Two Addictions That Will Never Be Cured.. Maybe

When I was only nine years old I was hit in the face with the fact that my father is a drug addict. He has been one since before I was even born, I just never knew. I did not know how to deal with it whatsoever. Once I had made that discovery, my world came crashing down. I began to cry myself to sleep each night, wondering why this was happening to me, why God put this down on my father, if I actually did deserve this life. I know my father’s drug addiction doesn’t seem like a lot to be so upset about, but until you experience it, you won’t ever know how terrible it is. When you see your own father high out of his mind every day, it hurts. When you see needle marks on your own father from his head to toe, it hurts. When a loose board on your ceiling falls down along with the hidden needles and drugs your father placed there, it hurts. My parents were only married nine years until my mother finally tried to save our family and divorce him. The divorce did not bother me one bit, only the factor of knowing this was one less thing my dad had left in his life before he ended it. Now, this is not my father’s suicide story, it’s mine.

There I was, Jessica Hassell, the helpless nine year old/fourth grader with the fucked up father, the girl everyone thought was crazy because of the cuts on her arms. I was only nine when I began cutting myself. The girl everyone saw as a little angel, a ray of sunshine, a joy to be around.. was now becoming a monster. Something nobody ever wanted to meet. I was majorly depressed. Thoughts of suicide filled my mind each day. I had no friends. I got made fun of. Everyone made me feel as if my life didn’t matter… that people would rather me dead than alive. I had tried to kill myself by cutting myself-didn’t work. Drowning myself-didn’t work. Choking myself-didn’t work. Simply holding my breath too long-didn’t work. I knew that pills would be the only way out that was almost guaranteed to work, but I refused. I had done so many terrible things to myself, and I will do much more terrible things to myself, but I will never take even one too many pills than I should. Illegal drugs have never entered my body and never will. I have never abused medication I have been put on, and I never will. You would think someone like me would do everything in their power to fit in. Not me. That would require smoking weed. Plus, I don’t want to be a plastic person to fit in. The cuts on my wrists started to get worse and worse, and it did turn out that I was cutting multiple times daily. It wasn’t until I was eleven that anybody found out about my cutting problem. My mother never did anything about it, really. Only when she found a note I had written to myself in my notebook about wanting to die, how I was going to kill myself no matter what, and that I knew nobody would care if I was dead. Monday, March 16, 2009 was, and always will be the worst day of my life. I was called out of school early because my mother had came to pick me up. She brought me to the doctor for anti-depressants, and we got much more than we came for. Immediately my doctor called someone, asking if there was any way I could be “directly admitted.” I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it very much. He explained to me that he wanted me to be admitted into the psychiatric ward at the local hospital to get the help I needed. My mother agreed, of course, and I was sent to the emergency room to be interviewed to see if I really needed help. I got in the emergency room around 4:00 that afternoon and didn’t get out until 9:30 that night. Of course I was accepted and I was admitted. I was treated like a lunatic, like I was going to try to kill myself with the littlest thing(like a pen, for example.) But no matter how poorly I was treated while there, it was nice to be around people my age that had the same problems I did. Being there didn’t help me whatsoever and I do not recommend that experience to anybody.. no matter how serious their case. After my discharge my suicidal problems got even worse. My cutting was worse than it had ever been before, and my number of suicide attempts was at an all time high. I am like that to this day, but I know I am strong enough to overcome those problems and become the person I want to be. I can honestly say that I know suicide is not the answer, and I shouldn’t be hurting myself on the outside because I am hurting on the inside. I will get better soon, and once I do, you won’t even recognize me as the same person. I promise.

My father’s addiction may never be cured, but mine will. You’ll see.