“This time it will work. I even have two bottles of sleeping pills for safety’s sake. Time to die. I unscrew both lids and turn the tap on. I’ve locked the door behind me, just in case, but I’m not expecting anyone else … not in this lifetime.”
‘I love you, Cindy, I’ll always love you. Please forgive me.’ I was no longer going to be her Momma and watch her grow up. ‘DO IT NOW,’ the Voice says.’
‘He locked me in the basement for days. I asked him to help with baths for our kids that night. He turned off the power, so I went down to turn it back on – and he left me there.’
“I was hungry, and had nothing to eat. There was a sink down there I used to drink water. I was so done dealing with things. I sat and hoped he was taking care of our children upstairs. I kept wondering how I would get out.”
‘He was my first baby. Sometimes I think, hell, just OD already. I didn’t raise you this way. I wait for that final phone call. Then I hate myself even more.’
“My son is homeless, living on the street, with who knows how little warm clothing. Is he even still alive? I drive by his haunts. He hangs out by my work neighborhood often. How does that make me feel? Like he wants to be close, but oh so far away.”
‘He pushed his way in. ‘Sit on the couch!,’ he demanded. He told me he was going to stay all night. I begged him to leave. Then he came up with an idea: ‘I’ll leave if you have sex with me.’
“When he was finished, he uttered the words, ‘You didn’t think I was actually going to leave, did you?’”
‘Nobody thought I had a problem, I was just the life of the party. I was reaching out for help, but doctors didn’t believe me. I was even suicidal on my wedding day.’
“I knew something was terribly wrong. I was in law school about to collapse on the floor of my dorm room when I realized my life would never be the same again. It was like an all-night-long strobe light party in my brain.”
‘I was writing my goodbye letter. I had gone out to my car, had a handful of pills in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, and then my husband called.’
“In kindergarten I tried to walk in front of a semi truck in the street. I lived with this demon all my childhood. Then I met the one.”
