This Is The Vague Story of a Suicide That Didn’t Happen

You wouldn’t think it to talk to me, look at me, even live with me, but I’ve had a rough month.

See, I decided to stop lying about things. I thought it would be a great thing, telling the truth, but…can you imagine?

Before lying: 

“Wow, what great hair!” I would say to the be-mulleted lady at the airline ticket counter, hoping she’ll seat me somewhere nice.

After lying:

*silence*

*blink*

*horrified stare*

It gets worse than that, though. So, so much worse. I decided to not only stop lying to other people (and hey, sometimes I slip up, and then I have to put on my hairshirt and repent), but to myself. I decided to stop lying that I had a non-shitty childhood, that I didn’t thrive because I was abused and neglected to a crazy degree. I’d tell you the details, but…I’d be lying in saying that I’m comfortable telling you the details. I’m not. Maybe one day.

I can tell you a few things, though. I was almost constantly harassed. I wasn’t ever taken care of. Teeth fell out of my mouth, rotted, because I couldn’t go to the dentist. Things were…dire. Hopeless. Like, 50 Shades of Grey up for a Pulitzer type hopeless. Google Plus becoming popular type hopeless. Kim Kardashian being classy type hopeless.

But why I am I oversharing this? Because a few weeks ago I told the truth about how bad my childhood was to some of the people involved. It didn’t go well. I didn’t expect it to go well, but it really didn’t go well.

And then I had all these feelings. Don’t you hate feelings? Me too. I had feelings I’d never had before. I cried all the time. All day long. In the bathtub. While eating cereal. While cooking dinner. While reading 50 Shades of Grey. 

And I thought, “This is good. I’m getting it all out.” Except it wasn’t good. It was too much. My brain overloaded. I had more fights with some of those people. They denied things. It made me feel sick and sad and alone. Then I found out a very nice, healthy father of two I know was dying of cancer, and I thought, “That should be me.”

That’s a normal thought, right?

Right.

I wanted very, very much to die. And that’s why I’m telling you this. I wanted to die, and I didn’t die. I had a plan. I had a detailed time and date and method and location. I researched things.

I told you it was dire.

And here is what saved me: telling. I told Gregg. I didn’t really want to, but I also didn’t want him to think any of it was his fault. I wanted to let him know that I was simply a waste of space as a human being, and it had absolutely nothing to do with him or the boys, and there was nothing he could do.

Of course he talked and talked and talked to me. Hours and days. He’s still talking, because I am still there sometimes.

Then I cried some more. I upped my meds. I went to therapy. I cried even more. I wrote a scathing letter to the people who abused and neglected me. Then I deleted it, because I’d already told them and it hadn’t mattered. (Well, it hadn’t mattered to them. It mattered to me.)

And then I prayed, and I meditated, and I ate all of the food I could get my hands on. Honestly, I’m still eating it. I’m gaining quite a lot of weight. I’m cool with that. I’m reading a lot of self-help. I’m not doing nearly as many self-destructive things. I’m looking at photos of my kids, and taking lots of walks, and being gentle with myself, and telling you. I’m not there any longer. And I’m telling you because if you’re ever in the place I was, tell someone. Anyone. The lady at the airport with the mullet, even. Don’t lie about it. I’m telling you because maybe there’s a chance all of this happened so one of you could read it and know that whatever you’re telling yourself: it’s a lie. Don’t. It’s a lie.

So I won’t lie to you about this, either: sometimes being the survivor of childhood abuse and neglect is a miserable, terrible existence, but sometimes it is the most amazing, amazing thing to be here. Sometimes I just have to hold on to the little moments of amazement, to be here, to be present, to be alive and seeing and hearing it all.