The Night Everything Changed
All my life I've looked forward
to a brighter tomorrow,
watching for a day
that would be devoid of all the sorrow.
Alas, I could take it no longer!
At 2:13AM, July 18 of '94,
I sat and watched helplessly
as I walked out my bedroom door.
I went to the kitchen
though not to get a knife
Instead I got the glass of water I'd need
to swallow the pills that would soon take my life.
I walked back up the stairs
and stared at the bathroom door
I took several deep breaths
and I transformed as I'd done a thousand times before.
Again I watched myself
from some corner of my mind
and I let her take over
just this one last time.
I changed my mind
and tried to fight
but it was no use
She had bound me in chains
and I took the abuse.
When Shana was done
taking every pill in the cabinet
She numbly walked me to my bed
where she had always intended me to lay
until I was dead.
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The Medical Aspects....and Other Insights
I know I've not said much about my condition or diagnosies, so I figured that it was high time I did so now. In 1994 is when my injury occured. I have a brain injury stemming from loss of oxegynto the brain. I wasn't born with it so therefore is not CP. I tried to commit suicide on July 18 of '94. I took an overdose of painkillers, muscle relaxers, sleeping pills, and tylenol as well as some cholesterol medicine I think. I basically took everything we had in the medicine cabinet, which was alot because my psrents had always saved pain pills and sleeping pills in case they needed them in the future to save money.....my father is very financially concious. Anyway, this past year's anniversary was the hardest for me. I am actually starting to try to DEAL with what really happened instead of making excuses and playing the what if game. I had been having flashbacks of it fr about a yr and a half in small snatches and on the night of July 18th this year, I was sitting here, on myspace, and typing and I all of a sudden felt my heart drop. I looked up at the clock on my computer and all of a sudden it was the clock in my old bedroom that night in 1994. It said 2:34AM....the whole incident quickly flashed through my mind.....I won't bore you with the details, but anyway when my mother found me laying in bed at about 5 or5:30, I was already turning blue from cyanosis(lack of oxegyn). Turned out I had had an allergic reaction to the Demerol which was one of the many drugs I had taken. By the time I was taken to the hospital and they pumped my stomach, most of the drugs were digested into my system and hadalready did the damage that they were going to do. The doctors told my mother and father that "this girl really wanted to die" because my grandmother said I did it to get attention. (dumb bitch, may she rest in peace) lol. When my parents were taken aside the doctor told them it was a miracle that I survived at all because I had taken enough pills to kill a full grown male elephant. The medics brought in a bag with all the empty pill bottles in it so that they would know how to counteract everything. The only thing was that it was too far along in the digestive tract to help very much. So, I was comatose for 6 weeks, which is actually ironic because I remember saying, "If I could just sleep for about 6 weeks, maybe all this stuff would just go away." I think sometimes God has a sick sense of humor, nevertheless, I realize that this may be part of some cosmic plan. Maybe I went through or am going through all of this so that I will make difference in someone else's life.....I really don't know. I guess all I can do is keep chuggin' ya know? Death isn't an option until I am wanted up there.....that's already been proven to me. I better stop there because if I go any further then you will all say I am nuts......but I will tell you this, people who are in a coma DO know what is going on around them.....they just canot respond to it. It's like being in handcuffs and shackels and not being able to move or speak......held captive in your own body while being poked and prodded and every touch feels like knives slicing your skin little by little. It was physically painful for me as well....... ***sighs***
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A Reflection
Everyone must have an outlet. It can be someone we trust enough to talk to, or it can be something on which we can take out our frustration. We should not let our emotions reach a boiling point. It is essential that we keep this in mind because what is done cannot be undone, and what is said cannot be unsaid.
I had neither someone I trusted, nor something on which I could I could take out my frustration. I only had paper. I read novels to take me away from my hurts, my disappointments, my fears, and my expectations; nevertheless, they were always waiting for me when I returned.I chose my weapon carefully when I realized that I would be going into battle: this would prove to be a battle of emotions. My weapon of choice was nothing more than a black ink pen with the words Paper Mate written on the side of it. When I possessed my weapon, I was the commanding officer in my army of emotions. Nothing could bring me down.
Although I had tried writing novels as well as short stories in the past, I was never diligent enough to finish them. I began writing at an incredibly young age. I was still in my first few years of elementary school when the first poem which I ever wrote was published in the local newspaper, and then went on to win an award.Sometimes when I remember that particular incident,I wonder if perhaps I may have started an unhealthy pattern.
Even before puberty took its wrath out on me, I took pride in the fact that I was more mature than the other children in my age group. I believe that one of the main reasons I matured faster than the others was because the summer after second grade, I began my monthly cycle. At the time I thought it was wonderful, but as the years passed, I began to dread the one week out of every month that I was not me. The week before my dreaded cycle, I was like a land mine, and my sympathies were with the poor soldier who tripped over my wire and set me off. I never was a charmer, but the other three weeks out of the month I was in a decent mood most of the time.That is the side of me that I wanted people to remember.
