Lifes Lessons
04/06/2008 01:49 a.m.
I can remember when I was little and all I�d ever think about was how much I wanted to grow up. I wanted to date young, get out of the house young, I started to party young, and I started to regret it young. I spent every day wishing I was old enough to stay out all night, wishing I could get into the bars and parties, and wanting nothing more than to just be able to make my own decisions. However, you learn something the day all those things come to pass. They mean nothing. Staying out as late as you want isn�t as glamourous when you realize there�s nothing to do in a small town. Bars and parties, oh please. I think I�ll just sit in a chamber filled with second hand smoke, stab myself in the liver, and throw my wallet out the window. The only plus side of the bars, is the social scene. So here I am, eleven days from my twenty second birthday, and I�ve been making my own decisions and living on my own since I was seventeen. When I left home I was pissed off at my parents, but happy to have my freedom. That was, until I realized that I wasn�t ready for it. I�ve spent the majority of my life for the past five years, living with others, trying to find a place where I was comfortable just being alone, spending time by myself, and where I didn�t need other people to validate my existence. I finally had the chance to make my own decisions, and time after time, I screwed them up. I had good intentions. I took a year off after high school, went back to college to get a teaching degree, was engaged to a guy I thought I knew..and then somewhere along the way I made another wrong choice. I quit college before I ever finished my first semester. I couldn�t deal with the pressure, the school work, the hours drive to and from school every day. I just wasn�t motivated, and I didn�t have the patience to teach kids, which was a huge blow to my life because it was the only thing I�d ever wanted to do. My engagement was to a guy who started off as my best friend, and ended as something more. The few years we spent together just became nothing but a downward spiral. There was constant screaming and fighting, we�d throw things at each other, I�d threaten suicide and he�d bring me a knife and tell me to go ahead and do it. After a while things got too physical for comfort, so I left and tried not to look back. I will admit that he was a hard habit to break and it has taken me a long time to realize that I�m worth more than the shit he put me through. I must admit he�s great at what he does, beats you down and builds you up so you think he�s the best thing there ever was. He makes it so you can�t leave him, and tells you how no one else will want you if you do. In hindsight, after the first six months when the shit started I should have left, but with him we all learned the hard way. (didn�t we?) For a long time after I left we�d have little talks back and fourth and to this day once in a great while he�ll shoot me a message. I keep my life as much away from him as possible these days. He�s on to his next victim, and she too will have to learn the hard way. So many things have happened in the past five years, and I just can�t help but wonder how different things might have been if I�d stayed at home with my parents, or If I�d gotten through college and found a great paying job. My life would be completely different, wouldn�t it? I wouldn�t be here at this juncture in life, and that would be devestating to me...of course I would never know of these events because they never would have taken place. All I know is that over the past five years I�ve had to learn lesson after lesson without any help. It�s like being thrown in the deepest end of the pool, with no help and not knowing how to swim. Either you choke and die, or you tread water the best you can. I may only be twenty two, but I�ve lived a lifetime more than most of you ever will, and half of you would believe. If you�ve read my blogs before I�m sure you know what I�m referring to. If curiousity hits you, let me know and I�ll elaborate...but for now, thats not the point. The point is that lifes little lessons were the hardest things I�ve ever had to learn. Most days I could have only hoped there would be someone there to hold my hand and lead me to the light on my darkest days, but never was I so lucky. Well, in a way I was because after years of cutting and daydreaming of nothing but suicide I�m still here today. I can�t lie and say I never tried to kill myself. Most people don�t know that side of things. Most of you just assumed I was a cutter. There are a few of you who knew, but not many. For instance, when I was almost ninteen years old I locked myself in the bathroom, took a bath, and downed an entire bottle of anti-depressants. I�m not talking about the last three in the bottle either. The guy I was with at the time broke down the bathroom door to get in and saw the bottle next to me, and rather than help me do you know what he did? He took another bottle out of the cabinent, threw the pills into the tub with me and said "Go ahead and do it." So, as disgusting as it sounds, I reached down into the bathwater, grabbed another handful of yet another anti depressant, and took them as well. At this point you may have realized that I had about four different types of pills in that cabinent, including Welbutrin, Lexapro, Effexor, and Zoloft. He sat there screaming at me, telling me how stupid I was and degrading me, all the meanwhile I just sat there in pill filled water staring off into space. Finally, after a long stint of screaming he goes and grabs my cell phone, drags me out of the tub and calls my mother. I can�t remember how late it was, but she answered and he said "Your daughter is trying to kill herself." I�m not sure if she remembers that, but I took the phone away from him and I was crying. I told my mom I wasn�t doing anything, that he was just being stupid. I remember her asking if I was okay, and if she needed to come get me. I told her no, and that I would be fine. She always did tell me she knew when things were wrong between him and I. She can read me like a book, and that�s no lie. I�ve always been very close to her, so for him to call her was a slap in the face to me. I didn�t want him upsetting her, regardless of our circumstances. I got up, and I got dressed..I walked into the living room, grabbed the keys to my buick and tried to leave. He came and told me I wasn�t allowed to drive, but I was so dizzy and light headed. The room was spinning, and I had tunnel vision so bad I thought I was going to go blind. I told him, but he didn�t care. He forced me to lie down on the living room floor, and stay awake until I started to feel better. Yes, thats right after I took as many pills as I could take, the guy who was always supposed to be there for me, lay me down on my back, and just left me there to �sober up.