TEENAGE SUICIDE
I remember very few times feeling happy as a child. I'm sure the times I spent away from home while visiting my maternal Grandmother was a happy time, but those times were just brief spurts during what seemed like a very long childhood.
It was tough growing up in a household where each day brought fear that when your father walked through the door, you might receive painful punishment for some minor infraction. I was far from a perfect child, and neither were my brothers, but we did not deserve the treatment we received when my father was angry. Upon reflection, I'm confident that we were punished not for our bad behavior but because of the demons in his heart.
Compounding a potentially volatile experience with my father was my mother's lack of empathy. She never expressed any kind of regret for the beatings and remained, as always, cold and undemonstrative. Her primary mode of communication was constantly complaining about my father, his lack of intelligence, and his bullying behavior toward her. It was always about her. I thought she might love me if I listened to her long enough or expressed enough sympathy toward her plight, but again, it was always about her.
I coped by escaping into the world of words. I read books far beyond my age level, which meant they were complicated enough to completely distract me from whatever was occurring in the house. I fantasized about being beautiful and living in a loving home when I wasn't reading. I even envied the girls without parents who lived in a group home not far from our house. For many years, I thought I wasn't loved because I was literally and figuratively the family's black sheep. Everyone else was attractive and popular. I felt ugly, horribly overweight, and invisible...all at the same time.
I consoled myself by eating. It was the one thing I could look forward to, as everything else felt like I was just marking time while in a deep, dark hole. If I couldn't find anything in the refrigerator or cabinets to eat, I would sometimes eat cans of dog food. I stopped eating dog food before my adolescent years.
Dissociating from my everyday life soon became ineffective as a teenager. I kept telling myself that in a few years, I would no longer live under my parents' roof and that my life could really begin. I don't know if it was the news story on TV about the girl dying after ingesting 50 aspirin or if it was my mother's refusal to help me with a sewing project or my father telling me my face looked like raw hamburger meat. He told me that the house shook when I walked. I no longer wanted to live. Some wags will tell you that people who commit suicide are angry at others. I wasn't mad at them, although I had little love for them. I felt hopeless. I figured death was the quickest way to escape the pain. I was 14 years old. 14...years...old.
The day following a news story about the a girl commiting suicide by ingesting aspirin was a Sunday. My parents made a fine display of being a happy Christian family. My father was a Deacon in the church, and my mother was a Sunday School teacher. We went to church most of the day and evening on Sunday and every Wednesday night. I felt the disconnect between what they appeared to believe and how they acted at home when I was approximately age 6. I thought that religion and church were fake. I realized as an adult that my parents were living a lie.
After church that Sunday afternoon, I started on the bottle of aspirin. When I returned to the church that evening, I had ingested 80 aspirin. I thought I would simply fall asleep. Aspirin contains caffeine. You don't go to sleep with massive quantities of caffeine. Instead of feeling sleepy, I began to experience loud ringing in my ears. I was a member of the church choir and remember feeling very dizzy. I told my older brother what I had done and felt very ill. He promptly told my parents. My father called our doctor, who told him to give me a mixture of vinegar and mustard to drink. This caused me to vomit and get the aspirin out of my system. It was a long night with my father sitting beside my bed and praying. My mother never entered my room.
The next day, Mother took me to the doctor's office. I was deemed well, but no one asked me why I did it. On the way home from the doctor's office, my mother angrily berated me. Between clenched teeth, she remarked, "You only did this for attention." If I had been an adult or knew what I know now, I would have told her, "No, I didn't do it for attention. I did it because I gave up that you or my father would ever show even a little love for me. And...if my own parents can't or won't love me, who will?"
I never attempted suicide again. I decided to get through the remaining years the best way I could. A couple of years after this incident, I discovered alcohol. I would quietly mix vodka with orange juice almost every night until I went to sleep. After I left home, I no longer needed to drink myself to sleep. However, I did discover sex and was promiscuous for more years than I want to admit.
I also reasoned that my life would only go uphill after I left my childhood home and that whatever happened to me would not be anything worse than what I experienced as a child. And it hasn't. I've had a very full life. I put myself through three degrees and had a successful professional life. I raised my daughter independently after she turned 6, with very little financial assistance from her father. I've visited much of the world and lived in many places. Happiness as an adult has been a frequent occurrence, and overall, I am a happy person.
The only reason I'm recounting my story after almost 50 years is that I know firsthand that people who are suicidal experience unrelenting pain. They lose hope. I especially want young people to have hope that whatever situation they are in currently to know that it gets better. They will one day have control over their lives and be responsible for their happiness. The way they feel now will pass. It always passes.
I am so grateful that I survived such an unloving childhood. I later realized that my parents had their own pain to deal with in whatever way they could. They never received counseling or treatment for their behavior, but sometimes people are so ingrained in being whoever they are that they don't think anything needs repair. I had help along the way through counseling that became almost like the mothering I never received. I have always felt that I could see God through my therapist's eyes. She remains a significant part of my life and is my biggest cheerleader.
My adulthood, viewed in its entirety, has been a blast. It's been a life lived fully. If I had committed suicide at age 14, I would have never known the love I've experienced since then. I would have never had the joy of motherhood and being a grandmother. I would have never seen the world and shared the love of friends throughout the years.
I have lived, loved, and been loved. Maybe the first 18 years were horrible, but the following 50 years have been fantastic. When I hear of young people committing suicide, I weep for what will never be for them. They'll never know the freedom to choose the kind of life they would want to live. Hang on! It's never too late to have a happy childhood!
