by Fifi 1968
Everyone wants to know that they matter, that no one else can fill their role and that they are appreciated.
I wish to have told my mother how much I, her daughter, appreciated her.
But doing that would have entailed, if I were honest, also telling her how much she hurt me.
More importantly, letting her know how special she was in my life, emphasizing the unique role she played in my development, would have included telling her how much I needed her to be kind to me, that I looked up to her and when she lashed out I felt horrible, worse than that actually.
I wanted to disappear to never have been born.
Every time my mother was angry and frustrated, I wished I had never been born, the thought being, “I am making you unhappy. Your life would be better without me. You would be happier without me.”
These thoughts and others led me to wanting to take my own life.
Succeeding at the task would have accomplished two things.
I would have eliminated that object of my mother’s frustration.
But in so doing I would have left her helpless and without a punching bag, something that she desperately needed.
Without her punching bag she would have been lost.
Another think I would liked to have told my mother was how I would have liked to look on when she found me dead.
Being a psychotherapist and having worked with many adolescents, I recognize the rage in my wishes, or rather my suicidal ideations and failed attempts at killing myself.
One time when I had taken several of my mother’s diuretics and the world appeared as if a hall of mirrors, I sweating profusely, my mother asked what was wrong with.
“I took some of your pills, tried killing myself,” I said.
The anger on my mother’s face was immense.
For once she was out of control, fear overtaking her.
She did not hit me, although I suspect she wanted to.
That was the closest I came to giving her a dose of her own medicine.
I wish to have told her, “Now you see how it feels.”
Suicide. I witnessed my mother’s suicide attempt. At the time I was so young I had no idea what she was doing. My mother drank Drano and almost as soon as she did so she reached out to me to get my father. I still hear his voice yelling, screaming, What did you do? I see the EMS and the cops. I hear my brother Stephen saying to the police, “My Mommy is sick.” I was maybe 7 or 8 Stephen was perhaps 5 or 6. I remember my Dad riding off in the ambulance with Mommy. Stephen and I were left alone so the two of us got into the big wing-back chair and prayed for our Mommy to get better and come home. This prayer was not answered right away and soon my grandmother and Aunt Helen from Dayton, Ohio came to take care of us. Eventually Aunt Helen had to go back to Dayton to care for her five kids. One time my mother escaped from the mental ward and came home in a cab unexpectedly. My grandmother called my father and back went my mother to the crazy place.
Fast forward to adulthood. Since that happened I’ve attempted suicide many times. Fortunately thanks to Buddhism most of my suicidal thoughts are gone.
Suicide I now realize is an attempt to make the pain go away. Now I want the pain to go away not me. So I realize I have to find ways to cope with pain, anxiety and fear. Can’t leave my brother Stephen alone and I feel somewhere out there is a better future.
My mother Mable Elizabeth Palmer and DeBorah Ann Palmer are kindred spirits. Two sides of the same coin. Travelers on the same journey but walking different pathways.
DeBorah Ann Palmer´s last blog post ..A Powerful Share From My Recovery Pal “Trey”~We All Start Somewhere Right?