Autumn Caroline

I wanted out.  My life had become intolerable, and I saw no way to change the downward spiral, no way to choose a different life, a different mother, and father--both drug addicts and alcoholics, a different social status. Acceptance and belonging were impossible. I couldn’t choose the way I felt or the girl I was--the girl with the unfortunate life, the never-ending sob stories. I wanted it to be over. I wanted out.

I hated who I was. My body didn't belong to me. It belonged to the man who had taken it from me when I was just twelve.  I didn't choose that, but it became part of what formed my self-view: I was disgusting. I was repulsive--a slut, a whore, gross, ugly. I didn’t choose to become a pseudo-mother to my three younger siblings, driving them to school by the time I was fourteen, shielding them from our parents’ drunken, drugged binges, hiding the ugly reality of our lives as much as possible from the “normal” kids at school. It was too much for me, and eventually, I accepted the drugs my mother offered, gave up on trying to be “good,” fell into a life that I thought I deserved. I hated myself every day. Why should I keep living?  I wanted out.

I knew I should tell someone, even though I felt I would be betraying my parents.  But I didn’t need to. The “evidence” of our dysfunctional life was hard to miss, and, one day, the authorities stepped in. We were taken away from our parents for ten months. As upsetting as this was, we all hoped it would be our chance. Maybe we could have the stability and safety and love that other kids took for granted. Maybe the court-ordered parenting classes our parents took would make a difference. But within a week of being back, it was the same story all over again. I wanted out.

And so, I decided I could control my life only by ending it. The first eight pills should have let me escape. But I awoke the next morning, filled with the same profound sadness and hopelessness I had the night before. I emptied my mother’s prescription bottle into my hand and washed down the pills--90 sedatives--without a second thought. Seven days later I awoke from a coma. I had failed to escape. But I wasn’t the same person who so desperately sought an exit a week before. In a way, I did die, and a new me was born.