Suicidal at 9

[Wren]

I submitted the story of my conception to the awfulsome moments survey. It's under a different name, I always want to reinvent myself even if it's in stupid ways like changing my name on here. Maybe it'll get read, maybe not. The punchline is me, the outcome of a "good old fashioned cowboy fucking."
My mom comes from a fucked up home herself, she was institutionalized by her parents for getting pregnant at 20. When she gave birth to my brother 3 months early his father disappeared and she was locked up for a while. The let her out but my brother lived his first three months of life without human touch inside an incubator. We're all pretty sure that's how he ended up the way he did.
There's so much more to their story and how my dad entered the picture but to skip ahead my brother lived, my parents had a daughter, and ten years after that I was "made." At that point my dad was doing alright as a musician. So alright that he could afford enough blow and pot to keep him happy and he was entertaining enough to keep all the women at his bar happy too. I'm told.
When I entered this world I made the mistake of taking a great big chunk of my mother's vision with me. Literally. She has a degenerative eye disorder that was greatly worsened by having me vaginally. She lived with "functioning" blindness for a while but over the last few years it's really tapered off. She runs into walls in the house she's navigated for 40 years now.
And my dad left us. He re-married and though he lived a mere 10 minutes away I rarely saw him. Which was fine by me, I hated having to spend time with him anyway.
Before he left though he would have these enormous fights with my brother. My brother who was 15 years old than me. My brother who would chase my sister around with a knife. The same brother who would pin my mother to the floor and scream in her face. Or pin her to the wall and scream in her face. He never hit her. He just like holding her down. Like a moth pinned to a piece of cardboard.
At one point a lot of various people lived with us but I don't remember it well. I do remember the first time I heard about suicide though. I wasn't old enough to understand what death meant, that would come later. But when my brother locked himself in my mother's room and declared he was going to end it all they tried to explain to me what he meant. I knew the Bible said he would go to hell so I prayed for him to change his mind. My sister told me later he would always put it off saying he didn't want to ruin my Christmas, my Easter, my birthday, whichever was closest to that attempt at the time.
And when he and I would play...perhaps we would pillow fight. A five year old little girl versus a twenty year old man. He would hit me hard over the head with the pillow and I would fall over. "Stay down" he would say. "Why can't you learn you're weaker than me?" It was infuriating. I couldn't win. So I would fight harder. And he would knock me down harder. "Just stay down. Why don't you just give up? GIVE UP STAY DOWN" and I would feel like a trapped animal. Desperate. So the "play" would end one of two ways: 1) I would lash out and make a last ditch effort not to be beaten and do something like scratch or bite and he would yelp and tell me how fucked up I was and lock himself in his room leaving me crying and begging for forgiveness. or 2) I would fall into the corner of a table or something and he would pick me up and bandage me and coo at me telling me to not play so rough. You could never win a fight with big brother.
And where was mom? She was sleeping. She liked to stay up late listening to music so loud sometimes I would have to leave my bed and ask her to please turn it down. For a while she would make these mix tapes or just the climaxes of songs. She had no time for all the "filler" she just wanted crescendo after crescendo. She could go on like that for days and then sleep for weeks.
They got me a puppy once. I was four or so. When I went outside I didn't have the leash secured properly around my wrist and my puppy slipped from my grasp to get smashed before my eyes. But he didn't die right away. He had a long, painful death and when my mom took me inside the vet to say goodbye to him he was all propped up with sticks and bandages. She slept for a long time after that.
And we were poor but I didn't know it right away. One night in a catalogue I saw a tool set made for kids. I wanted it so bad. I threw a tantrum begging for it. My mom left the house and we were worried she wouldn't be able to find her way back- it was dark. When crying I asked my sister what had I done she told me "We're poor. She can't buy it for you. Stop being such a brat." When my mom came home she went straight to her room and I tiptoed up there and begged for forgiveness next to her bed in the dark.
When I was six or so she made a friend. Her best friend. He became like a dad to me. We all loved him so much. They started to build me a play-set in the back yard together. Which was nice because at school I was getting bullied and I didn't have (m)any friends.
