for Beth
TW... I wanted to share this since September is Su*cide Prevention Month and also happens to mark 3 years since my entire life changed (ultimately for the better). Thanks for being here.
I’ve dropped out of college twice in the past 3 years. The past 3 years of my life have been a constant stream of starting over. Picking myself up over and over again. Letting others pick me up when I felt like I couldn’t keep going to save my life. I have moved, started new jobs, loved different people, and still I find myself starting over yet again. This time is different, I know it is because it has to be. I know it is.
3 years ago almost to the day, I abruptly left the college I had started only a month before. I told all of the friends I had made there that it was due to health reasons. That’s the only reason I gave, and within a week I had moved back home. To be honest, I don’t remember much of that time and what followed. I was in a state of mourning the life I thought I knew so well, only to realize it was all a lie. Everything I had consciously thought about my childhood, one of my parents, had been a lie. And it was so much darker than I could have imagined. I was horrified at how this could happen to me. How could my mind block out so much? Only to discover, as things continued to unfold, that I hadn’t blocked it out. The signs were all there. I had practically been screaming at myself, for years, to see what was really happening to me. For Christ’s sake, my body had failed me, I was bedridden for a year and for what? For years I had been in a constant state of survival, of self preservation. 3 years ago, I slowly started to come out of it. Very, very slowly. With the help of so many people, and the loss of so many others. I retreated so far into myself- only talking to my family, a few friends, my therapist and my partner at the time. One person in particular stands out. Her name was Beth and I owe so much of who I have become, to her. She saved my life, saved my family. There aren’t words for how much she means to me. So, when she passed away suddenly this past January, I found myself having to start over yet again. This time, without her support. Who are you supposed to turn to when the one person you want to talk to just died? I was a shell of a person, piecing together the lies that had made up my entire life thus far.
Yet, in these lies there were prevailing truths. Yes, I still had a mother who loved me- that was real and always had been and always will be. I have two siblings who I would do anything for, as I know they would for me. I spent the summers of my youth in Vermont and during my days there I would play in the expansive fields and lakes and woods the state had to offer me. Yes, I had been sick and abused beyond comprehension by someone who was supposed to love me unconditionally. But I had also been on vacation with my family every summer, vacations filled with noise and love and laughter. Through all of these years, these truths have kept me going. In the past three years specifically, in this chaos that keeps sucking me back down, that I have not yet escaped entirely, I have sought to create new truths. New stories for myself, ones that I choose, and are not chosen for me.
I don’t know how else to say that throughout my life, there have been numerous times where I wanted to die. Where I thought that taking my own life would be the only way out of my situation. I am so, so thankful I have been shown, it’s not. In any situation, in any dark time, for anyone- it’s not. I thought I would never be able to talk about what happened to me, that it would live forever in my head and eat at me until there was nothing left. But here I am, talking about it. Whether you’re talking about it through writing or with a loved one or a professional, I promise there are people ready to listen. Even if you think you might never be ready to talk about it, know one day you might be ready and even if you never are, you don’t have to be. You can heal from things you don’t talk about, you can survive them. But you should never, ever think that you’re alone. Because as someone who spent the first 17 years of my life thinking that, I have been proven so incredibly wrong. There are good people, support systems waiting to lift you up. People and places and experiences waiting to come into your life, to uphold you. It’s hard to write about this, even now. I hope that by doing so I can help even one person. You are not alone. And it does get better. I am proof, as I write this from my apartment I share with my cats, a space that is mine completely. Everything I have collected in my life is here, my books and my records and my art. Tomorrow I will wake up and shower and make tea. I’ll go to class at a college that I love and I’ll call my girlfriend who I love even more. And tonight I’ll fall asleep safe, playing Preacher’s Daughter in my ears and thinking about all that’s to come, since I have survived all that has passed.
Resources:
RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline
if you have any more resources, please feel free to leave them in the comments or message me privately.
Such a beautifully written article Sarah—it has been wonderful to know you for all these years and I am so proud of you always <3
Incredibly brave and admirable post. You are so strong. Thank you for sharing, it makes a difference.