� Looking back now, I�m surprised I didn�t die that night. I probably should have. There were other times where I took a handful of pills, but probably never enough to do anything. I cut myself to make sure I could still feel the physical pain because emotionally I had been numb for so long. After my mom found out I was a cutter, she and my stepdad paid for me to see a therapist. if I remember right it was my decision to go, I just didn�t want her to be disappointed in me. Over the years I saw therapist after therapist, I was on pill after pill, and nothing worked. At one point I was on 3 anti depressants a day, and they had to try out 2 seperate tranqs on me because the anti depressants were such uppers I�d go three days without sleep. It got to the point where my hospital assigned me a medical manager to make sure I didn�t mix a lethal dose of drugs. Finally, just before my 20th birthday, I decided that I didn�t want to take pills anymore. It�s a dangerous thing to do, trying to fix yourself, but I�ve always been a pretty stubborn girl and that was my decision. I stopped going to my medical managers, I just set the pills in the cupboard and I just struggled. I struggled to get myself up in the mornings, I would sleep until 2 pm, get up go to the couch, lie down and fall asleep watching t.v. I had no motivations, no self respect, no will power. I struggled to eat, I struggled to stay awake, I struggled to find out who I was with life after pills. I never could tell for the longest time what was better, living life emotionally numb on pills, or living life emotionally numb without them. I mean, is there really much of a difference? Either way I felt inhuman. Sure there were a few nights where I had fun going out with friends, but the second I got home I got the loneliest feeling in the pit of my heart. Even when I wasn�t alone, I had never felt more lonely. I isolated myself from everyone who wanted to help me. The only time I went out was to go get drunk, and a few nights I just sat home and drank alone. I tried to self solve my depression, and I realized that sitting around in the dark, crying over what could have been, what should have been, and whats to come was never going to get me anywhere. I took some initiative and I started to travel. I went to Kansas, then Oklahoma, I made new friends and started to get my footing, then one day on a whim, I lost balance and just let it all fall down around me. I ended up pregnant and back home in Iowa to raise a baby alone, but at 9 weeks I lost it just as I�d lost my previous 2. My depression was worsening and I was fearing for my future.. I really had no idea what to do. I started to spend more time with my mom, I�d go to her house and just hang out, see my brother, talk to her a bit. It wasn�t an every day thing, but just being around her made me feel less worthless, less miserable, less like my existance didn�t mean anything. She always told me I was her only little girl, and for the life of me I can�t remember how many hard times that got me through. So back to the point, five years have passed. I�ve battled an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, I�ve battled cutting, depression, suicide attempts, lost friendships, betrayals, The loss of children, The death of friends...I�ve battled losing myself, then finding myself, and repeating the pattern. Through everything, through the darkest moments, and the brightest days theres always been someone, somewhere guiding me through everything. I�m still here, and I�m still standing. I don�t know how or why. I don�t know what my purpose is, but I still have the chance to find out. It�s been two or three years since the last time I cut was, though there have been times where I�ve wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest object and tear open my flesh again. It takes a lot to able to rationalize with yourself in a suicidal moment. My heart goes out to those who can�t, and to those who can I say we�re blessed. The willpower I never had to do anything else in life, suddenly seems like it was the only thing that actually kept me alive. Lifes litte lessons are never an easy thing to learn, regardless of circumstance. Some of us are lucky enough to still be breathing, and others will never get the chance. Now, I�m not asking anyone to sit here and feel sorry for me, because it will get us no where. I�ve lived my life to the best of my ability thus far, and I will continue to do the same every day. I just thought I�d share with you, that in my 22 years of living, I�ve come to realize that the biggest lesson life has to offer, is that if you don�t speak up, you�re going to fade into the background and be forgotten. Now, I may only be remembered when I die as that girl on myspace who blogged too much, but isn�t that better than not being remembered at all?

So I will continue onward with my lifes journey, as happy as I can make myself and still pill free to this day. I am due to have a child of my own in October, and I�m going to make sure that they have, just as I did, the words of their mother echoing in their head, every step of the way...because who knows, that might be the one thing that saves them someday. Regardless of the hard times I�ve shared with my mother, I know she�ll always be there when I need her, even if her situation [*or husband*] doesn�t exactly approve of it. We share a bond in our hearts that even death won�t be able to shake. So for standing back and letting me learn all of lifes little lessons on my own, with as cruel as I thought you were being at the time mom, Thanks.


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And to everyone whose ever helped me see the light when I once again lost my way, I thank you as well.
I am currently Calm