'I’m a waste of space': Jacqui Lambie opens up about suicide attempt
In a candid interview, politician Jacqui Lambie has opened up about her 10 years of unemployment, a suicide attempt and addiction to painkillers, as well as her new look courtesy of Botox.
Holding nothing back, the 43-year-old senator for Tasmania also tells
The Australian Women's Weekly that she thinks Tony Abbott is a "lying liar" with "no guts" and "no balls", who is "too scared to come out and meet me".
Lambie, whose controversial political views include cuts to foreign aid in favour of university funding, opposition to gay marriage and banning the burqa, had her first child at just 18.
The January issue of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Enlisted in the army at the time, she stayed and had her second son from a separate relationship, aged 22, and was a single mum by 27.She remained in the army until 1997, when she injured her back during a field exercise carrying a 40-kilogram backpack.
She turned to prescription pills to manage the pain.
"I never took morphine," Lambie says in the January issue of the magazine. "It was drugs they use to treat schizophrenia, but it messes with the chemicals in your brain."
She didn't work for 10 years and became depressed to the point where she attempted suicide. "I began thinking 'what use am I to anyone? I might as well end it. I'm a waste of space.'"
In 2009, following a drunken night out and an argument, she walked in front of an oncoming car.
She was taken to hospital and then spent 20 weeks following the attempt in rehabilitation for her addiction.
"It was a long road back, but I did it," she tells the magazine. "And I always thought, when I'm better, I'm going to try to make a difference."
She joined the Liberal Party in 2011, sold her house in 2012 to fund her run as an independent and was elected as a senator for Tasmania last year. She will be on the crossbenches as an independent until 2020.
"My vote's important, so if I was Tony Abbott, I'd be saying, 'Hey, Jacqui Lambie, let's have a cup of coffee'," says Lambie, who has an incredible 16 siblings.
"But he can't do that, can he? Because he doesn't wear the pants. The female in his office [chief of staff] Peta Credlin, she's the one that wears the pants.
"That's another thing with those blokes from the all-boys schools: they can only deal with one powerful female at a time.
"They need that powerful female to push the other females away.
"So now the bastard is saying, 'I don't have to meet with Jacqui Lambie', but guess what? He does have to meet with me, because we are going to have to work together. Fair enough, he got elected – but I got elected, too."
In the magazine, she reveals her new look, thanks to fillers and Botox.
"It's addictive. It's like, 'Oh my God, here comes that wrinkle again'," she says, sharing that she's on the lookout for love.
"I basically haven't been with anyone for 10 or 11 years. I'm open to it. It's just to have that human contact would be nice."
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/...up-about-suicide-attempt-20141222-12cbi8.html
