I got up, the room spinning around me, my vision blurry, my legs shaky and I somehow made it to my mom’s bedroom door. I knocked on her door, and I heard her yell what in an angry tone. I told her “Mom, the reason I overslept is cause I took some pills last night.”
She flung open that door and yelled What?! I told her again, barely able to raise my head to look her in the eye, from being sick and ashamed at the same time. I never saw it coming, she smacked me so hard I took a step back. Falling to my knees to try to get away, I ended up curling against my bedroom door. My arms covering my face and my legs pulled up to my chest. She put her fist through the opening between my arms and caught me a few times in the face.
She opened my door and proceeded to hit me repeatedly until I was back in my room. Then she slammed the door. This was it, I couldn’t live like this. I crawled over to my bed and reached under the mattress. I pulled out the straight razor that beauticians use. I took the guard off of it and ran the blade across my left wrist. FUCK! It hurt so bad.
I didn’t want to cut again cause it was painful, but I knew I hadn’t cut it deep enough. I started moving my hand back and forth, trying to make it open wider. Mom comes back into my room to yell at me some more and sees my wrist. I looked up at her, my mind in haze. She asked me if I did that. I’m not sure what came over me, I never would have thought I’d utter something so incredibly stupid. But I looked at her and said
“No, bitch, it did it itself”
She hauled off and hit me, knocking me off the bed. I was crying as I climbed back onto the bed. She said “You didn’t even do it right!” So, I handed her the blade and said “You do it”. She hit me again and left the room. A few minutes later she came back and grabbed my hair. Dragging me to the bathroom where my stepdad was flushing the rest of the pills I had taken the night before.
“See? Do you see that?! Can’t get high off it now” She screamed. I looked at her in disbelief. She thought I had done this to get high? I told her I was trying to kill myself, not get high. She just gave me a look of disgust and slapped a bandaid on my wrist and told me to go to bed, she’d deal with me later.
A few hours later, she was waking me up and telling me to get dressed that they were taking me to a doctor cause something was obviously wrong with me. We drove an hour to go to Wright Patterson Air Force Base hospital to see a psychiatrist. I remember being in a daze the entire time. I spoke to the doctor alone, and then again with my mom and stepdad.
He told them that from what he could tell it was teenage anguish and I’d grow out of it. However, they were not completely blameless. I wasn’t allowed to be a “normal” teen. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over to stay the night, or go out and hang with my friends.
My stepdad was an alcoholic Marine from Vietnam. It made it very difficult to have friends around. So the doctor got my parents to agree to start letting me be more of a teenager. Hang out with friends, have friends over, etc. The agreed and life got a little easier. No one ever really knew what had transpired.
My biggest regret about this incident was that my sister gave birth to my gorgeous niece within a few days. I was still so sick from the pills that I couldn’t really hold her or love on her. I tried to make up for it by always being there for her. It was part of how I apologized without flat out saying “Hai-Dai (my nickname for her) I’m so sorry I was such a shitty aunt as soon as you were born.”
For a teen girl, every little thing can be the end of the world. But this one incident told me that things far worse could happen to you and sometimes all you have is yourself, or strangers in an online chatroom to help pull you through it.
I hope you have enjoyed this part of Turning Trauma Into Success-A Memoir. Part Three is next. In that we will discuss something that I ended up facing multiple times. Something No woman should ever have to go through.
Until Next time,
Trista
survivor #mystory #trauma #survivingtrauma #rapesurvivor #domesticviolencesurvivor #lifecoach #success
