Sad, sad, sad

Sometimes I trip over past injustice. 

This morning I woke up, wracked with miserable cramps, a terrible headache in pursuit.  Ugh. 

Why can't I have a nice day off, once in a while?  It's always stupid drama, headaches, cramps, or [censored] up moods!  Agh! 

Anyway, the cramps took forever to abate, even after the painkiller.  I believe this will be one of my "Horrible cramps, terrible heavy flow, but pretty much done in a single day" cycles. 

Ron and I went out to breakfast.  On the way, I handed out two Bibles, to delighted recipients.  That made me very happy. 

I was feeling rather broody as I sat over my pancaked.  "Did I ever tell you about the painkillers, whenever I had my period?"  

Ron gave a mock scream of terror.  He has heard enough about my past to make him bald, if he wasn't already.  "No!" 

I reminded him, how I had gotten severely depressed.  It was Not Helped by a workplace shooting at my Dad's office, which pretty much pushed me off the cliff, emotionally.  I was nearly the 8th fatality, and definitely among the "wounded". 

My Dad was, as I saw it, pretty much the only person who truly loved me, who'd take a bullet for me.  He abdicated most of the parenting to my stepmother, who favored her own kids at my expense.  Had he died my life would have gone in completely different directions.  I don't know who'd have "gotten" me at the end. 

Certainly not my mother! 

At any rate, it was a major, once in a lifetime crisis.  I was also started on antidepressants.  We all know, now, that antidepressants can cause teens to become suicidal.  They didn't know it back in 1988.  I also had some other issues at play. 

One day Ron asked why I had become suicidal.  I laid it all out for him and he gaped in shock.  "I would have been, after all that!" he exclaimed.  He has a way of making me feel better :) 

So, I became suicidal.  Intensely so.  I kept trying to figure out ways to do it.  I tried inhaling fumes off my hair mousse.  That didn't work.  I didn't want to use a knife because I had seen the aftermath when my mother tried something similar.  It's not very effective, a lot of times, either.  You have to know how to do it "right". 

I was pretty angry at my antidepressants.  I felt (correctly) "they" had just shoved a bottle at me and said, "Take these and shut up already, you're making us look bad!" 

So, I decided to overdose on the antidepressants.  I had an elaborate plan, which likely would have worked.  By the time anyone found me my brain would have been pudding, had I lived. 

I knew suicide was not in God's plan for me, and at the bottom of my soul I love God more than anything.  So, I told God "I can't hack this anymore.  I can't stand the idea of living like this.  Please, help me.  I don't want to die, but I don't want to live.  Please help me because I'm in agony." 

I went to sleep, crying.  I had a dream in which God instructed me to take the antidepressants to the school guidance counselor and tell him my plan.  I did so.  I was hospitalized for a month until my insurance ran out.  By the time I was discharged, I was manic, but for whatever reason God did not allow any mental health professional to realize I was bipolar until I reached age 32. 

I started my period pretty much around my birthday, age 13.  Good timing.  All the big milestones at once! 

Not so fun... I discovered I am prone to horrendous, wracking, cramps. 

Prior to my hospitalization, the pain relievers and other remedies could be found in a kitchen cabinet.  I could just open it up and take a couple generic ibuprofen, as needed.  I always used them responsibly. 

When I came back, they were gone.  I now had to go begging to my stepmother, who'd give me lectures: "Butch up, buttercup, and stop yer whining.  You don't need any pain pills.  All women endure this, and so will you for the next 30 years!  SUCK IT UP!"

One day my younger stepbrother (who later became my abuser) saw me sobbing in pain.  He went to her, said he had a a headache, got some ibuprofen, and gave it to me. 

He wasn't all bad.  He's had it even worse than me, in life. 

She didn't want me to have access to pills, because I had threatened to overdose, and meant it.  My mother had an extreme history of suicide attempts so everyone worried about me following in her footsteps. 

Well, by the time she was my age, she'd been married 7 times.  I only have the one husband.  :p 

I didn't like it, but I attempted to go along with the pain.  If I bought painkillers on my own, they were taken away.  At the time drugstores didn't sell the single-dose remedies. 

I just suffered, every month, in agonizing pain.  I got sneaky, though.  I knew shame was her weakness.  She had a dread terror of being embarrassed in front of her friends/family/neighbors.

So, if I had cramps, I'd wait until she had someone over, then ask.  She "had" to give me the remedy, because what kind of mother denies her suffering child, pain relief?  

Sad, sad, sad I had to play these games.

 What a joy to move in with Ron, who gave me money to buy pain relievers, if I didn't have it myself.  He figured I "wouldn't be stupid" and he was right.

If I ever killed myself, I wouldn't overdose.  When I was suicidal, back in 2006, I planned to stage "An accident" so people could believe what they wanted.

Anyway, I was thinking about it all this morning, and I had an epiphany.

Someone in the house had attempted suicide by overdose!

I won't break confidentiality.  People like me are rare.  But this person, told me themselves: they had taken a whole bottle of "pills", as a teenager, some time before my "drama".  I did not learn of it until years later.

Here's the crux: this person never had to beg for an Advil.  No one treated this person as a dangerous criminal, out to embarrass the whole family with a nasty, messy, suicide.  No, things went completely back to normal.  In fact, I didn't even know until they told me.

Of course, this person had a different mother.  

I'll say it again, sad, sad, sad.