The biggest word: “if”

Suicide. I suppose it’s something I’ve battled with since I was about 12 years old. I was separated from both of my parents after both of them went to prison. I had a very difficult time coping with the break-up of my family. I went into my grandmothers medicine cabinet after she went to sleep and took 12 tylenol p.m. I thought to my self, I’ll be just like Elvis or Marilyn Monroe I just wont wake up tomorrow. I awoke and was surprised to still be alive.
The next time I attempted suicide I was 21 and lost a close friend. I was in very much love with him. But because of my “obligation” to marry the first person I lost my virginity to I pushed my love far away from me. I wanted to prevent the person I was in the process of leaving from hurting him. I said some very mean and hurtful things : ” if you touch me again i’m going to stab you in the eye with my heel!” The next time I saw him was three months later three days before his death. The next day after seeing him, i had a feeling to go and talk to him. I drove by his house quite a few times that full moonlit evening trying to give myself reasons not to talk to him. That Sunday (Easter 2006) I received an email, from my ex of all persons, telling me of his death in a car accident.
The regret of not telling him my feelings ate at my soul. I cried for hours upon hours I didn’t sleep for 3 days. When his family and friends buried him I couldn’t speak. I didn’t sleep when I returned back to my residence. I felt as if no one understood me. I drank quite a bit at a local bar. I drank a few shots of whiskey, 151, and a six pack of Smirnoffs. I drunkenly decided to drive to Wal-Mart and buy a bottle of Tylenol-Pm. I called a friend and was told “just get over it, you can be strong, you have to be strong.” I purchased the bottle and went to my lost love’s apartment and downed as many pills as I could hold. A friend who had spoken with me at the bar was at his apartment and called a few other friends. I fought them and hit one of them in the face and tried to kick him down the steps. The police came and as I heard the sirens I jumped from the second story to the ground floor and jumped into the pool. When the police arrived I lied about my name and said I was fine. My friend whom I kicked put me in their car and took me home to bed. It was my dear friend that called the police that went into my car and saw the opened pill bottle, receipt of recent purchase and a card addressed to my lost loves’ mother. She immediately called an ambulance and i was taken to the hospital with a heart rate of 15 bpm. I lost all bodily functions and was paralyzed from the waist down when I awoke. I looked upon the world with seemingly new eyes. I had survived. All I could think about was walking and getting the hell out of there. I lied to the shrinks and told them I just was trying to sleep (bullshit*cough *cough). But they set me free.
Now at 25 I am battling with death yet again. My current boyfriend who has bruised me by throwing wrenches at me, attempted to stab me, broke my nose, and mentally abused me has jumped bond on his domestic violence hearing. He is now doing heroin and is continuously (as he always has) accused me of cheating and numerous other insults. He keeps threatening everyone in my life, hacking into my email and my friends phone, harassing my family, threatening to end my life and threatening to hang himself or overdose constantly. He blames me for his suicidal tendencies and his abuse towards me. I feel such utter gut wrenching pain from this. I can’t sleep. I awake many times during the night, I cry in my sleep, I don’t eat regularly and it is VERY hard not to go out and get plastered. I fear for his life. I fear for my own. It is so hard to maintain strength and put one foot in front of the other. I keep hoping things will change, that the light will come. I feel like it may be a smart option to check myself into a hospital. In addition call my boyfriend from the medical center and request he do the same. I just pray he would do it before it is too late for myself… or him.