I am glad I lived.
It was tough growing up in a household where each day brought fear that when your father walked through the door, you might receive painful punishment for some minor infraction. I was far from a perfect child, and neither were my brothers, but we did not deserve the treatment we received when my father was angry. Upon reflection, I'm confident that we were punished not for our bad behavior but because of the demons in his heart.
Compounding a potentially volatile experience with my father was my mother's lack of empathy. She never expressed any kind of regret for the beatings and remained, as always, cold and undemonstrative. Her primary mode of communication was constantly complaining about my father, his lack of intelligence, and his bullying behavior toward her. It was always about her. I thought she might love me if I listened to her long enough or expressed enough sympathy toward her plight, but again, it was always about her.
I coped by escaping into the world of words. I read books far beyond my age level, which meant they were complicated enough to completely distract me from whatever was occurring in the house. I fantasized about being beautiful and living in a loving home when I wasn't reading. I even envied the girls without parents who lived in a group home not far from our house. For many years, I thought I wasn't loved because I was literally and figuratively the family's black sheep. Everyone else was attractive and popular. I felt ugly, horribly overweight, and invisible...all at the same time.
I consoled myself by eating. It was the one thing I could look forward to, as everything else felt like I was just marking time while in a deep, dark hole. If I couldn't find anything in the refrigerator or cabinets to eat, I would sometimes eat cans of dog food. I stopped eating dog food before my adolescent years.
Dissociating from my everyday life soon became ineffective as a teenager. I kept telling myself that in a few years, I would no longer live under my parents' roof and that my life could really begin. I don't know if it was the news story on TV about the girl dying after ingesting 50 aspirin or if it was my mother's refusal to help me with a sewing project or my father telling me my face looked like raw hamburger meat. He told me that the house shook when I walked. I no longer wanted to live. Some wags will tell you that people who commit suicide are angry at others. I wasn't mad at them, although I had little love for them. I felt hopeless. I figured death was the quickest way to escape the pain. I was 14 years old. 14...years...old.
The day following a news story about the a girl commiting suicide by ingesting aspirin was a Sunday. My parents made a fine display of being a happy Christian family. My father was a Deacon in the church, and my mother was a Sunday School teacher. We went to church most of the day and evening on Sunday and every Wednesday night. I felt the disconnect between what they appeared to believe and how they acted at home when I was approximately age 6. I thought that religion and church were fake. I realized as an adult that my parents were living a lie.
After church that Sunday afternoon, I started on the bottle of aspirin. When I returned to the church that evening, I had ingested 80 aspirin. I thought I would simply fall asleep. Aspirin contains caffeine. You don't go to sleep with massive quantities of caffeine. Instead of feeling sleepy, I began to experience loud ringing in my ears. I was a member of the church choir and remember feeling very dizzy. I told my older brother what I had done and felt very ill. He promptly told my parents. My father called our doctor, who told him to give me a mixture of vinegar and mustard to drink. This caused me to vomit and get the aspirin out of my system. It was a long night with my father sitting beside my bed and praying. My mother never entered my room.
The next day, Mother took me to the doctor's office. I was deemed well, but no one asked me why I did it. On the way home from the doctor's office, my mother angrily berated me. Between clenched teeth, she remarked, "You only did this for attention." If I had been an adult or knew what I know now, I would have told her, "No, I didn't do it for attention. I did it because I gave up that you or my father would ever show even a little love for me. And...if my own parents can't or won't love me, who will?"
I never attempted suicide again. I decided to get through the remaining years the best way I could. A couple of years after this incident, I discovered alcohol. I would quietly mix vodka with orange juice almost every night until I went to sleep. After I left home, I no longer needed to drink myself to sleep. However, I did discover sex and was promiscuous for more years than I want to admit.
I also reasoned that my life would only go uphill after I left my childhood home and that whatever happened to me would not be anything worse than what I experienced as a child. And it hasn't. I've had a very full life. I put myself through three degrees and had a successful professional life. I raised my daughter independently after she turned 6, with very little financial assistance from her father. I've visited much of the world and lived in many places. Happiness as an adult has been a frequent occurrence, and overall, I am a happy person.
The only reason I'm recounting my story after almost 50 years is that I know firsthand that people who are suicidal experience unrelenting pain. They lose hope. I especially want young people to have hope that whatever situation they are in currently to know that it gets better. They will one day have control over their lives and be responsible for their happiness. The way they feel now will pass. It always passes.
I am so grateful that I survived such an unloving childhood. I later realized that my parents had their own pain to deal with in whatever way they could. They never received counseling or treatment for their behavior, but sometimes people are so ingrained in being whoever they are that they don't think anything needs repair. I had help along the way through counseling that became almost like the mothering I never received. I have always felt that I could see God through my therapist's eyes. She remains a significant part of my life and is my biggest cheerleader.
My adulthood, viewed in its entirety, has been a blast. It's been a life lived fully. If I had committed suicide at age 14, I would have never known the love I've experienced since then. I would have never had the joy of motherhood and being a grandmother. I would have never seen the world and shared the love of friends throughout the years.
I have lived, loved, and been loved. Maybe the first 18 years were horrible, but the following 50 years have been fantastic. When I hear of young people committing suicide, I weep for what will never be for them. They'll never know the freedom to choose the kind of life they would want to live. Hang on! It's never too late to have a happy childhood!
I am glad I lived.
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