As a teenager, I never let my classmates, friends, and even my parents see my true emotions. The never the anger, hurt,resentment, or depression that hung over me like a dark cloud. As much as I wanted to open up to others, I didn't trust anyone enough to let one into those dark vulnerable places that even I was scared to go sometimes. In my mind, that would be the equivalent of going into battle without any armor at all. No smart commander would ever let his or her soldier do that. Image was everything at that age, and I couldn't afford to one of a weepy, cry-baby. I had to maintain my image, which was that of perfection.
A common analogy that I have come to use for my image in this period of my life was that of a porcelain doll. Porcelain is extremely beautiful, but very breakable. My parents thought of me in this manner, and though they must have known that I had faults, they did not see them. As we all know a porcelain doll's beauty is not everlasting. Sooner or later, it is broken; consequently, it must be carefully glued together again by caring hands.
The porcelain doll image was broken one lazy summer afternoon in July when I was caught.I could not deny it.I had no way to hide it, and there was no way to turn back time and undo what I did.Father Time would never be that kind. It seemed that my whole life I had played the role of the helpless victim to the horrid sense of humor shared by Father Time and Mother Nature. I played the role of their voodoo doll of sorts.
It was only a few days later that I began writing in my normal absent minded fashion. Before I knew it, I had written five letters. One was to my best friend, another to my boyfriend, one to both of my friends that I walked to school with everydayand yet another that was addressed "To Whom it May Concern". I folded them each in half neatly so that when the time came, if it ever did, everyone would be able to tell which letter was to whom.
For the next week I spent my nights writing, as usual. My writings were not as they usually were, though.Something was different in them. There was an underlying morbidity. It was almost sinister.
There was a flood of emotion inside me. The only one I had ever let see my true emotions was the paper.Never had it lied to me or laughed at me.It would not go behind my back and tell everyone what I had said. When I got hurt, I talked to the paper. When I felt depressed, I talked to paper. When I was angry, I talked to my paper. It had always been my constant.
The paper was the battlefield where my emotions were set free to fight amongst themselves. as long as I controlled the pen, I could do what I wanted with my emotions. I could make them march abou in single file or place messily about the battlefield to fend for themselves. I had to get rid of them, for they were a burden on a commanding officer who had to think of herself first this time.
I unleashed my thoughts and feelings in the form of poetry most of the time. I wrote of feelings of unworthiness; I wrote of how I wanted to die, and of how Death's sweet embrace would be. The freedomI would aquire would be boundless. I told of knocking on Death's door, and how all five of my senses were awakened whhen I was welcomed.
I wrote of his albino-like skin that seemed to hang from his bones along with his long velvet black cape. He had gaunt eyes or holes where the eyes would have been, and sunken cheeks. He seemed to stare at me with his empty eyes in wonderment. Hehad pointed teeth and a thin black mustache, which made for an evil, yet intriguing grin. His nose, which flared when he laughed, was long and thin with a pointed tip. He had thin, parched lips, as if he had been in the desert for a hundred years. His voice, raspy, yet oddly comforting, echoed throughout existence. He smelled of a mixture of clove cigarettes and charred flesh. I wrote of how the fabric of his cape slipped through my fingers as I clung to him for dear life.
His lips longed to meet mine as much as my lips longed to meet his so many times before. I had cheated him, perhaps even teased him too many times in the past. He was not going to let go so easy this time. As I pulled at his hood, a feeling of calmness washed over me, and then our bodies were one.
With his kiss came a serenitywhich I had never felt before. We were in oblivion. I felt pain; it was the kind of pain that I would associate with medieval torture devices. I begged him to make it stop. He could not.
I began to hear voices. They were not coming from oblivion, but rather from a higher place above us.The pain was coming at more frequent intervals, getting more intense with each moment that passed. The more intense the pain became, the more I wished to leave oblivion.
When I would hear the mysterious voices from above, I would try to speak. Death only tightened his grasp on my wrist and smiled his evil smile. It wasn't long before I realized that Death was the master and I was the dog in this particular instance. When I felt the unrelenting pains, I tried to move. He resorted to tying me down.
After six weeks, he tired of this routine. I know this because I am still here. Perhaps he desired a more willing participant who would follow all the way through with it. Maybe he wanted it to be a clean cut, a no doubt about it kind of death. If he did that, he would only have to meet them and escort them to oblivion. It would be less work that way.There would not be all the seduction and hassle with a willing participant. Maybe that was fun for him for a while. Who knows?
The one thingI learned from this experience was that we cannot elude fate. No one can decide when it is his or her time to leave this world. I have come to the conclusion that the only sure things in life are in fact death and taxes. Taxes are predictable; death is not. While taxes visit every year, Death takes his own sweet time.
*Questions/Comments are always welcome and I will answer questions as honestly as possible*
