I don’t want to do it any more’.

“At home, I was catatonic. 

“At other times, I was horrible, really nasty, especially to my sister,”

“I had had suicidal thoughts leading up to this but not really said anything.

“I told one friend one night after a drink: ‘I just don’t want to do it any more’ and she realised I actually meant it.

“But I never said anything to my parents until my mum was due to go away for the weekend and I had made a bit of a plan of what I was going to do.

“That morning, I said to my dad: ‘If you don’t take me to the doctors today I’m going to do something silly because I don’t want to be here any more’.

“I think what happened was I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and didn’t recognise myself.

“I was extremely thin and gaunt.

“For a split second, I saw someone else in the mirror and flashed back to how I used to be — I shocked myself how far I had gone.

“If I hadn’t told my dad, I think I would have done it.”