Today I want to talk about something difficult. Something that very few people know about me. Something I've kept silent on for a long time for fear that my weakness would be exposed and that I may be looked at or treated differently.
I'm sharing this with you today because I need to. I need you to know you aren't alone. As alone as I felt. I need you to know that there is hope. That you matter.
Many years ago, I was lost. Constantly surrounded by people, but always alone. There was a darkness in me that I couldn't hide from and trust me I tried. I spent everyday drinking and smoking this darkness away. Trying to mask it's devastating affects with the help of little blue pills.
One day it almost won. One day I had decided I had had enough. My best friend was dating the person I was in love with. I had dated him for two and a half years before he broke up with me to date not only her, but my other best friend as well.
He was dangling our "love" on a string trailing it behind him for six months after he ended it. Seeing them but seeing me too.
I was young I know. Naive and stupid. Not really sure what real love is. But I felt something so strong for him that it made me blind to what was happening.
Everyday I went to school I was high.
I couldn't sit still in class from the uppers I was taking. If it weren't for the colored contacts I wore I'll bet my teachers would have caught on. My pupils took over my eyes. The artificial coloring helped mask the craziness that anyone would see if they had actually been looking.
It was a cold day in January. A fight between me and this man pushed me past anything I could've ever imagined I'd feel. I sat in my bedroom. Music blaring, tears flowing.
So I tried.
I couldn't tell you how many pills I took. Or how long the belt was tied around my throat. I can't remember how long I laid there before I came to. I can't describe the hopelessness I felt. I was a failure at love. A failure to myself. And now a failure at finding a release.
I was more lost than ever. How would I ever explain to my mother where the marks on my neck came from?
She never even noticed.
I spent the next couple of weeks letting loose. I went wild. Nothing left to lose I no longer cared about anything.
Two weeks after my failed attempt I got so wasted I lost an entire weekend. To this day the stories people tell me still don't register in my memory. I don't remember anything past the alcohol, past snorting the klonopins, past making it to my house with a handful of friends.
I woke up two days later to my mother standing over me. Telling me I wasn't going to spend another day in bed. Then she was gone.
Two days later my life changed.
Two days later I found out I was pregnant.
Fear isn't even the word I would use to describe how I felt. The guilt for everything that I had done washed over me in an instant. What had I done?
It was in that moment where my failed attempt at release started to make sense. It was my first step in my journey towards God.
To say I was fully reformed would be a lie. While my battle with drugs and alcohol was over in that instant, I was still at war with this feeling of hopelessness and despair. Probably more so without their numbing release.
My son helped me through the thick of it, and I had a temporary bandaid-like fix because my pregnancy brought me and his father back together. Which at the time, I thought was the only reason I was feeling the way that I was. Looking back, however, it's clear to me I was in a volatile relationship. We brought out the worst in each other. I had no filter when I saw red and everyone knew it. He was a master at getting me to that point.
Two years five months after my failed attempt I found myself at yet another low point. After enduring so much negativity in my life. Everyday we fought. Everyday I heard that I was a terrible person and a terrible mother. He was still chasing my best friend. I sat back and watched. Believing that this was all that was meant for me. Believing that I indeed deserved the treatment he gave me. Believing I wasn't a good mother.
It was June. My son wasn't quite two. His dad told me he was going fishing with our friends. That I wasn't allowed to go even though all of my friends were going as well. A fight ensued to the point where the police were called.
He went fishing, I called his brother to see if he could take our son. Which he gladly did. I was devasted. Swirling in the darkness once more. Lost. Alone.
I sat staring at a cup of bleach. Bawling. I wrote out a long letter to my son. Begging him for forgiveness. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I probably still have this note somewhere.
I gathered every bit of courage I had and raised the glass to my lips.
" Please forgive me."
There was a knock on my door.
It was my mom coming to see if I was ok. I told her I was, but I just needed to be alone and I sent her on her way. It took me nearly thirty minutes to gather up the courage to bring that cup to my lips again.
"I love you Damian."
There's another knock at the door. My son and his uncle.
I dumped the glass and put it away and opened the door.
I found God that day.
While many would brush this off to coincidence, I can't. I can't believe that a coincidence would knock on my door at the precise moment I'm ready to succumb to the darkness. Not just once but twice.
I can't believe a coincidence would allow me to just wake up that moment two and half years ago and walk away with only a few marks on my neck and a massive headache.
My life didn't change overnight, but my heart did. I stayed with him for a couple more years. Trying to make it work for our son. Believing it could. It couldn't.
Now looking back I see that every rough spot I went through, I went through for a reason. I had to believe my life was worth something. Even if I couldn't measure it in my own mind. God wanted me here.
If I would have succeeded at least two lives would have been forever changed. Four lives wouldn't have even came into existence. I wouldn't have been able to share this with you.
I would like to believe that my life has touched many others in the eight years since. That I have made a profound difference to at least one other person. I believe with one hundred percent of my being that God put me here because I am needed.
You are too. You may not be able to see it right now. You may be lost and scared like I was. You aren't alone, I promise. You matter to more people than you realize and you owe it to yourself to reach out to them. Some choices can't be unmade, but they can always be worked through together.
If you're having trouble talking to someone you know, the suicide prevention hotline is available 24/7.
1-800-273-8255
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