The Baby Who Saved His Young Mum’s Life

He doesn’t know it, but Dionne McMillan’s newborn son may have saved his mother’s life. The six-week-old has proved a lifeline for the young mum, who was bullied at school and has attempted suicide at least ten times.

The 21-year-old from Edinburgh says her life has been turned around and she has vowed to “enjoy every moment”. She has now decided to tell her story in the hope it will encourage troubled youngsters to seek help, and she plans to visit schools across Edinburgh and urge pupils to talk about their problems.

“Now that I have a child, I’ve realised that I need to be here for him,” she said. “Things have been great since he came along and I feel so much more positive inside. There is no way I’m going to let him go through everything that I’ve been through.”

Dionne was brought up in south-east Edinburgh by her grandparents, who adopted her. Her mother was struggling with depression, and her father had left at an early age. As a youngster, Dionne struggled to make friends and spent a lot of time at home, helping care for her severely disabled cousin.

“When I was ten, I remember taking an overdose of pills – I just wanted to sleep and not wake up in the morning,” she said. Over the following years, she took more overdoses, tried to hang herself and walked in front of traffic. She would self-harm by cutting herself, pulling out her hair, and burning her skin.

She came close to death on a number of occasions and needed her heart re-started after one suicide attempt. She was taken into care when she was 14. Dionne was sexually attacked in November 2005, leaving her psychologically scarred and leading to a major overdose.

Eventually, she was sectioned in Morningside’s Royal Edinburgh Hospital for three months. While there, she was assigned a social worker, who was also a mental health officer, and slowly her life started to improve. She became involved in an art therapy project and designed a series of posters that are now displayed at the hospital.

In September last year she found out she was pregnant and has not self-harmed since. Tragically, her partner – who she met at the Royal Edinburgh – committed suicide and died just before New Year. But this experience acted as a turning point for Dionne.

“For the first time, I could look at suicide from the other side, and see how it affects people,” she said. “I realised how my attempts had affected the few friends I had. It hit me that my son will never get a cuddle from his dad, and that made me very sad. I’m not going to attempt suicide again – I have to be here for my baby.”

Dionne has started volunteering for an organisation called Penumbra, one of Scotland’s leading mental health support groups. She has spoken to teachers and other care workers, in a bid to help them understand why youngsters self-harm and attempt suicide. From next year, she hopes to take her message directly to school pupils.

“I wish I had asked for help earlier, from a friend, teacher, anyone. I would say to other people, don’t suffer in silence, remember you’re not alone,” she said. “If someone had told me when I was ten-years-old that I could get help, perhaps my life would have been different. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’ve been through.”