To those who think they are alone in pain.

To all of you who have experienced heart ache, disappointment, abuse in multiple forms, and raised in drug centered families. I know you. Not personally, but emotionally. I was suicidal since I was  a toddler, but at that point my actions weren’t consider to be that of a depressed child. Doctors said I was just a frustrated child with pent up energy because i wanted to hurt everyone, including myself. I was too young to realize what it is i felt and why.

Growing up my dad wasn’t there, mom said he was a work-aholic, while he says she was a drug addict. Both were true. I only had the ‘privilege’ of seeing my dad every so many months, because his job caused him to drive cross country, this caused lots of distress for my tiny self. Then my mom would constantly cry, scream, drink alcohol, do drugs, or just disappear. I, as a child thought this was normal behavior. I believed it was normal that whenever dad came home mom would scream at him and that it was ok for him to slap her around. The only person i saw as comfort was my baby sitter, who eventually attempted to molest me (but innocent, child of me didn’t understand this entirely). So life continued in this pattern from age 3 to 5.

Then the divorce came and i was shipped to my grandmothers, where my grandmother sent my mother to jail and had my brother and I be silent witness to my mothers aggressive arrest scenarios. After the jail time, mom got us back, but she also got back the drugs, alcohol, and erratic behavior attached to her. From age 5 to 7 i continued to lay witness to my moms irresponsible and self-destructive behavior, which resulted in my childhood insomnia and ‘strange’ behavior of wandering the house at odd hours of the night and composing suicide notes on the apartment walls. I always had ‘runaway back pack’ ready at all times, with $300 stashed, in case it got too messy being with my mom. I left many times, but came back because of fear of being raped or murdered.

From age 7 to 12 my mom fell in love with a man, and my father gave up on trying to make a connection with his children. My mother and this man constantly fought, both were on drugs. My mom was on meth at the time and was developing what we later found out was schizophrenia. Her ‘man’ was always high and an alcoholic. So my brother raised me with slaps and put downs. My mother attempted to raise me by chasing me with belts, electrical cords, plates, and whatever she saw as punishment devices. We were also extremely poor, constantly being evicted and moving to projects after projects.

At age 12 my life changed. My mom went insane and would constantly stalk the house with a riffle in her hand, if i let my room at night she would point it at me till i was out of sight. I was left of the burden of making sure that riffle was never loaded, and this deed was to be done during the time she finally crashed after her meth usage. My room had barred windows that i couldn’t escape, and the rest of the house was barred by a psychotic mother that a mental institute nor a drug rehabilitation center would not accept. That was when i began to cut and write suicide letters all day while sitting by my bed and scraping my thoughts into the frame. Her and i would fight, she would beat me, and i would scream at her calling her psycho woman, etc… Basically i was a child left alone in a home with a drug addict mother who was constantly tripping out.

Then she gave me away to my horrid controlling aunt. That woman controlled what the children in her house wore, said, how they moved, where they sat, the whole 9-yards. I was 13 by then and my arms were full of cutting scars that i hid from the world. Completely ignored and falling into oblivion, my tween self set out on one last escapade into a happy life, thats when i found it: love. I fell utterly in love with a man i never met before. He was a year older, and i met him online. In my mind i believed we saved each other, he was depressed and i was dieing. After i fell in love things seemed brighter, full of chances and hopes that things could change and be for the better.

This blur of life continued for the next 4 years. That was when i realized that i built up my confidence, while he depended on me for his. I destroyed my relationships with my psycho mother, never present father, and d-bag of a brother for a boy that depended on me for his confidence and self esteem. It did not seem significant but made me feel more entirely bound to him. Till the day he broke my heart. I knew no one, because previously i didn’t try to. I realized i moved across the country in hopes of bringing myself closer to a man who was soon to leave me all alone. I had no one and nothing except two boxes of belongings. I realized that i had been living alone in texas for a year with a father that showed up once in awhile to make sure i had food.

My cutting got worse, because what did i have to live for? I had no dreams or goals whatsoever. I had a shitty family that abandoned me multiple times while the times they had me i was abused and neglected. What was there to live for when that person i made the center of my world disappeared like if i meant nothing to him like everyone else? So i drank all my father’s pain medication. I wanted to die. I woke up two days later face down in my kitchen, vomiting with sharp pains throughout my body. Totally disappointed because i lived. I was alive to live the nightmare of the present.  My insomnia returned, and when i did catch sleep i would have night terrors of my mother. My last struggle for life was gone. But when i woke up that day and discovered i wasn’t dead, I changed.

I realized that i did have something to live for, and that was to deal with my problems instead of cower like the ***** THEY wanted me to be. I ran for years and now I’m finally standing up for myself. My reason to live is no longer for others, even though i do still hope for that boy sometimes who broke my vulnerable heart, but my reason is greater than that. I am to fulfill who I am. If you have no cause to live, make one up. Life is unexpected and even when you try to die, it may not work, and things could become worse due to the suicide attempt. Never stop trying because our own destinies are possibly hidden from sight in distant lands or awaiting our rescue within ourselves.