When I was nine I answered the phone one after school one day. My mom was asleep and I was only taking a commercial break to get some snacks. I loved cartoons. It was her friend. I heard my show coming back on. He said he wasn't feeling well and I quickly told him she was asleep and she'd call him back later.
He died of a massive heart attack two minutes later. And that's when it became complete. My misery.
My sister had left for college and my third grade year was spent crying in class, walking home with my coat over my head to avoid the jeers of my classmates, and coming home to a quiet house. Since she was asleep I would make myself a triple decker ice cream sundae every day after school and press my head to the television set. We had a roommate and when she got home from work in the evening she said you could hear it out in the driveway. But I couldn't hear it. And my mom only yelled from her bed to turn it down. She rarely emerged until night fall.
I would walk home with my coat over my head and wonder if I stepped out in front of a car if they would be going fast enough on my street to kill me.
I heard about some monks who could slow down their heartbeats enough to die quietly. And so I tried that. I would lay on the top of my unfinshed play-set and breathe slower, and slower, and slower. And I would tell God "I'm ready now, it's okay. I won't look like I'm in pain. They won't be sad. You can come and get me now please."
I got to stop going to school once a week he next couple of years because even the teachers despised me. My brother's girlfriend had dyed my hair purple and while I felt like I looked pretty cool it only served to separate me further from my classmates and my teacher who couldn't understand "how a mother would let a child leave the house like that." "well, she can't see it, Mrs. Hicks."
I sought counseling for a while earlier on. When I explained to the counselor how the kids made fun of me she told me "maybe they're right." So when I got fat from being left to my own devices I believed them when they called me FAT, UGLY, STUPID, and WEIRD.
Sometimes my brother would come home or visit after his own therapy. I learned what molestation meant and my mother began exploring her own past. I learned about what my Grandfather did, about what my uncle did, and when I began to masturbate around 11 I wondered what had happened to me. This thought was reinforced as my mother would interpret my graphic nightmares.
I forgot to mention she was abducted by aliens. I guess was around middle school though. When does childhood end? Did it end when a 27 year old man came over to have a date with me at age 12? When he changed into his boxers and my mom went to bed? When he laid on top of me and rubbed his boner on me? Was I still a child then?
Is it abuse when your mom takes you to her boyfriends house and you have to listen to her getting fucked all night long and enter his room in the morning to find used condoms everywhere?
Or how about the time my brother cornered her in the kitchen and I saw his hand trembling as it hovered above the steak knife on the counter? What was I, 13 then? Was I all grown up? Cause all I ever wanted to be as a child was grown up. grown up so I could make my own rules and leave that house.
Now I am grown up and all I ever feel is like a child.

[manuel_moe_g]

Please take care, Wren. Nothing I can say is a match for the pain you have endured. I read your post and I honor your pain. Please know that there is peace and comfort in this world, for you, and you deserve it. We here are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow. You are not alone.

[Wren]

Thank you. It's funny how strong it feels to see someone say that. It means a lot to me. Last week was a rough one and though I'm not feeling my best this morning I'm still moving forward and putting one foot in front of the other.

[manuel_moe_g]

I felt it this weekend - things are much better but they are still fucked, and it is OK, I am capable enough to navigate around and through "fucked".

I wish I could offer you more, because you deserve better, Wren, but at least this much can be part of your future, and you are not alone.

[IdentityPoltergeist]

Wren, I relate to so much of what you experienced and yet your life is uniquely horrible and I just want to hold the innocent child you were and take you away from it. As Paul would say, I just want to give you a big hug.

And yes that was all clearly abuse. School counselors disgust me. Mine just went on about how perfect her daughter was and tried to tell me my problem was my parents' pending divorce (which I cared nothing about, made no difference to me) and not my terrible excuse for a teacher.

You deserved a loving, attentive parent. You deserved a secure home. You deserved a childhood. I hope you can talk to others and know that you still deserve better.