Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Essay #2

The Pain Within RED The color of blood Seeps through my fingers Like paint that glides Furiously over paper As I watch the knife fall to the floor. The tears stream down my face like a river's constant flow that seems to never end. The pain inside of me becomes so unbearable that I feel like dying and ending it all. I'm not scared of death because it is a place I long to be. My feelings overwhelm me. The chaos of all my problems escalate to a point that I can no longer cope with them. I am alone and I can not connect with anyone. I have a hard time letting people in due to my lack of trust for them. Everyone that I know does not understand how I feel or comprehend what is happening to me. They don't care. I don't care. Life is so difficult! The emotional pangs of my parents statements thrown at me such as "I love you but I do not like you. I do not know why anyone else would like you," hurts so much. The shame I feel about the molestation infests every inch of my body making me worthless and lost. The issue of control resonates in my thoughts every time I am not allowed to do anything. My parents do not hear me and the communication within this household seems to have come to a screeching halt. My freedom is gone as I am a prisoner in my own home! All of these thoughts rushing through my head reopens my wounds as hopelessness sets in and creates a destructive path in which I am embarking on. I reach over for the knife and contemplate suicide as I think about the impact my suicide will have on everyone including myself. In Dave Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius the subject of suicide arises when a character named John decides he is going to attempt to kill himself. In front of a police officer John makes his dramatic attempt, "There's a lunge and John grabs the pills on the table and swallows all of them." Although the reader can perceive this action as a sign of needing or wanting attention not all suicide attempts are for this reason. At times the attention reason is all that I hear people focus on but I think that there is so much more involved than attention. I can only discuss my own suicide attempts which there were three and what it was that I was going through at the time. Deep down an emotional chaos can exist and being able to deal with that chaos can be difficult even when seeing a therapist. By the time I got to a therapist I was so guarded of my feelings due to everything that I had gone through. Trust was not easy for me and it took me a year and a half to really begin talking with my therapist. I had to deal with an alcoholic father and a co-dependant mother that were emotionally abusive and eventually my dad sexually abused me too. The sexual abuse happened only once but it has had a lasting impact on my life. The abuse from both of my parents were different but each had a profound affect on my life and each contributed to my wanting to kill myself. I endured a lot of verbal negativity from both of my parents which in turn made me feel like I was the worst human being on earth. Each hurtful word was another blow that would accumulate inside of me creating the pain I felt. As the pain gradually worsened I began feeling hopeless. It was as I call it a continuing spiral downwards into the depths of extreme emotional pain that not everyone can understand or feel. The hopelessness would agitate any emotional distress I was feeling. I felt like I was lost within a murky swamp not being able to find my way out. It was this feeling of not being able to find my way out that ultimately led me down the path in attempting suicide. In A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius after a conversation with Meredith about John's wanting to kill himself Dave says about John, "He's just looking for attention." This is a common attitude and in some cases it may be true. The kind of attitude that Dave has towards John was what enabled the downward spiral that I discussed earlier to not only continue but it aided in my wanting to go through with a suicide attempt. The reason was because the attention reasoning only added to the downward spiral. I already felt miserable and this made me feel more miserable. I had the attitude of no one really cares about me and the attention statement in my mind proved my reasoning about no one caring about me. In attempting suicide I really did want to die. I was not trying to kill myself for attention. I was not acting or pretending that my lack of emotional stability existed or did not exist. The emotional turmoil really did dwell within me. I could actually physically feel the pain in my chest. I was trying to find a solution for my problems that would not go away. After several years of living with my parents, I moved out at the age of seventeen. By the time I was nineteen I had been going to therapy for five years in order to deal with all of the issues that had been living inside of me. The issues were my demons. I dealt with them and let them go. I realize now that my suicidal tendencies were directly correlated with how my parents treated me. All feelings of suicide no longer exist and in looking back those feelings died soon after moving out of my parents home. Yet I have dealt with losing two people to suicide. One was my cousin Berry and another was one of my dearest friends Jon who in my last suicide attempt saved my life. I know what it is like to be on both sides now. I only wish that I could have saved Jon's life like he had saved mine. The knife's sharp blade begins to touch my soft olive skin. I can not control the tears from falling off of my face as I feel that life is not worth living. No one will miss me and no one will care. The world is better without me. My parents will not even remember me when I'm gone. I'm not needed here at all so why should I be here - living. Soon after the blade touches my skin I hear a meow. It's Malachite my cat. She jumps into my lap and startles me. She begins to lick all of my tears that have covered my face and I cry even harder. I cry because I realize that someone does care. She loves me unconditionally like no one else does and I can't leave her here. She depends on me and I depend on her for the love that is not being filled by anyone. Malachite touches my heart so deeply that I place the knife next to me on the floor and fall into a deep sleep with my cat purring next to me. Posted by Adriana Worley on 5/18/04; 12:51:26 PM from the dept. Discuss