My first post.

My story is difficult to tell because it doesn’t ever really stop. I’m a 26 year old female who lives in a southern state in the U.S. I know most people find this hard to believe but I’ve been suicidal since early childhood. When I was two years old, I was trapped in a burning house. I was burned very badly and spent more than two years in a burn ward. I’ve had, up to this point, more than 65 corrective surgeries and I still need more. A few weeks after I was released from the hospital, at age 4, a family member sexually molested me. Two years after that, at age 6, I was molested again by a different person. All of this happened during a period of intense physical trauma, as I was still have surgeries every 6-8 weeks.

During school, I was still having surgeries regularly. I went to school with stitches in my face and bandages on my arms. My growth had been stunted by all the medications and procedures I need to keep me alive, so I was very small and underweight for my age. Despite brain damage I had sustained during the explosion that destroyed my house, I was highly intelligent, artistic, and a good student. I was an obvious target. I was pulled out of school in grade seven after an incident in which four students pulled fifteen stitches out of my face. I was home-schooled and finished the six-year high school curriculum in three years.

I am disabled now. I have severe respiratory problems and limited speech function. I have trauma-based rheumatoid arthritis and several severe sleep disorders. I’m not on any medications and I don’t take painkillers, but I depend on sleep aids in order to get any sleep at all. I’ve currently been awake for the last three days. I have daily pain, but I’m scared of getting on any pain pills for fear of becoming dependent. Despite everything that happened to me, I could get through it because I had my Mom. She has been there every step of the way. She was there for every surgery, every doctor’s visit, every painful test. But she’s gone now.

My Mom died of Pulmonary Hypertension last November. She struggled with her disease for five years. We didn’t even know about it until the last two. I put my surgeries on hold when she got sick five years ago so that the family could focus on her and not me. It was odd to have the roles reversed, that she should be in the hospital and I was helping her through the tests and treatments. Before I knew what her condition was, I always expected she would get better. And when she didn’t, I became numb. I am very lost now without her. I have gone six years without a surgery and I need to have one soon, but I’m terrified of doing alone. It’s painful and invasive and I hate every second of it, but I could deal with it because I had someone there who both understood and loved me enough to brave it with me. And now I don’t.

More to the point, I’m tired of pain. I’m tired of the tests. I’m tired of the looks I get in public. I’m tired of not being able to sleep. I’m tired of the fear. I’m tired of knowing it will never, ever be over.

I’m tired.