Ella's past suicide attempt

Ella’s past suicide attempt occurred during a prolonged, painful rehabilitation after the car accident that killed her mother. The attempt was not treated as an isolated crisis: it continued to define how her father, therapist, and school responded to her, while Ella struggled to distinguish necessary support from the loss of her independence.

Circumstances and Aftermath

Three months into her hospitalization, with no clear end to treatment, Ella could barely move and had just undergone her seventeenth operation. She had been told she might never walk again, missed her mother, and endured severe physical pain. In that despair, she tried to take her own life. Later, she described the act as a decision she regretted and felt ashamed of, but Dr. Parish challenged Ella’s insistence that she had not meant it seriously: the medical findings showed that the attempt had been close to fatal.

No one blamed Ella for what she had done. Yet afterward, those around her no longer trusted her assurances that she posed no danger to herself. The attempt thus remained present well beyond the original crisis, returning whenever decisions had to be made about her care and safety.

Independence and Guardianship

Before her father learned of her plans, Ella intended to remain in Boston, complete the high-school work she had missed online, and eventually attend Boston University. At eighteen, she had saved enough money for college; her mother had also deposited the monthly checks Ella’s father sent, and Ella had never spent them. She understood these savings as evidence that she could support the life she wanted. Her father instead had her declared mentally unstable through legal proceedings and compelled her to move to California.

The attempt also informed Dr. Parish’s approach to Ella’s request to live independently. Dr. Parish did not rule out that future, but said Ella first needed to show she would not be alone. She urged her to build friendships, find a support group, or reconnect with old friends in Boston, arguing that a dependable support network could make independent living safer. She promised to help Ella look for an apartment once that network existed. The condition made social connection part of the path to autonomy, rather than treating independence as a matter of legal adulthood or money alone.

Repeated Crisis and Changing Responses

When bullying at school became known to her father and Principal Johnson, concern about the past attempt resurfaced. Ella told Cinder that the school incident had been an accident and that her father and the principal had contacted her therapist; although her suicidal thoughts had been a struggle since school began, she said, the difference was that others now knew. Her disclosure alarmed Cinder and exposed how difficult it was for Ella to speak about the crisis without triggering renewed fears that she might attempt suicide again.

Later, when her father and Jennifer raised the possibility of a psychiatric hospital stay, Ella insisted that she was not suicidal and did not want to be isolated from the world or fall further behind at school. Dr. Parish agreed that she did not believe Ella would harm herself, while still thinking a temporary, supervised stay could help. Ella’s father ultimately trusted her refusal and said he would not force the hospitalization. The moment did not erase the attempt’s consequences, but it marked a change: her father accepted her account of her current state instead of allowing the past to determine the decision by itself.

Disclosure, Freedom, and Significance

The attempt also became part of the history Ella feared would be turned into public entertainment. When she told Brian Oliver that she could not be with him, she anticipated that reporters might expose her scars and identity, making her accident, her mother’s death, and her past suicide attempt material for the world to consume. Her choice shows how a private crisis could acquire a second burden through anticipated public scrutiny.

During treatment, Ella asked Dr. Parish and her father to end his guardianship when she was ready to leave the clinic. She was an adult, she argued, but someone she regarded as nearly a stranger was making decisions for her; what she needed was people who trusted her. Her father agreed to focus first on her recovery and to help plan for discharge, while asking to remain part of the decision-making process. The attempt therefore has a lasting, double significance: it explains the fear and restrictions placed around Ella, but it also sharpens her insistence that care must make room for trust, support, and her own choices.