My scarred hand gave me freedom

I was 10 years old when I first wanted to kill myself.

I think the thought has been always present inside of me, like a warm, painful liquor, pushing aside my organs and making me unable to breathe. But I didn’t understand it before – the want.

That day, I was looking through the window and cried. My sister just left the home we all dirtied with our tears and feared, she hid in the mental ward, all bloody and still shaking from the failed suicide attempt. Tears were wetting my cheeks, the trees outside of the window laughing at me. And I thought – I want to die.

It was so simple, so quiet, so real. It never left me alone.When I was in eight grade – how old was I, thirteen, maybe? – I couldn’t breathe anymore. And since I was alone, I forced myself to stand up and tried to overdose on painkillers. But I hated painkillers, their taste, so I grimaced and spat them out.

A few weeks later, I tried again. The first time, I could swallow five them, the second time I puked them all out. Right there, into the kitchen sink. God, how I wished I was stronger.

It happened again when I was a freshman in high school. I was stupid, scared, and there were these girls that I was hiding from in my dorm room. A razor was hiding inside of my palms, digging into the bare, fragile skin and drawing blood. My arm moved it itself, I could swear it did. I opened my wrists – or at least tried to. I was not strong enough take my own life away and my friend only sighed in disappointment when she saw me laying on the bathroom floor, regretting not succeding. Was I this much of a loser? This stupid?

Afterwards, the antidepressants helped. I was not happier, exactly, but I found peace in my life, but while it was fragile, waiting to break, it was there. I managed to build it.But it broke, of course it did. When me and my best friend got into a fight which ultimately ruined our relationship forever. It was stupid. I was better; I was supposed to be better. But they were right there, my pills, and she was showering.

So, when I was sixteen, a day before my mother’s birthday, I attempted suicide for the last time.

32 pills – though I managed to push half of them down my throat before screaming, running into the bathroom, falling on my knees, and screaming and screaming because God, I wanted to live. I wanted my heart to beat, not to fail like I failed at everything I ever did. Too stupid to be great student, too smart to fail all my classes, pretty enough to get a boyfriend and yet, too self-absorbed to destroy all my relationships.

My body was frail and weak when the ambulence helped me down the stairs. While they were rescuing my life, the men were talking about stupid, pointless things and laughing. Did they not feel it? The pain, bursting in my chest? The hope, shitting and peeing out of my body?

I was a well enough actor to get out of the mental ward in eight days, though it took longer for me to recover. Actually – I don’t think I ever did. That I ever will. I always wanted someone to save me. My mother to get out of the loveless house, my father to stop shouting at me, to stop breaking me, day after day. In the end, I saved myself with the action that was supposed to make my life disappear.

Outside, the beauty of nature hurt my eyes. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe, that is how beautiful it was. How did I never notice the loudness of the city? The warmth of the sun?In the end, I was my own rescuer. The doing that brings me the most regret was my freedom, my last push before feeling the value of life.

My scarred hands were my hope, my own fails were my refuges