I don't think you properly understand how much I want to die.
I was so little. I'm not even sure it is a true memory. I remember it always being dark, and now I realize it's because that's when my mom would get drunk. I remember cowering in dark corners and crying for her to stop, but it quickly became clear that she wouldn't or couldn't so I prayed to God to make my pain stop. Sunday School had taught me that He loved me and didn't want me to be in pain. I thought maybe He could just take me to heaven where I'd never hurt any more.
I don't think you could truly and fully understand how much I want to die.
School was always hard for me socially. No one could really get to know me because no one could really know what was going on at home. I was already an outsider because my mom was an immigrant. I was a liar because my mom was an abusive alcoholic. I remember the phone call that broke me. My friends were tired of my lies and suddenly I had no friends. That's when I put on a lot of weight. That's when I stayed in my room a lot and cried more than I ever had in any other period of my life. In a couple of years, I was sitting in my kitchen and staring at a knife I got from the drawer and trying to work up the courage to make it all stop.
I don't think you can see how much I want to die.
I made deals with God that I could be gay (I thought I was straight at the time) if it meant I was happy. While I hadn't internalized my mom's homophobia growing up I knew the societal implications all the same. I made another deal that if I didn't get to go away to college I would walk out into the ocean until I drowned. I read that in a book in high school. I also hid a bottle of asprin in my room. The deal was that if the pain stuck around too long, I was allowed to take them and He'd just have to understand. No one had the slightest clue, least of all my mom. I was bubbly, smart, and capable.
I don't think you can truly believe how much I want to die.
College wasn't much better. Though there was physical distance my trauma was always a phone call away. Summer and winter breaks at home were torture, even though it had been a few years since my mom had put hands on me. I lived in fear of her wrath returning despite the deal she made in front of my brother and I, her pastor, and God that she'd never lay a hand on us again. I started partying in sophomore year of college. I would always turn in early when my social energy was all out from maintaining my bubbly, smart, and capable persona. I'd curl up in my bed alone and cry myself to sleep. Even physically removed from my trauma, it was still hurting me and I became despondent. I thought it would never end unless I could get up the courage to end it. I tried overriding my protective mechanisms by driving drunk a couple of times, hoping to be truly reckless and do something that would take me and only me out. I was so ashamed, so it only happened a couple of times, but... nothing happened.
I don't think you can understand how much I want to die and fight it every day.
It got the worst its ever been a couple of years ago. My muscles tensed and got ready to pull my vehicle into oncoming traffic or off of the bridge but years of therapy and perhaps the new meds I was on helped to override this overwhelming feeling and forced me to drive to my husband's workplace. I thought I was going to the hospital. We got me help without all of that. Since then it's been sharp, oddly-timed, intrusive thoughts like suddenly being very hungry except wanting to die. I've had to hand over my keys, hand over medications, be aware of my sharps, and have people watch me.
I don't think you can properly understand how much I want to die because I didn't really properly understand it myself.
I failed to see some of my thoughts and behaviors as red flags. I pushed down a lot of memories and pretended I never thought that way or did those things. Now I'm ready to let my inner demons out and embrace them until they can be coaxed into peace, then I have a few moments of peace.
I want to die, but I want to live. I want the pain to stop, but I want the joy I'd be missing out on. Every hug and kiss, every child who adores me, every bit of growth I see in the people I love including my mother have made my efforts to stick around worth it.
But I still want to die nearly every day. No matter how I look or what else I might say, this will probably always be true but it is also true that I don't plan on dying any time soon. Maybe I'm working with a new set of deals with a god I no longer believe in. Maybe the deal hasn't been broken yet. I pray they never will be.
I don't think you properly understand how much I want to die, but I'm slowly figuring out how to put it to words.
