If I’m going to tell you this story, I need to start from the beginning. To what started it all. So let’s back up about 9years. When I was roughly age 10.
For much of my life I expirienced pure hell but I had no clue that over the course of time it would become much worse and harder to cope with. I endured physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Although for a long time I had no idea that physical or mental abuse was wrong. It was the norm to me I suppose. My mother did not care that she let bad, sick, evil men into my life. To this day I have received no apology or shown an ounce of remorse.
At the age of 10 I developed an eating disorder although I was medically considered under weight. I did not see that at the time. The wear and tear of my home life effected me in such a way that I felt the need to starve myself. I’d ask to be excused from my studies so I could go to the washroom only to raise up my shirt and examine my stomach. I’d cry for a few minutes and suck in so that I could see an image that I felt was desirable. I would do this same routine before, in the middle, and after each class.
A few weeks into my new diet I was caught sucking in my stomach in front of the mirror by a classmate. I told her everything was fine but she could see through me. She went straight to the counselor to tell her what she witnessed. The next day I was called from class and I’ll never forget what happened. She asked me about the incident and I broke down. “I hate my body!” I sobbed. “I don’t want to live this way! I want to die!” The words were fighting to pass my lips.
She didn’t say another word to me. She immediately called my mother to speak about therapy for me. My mother agreed but it never happened. I laid in my bedroom floor every night crying because I hated myself so much, because my mother hated me so much.
Years passed and I was able to get myself together. I still had a poor body image but I ate more. My pain turned into violence instead. Could you blame me? Violence is what I was raised on. It was all I was exposed to. My entire emotional well being was created from physical and mental abuse. I wish it were not that way, but it is. That’s life I suppose.
My pain was released through fighting as well as self harm. I would argue with my mother and father until my voice was raw. It would leave me horse for days to come. Of course, I still had a conscious and felt horrible about the things I said. (Even though most agree that my mother in particular deserved every bit of it.) So I would resort to cutting. It was a mixture of punishment as well as a distraction. To see your own blood dripping down into the sink was the most intriguing sight for me. I wore wrist bands and long sleeves to hide the cuts. It worked for only a short time.
Summer came and I continued to swear jackets and long sleeves because the cutting had escalated very quickly. My arms and legs were covered and there was simply no other way to hide it. My father began to wonder why I was wearing jackets in the summer, expecially because we reside in the south and everyone knows how bad the summers are here.
He kept quiet for awhile and finally he couldn’t any longer. He demanded that I take my jacket off and prove to him that I wasn’t hurting myself. I refused and this went on for several hours until I finally removed my jacket. This was the one time I have ever seen my father cry. I truly believe my father to be the one person to every love me and never once hurt me. He immediately called a psychiatrist in order to help relieve the pain I was feeling. This moment would start a very very long recovery process that I’m still working on to this day.
To be continued.
-R.W.
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