WHAT DO YOU PICTURE WHEN YOU THINK OF CUTTING OR BURNING ONE’S SELF?

I know you don’t envision somebody like me; a single mother of two, leggings, gauze top, denim jacket; wandering the aisles of Walmart, inspecting prices for the best deals and ingredient labels for dairy free food for my one year old. You see us as we stroll along, my five year old swinging her long light brown waves behind her, asking for every single thing she sees; me saying she’ll get nothing if she asks one more time. Your eyes wander to the baby, huge dark eyes, beautiful wavy dark auburn hair and you smile at the 3 of us.

On occasion there may be a “tsk tsk where’s the wedding ring and why does she look like a teenager with two children?” stare or comment, but for the most part myself (all twenty seven years of me), and my lovely daughters inspire smiles and waves and, “Oh, what beautiful girls you have! You’re doing a wonderful job, you should be proud!”

But that is in the Autumn, the Winter, and Spring. When you see me with them in Summertime, the looks range between sadness, sympathy, disgust, laughter, cruelty. I’m the same mom, I have the same beautiful girls, I’m still making them laugh, or scolding my older child’s antics, searching out the same deals and grocery or clothing items. The only thing that changes is that you can see my skin.

You see, in the summer, my past is exposed for the world to judge. My thick keloid scars that run down my arms and legs are out in the open, where you begin to question my capabilities as a mother; even seeing me behave as the exact same mother in leggings and jeans, not questioning for a moment my capability.

I have not changed; your perception has changed. You immediately assume I’m still harming myself, that I have severe mental illness I can not control; so how might I control the daily stress that motherhood carries, especially as a single mother of two? Thoughts begin to form in your mind, questioning yourself as to whether I am an addict, whether I’m a danger to my kids, if dcf is involved in my life; whether I’m near to a psychotic break at any moment. You presume me to be weak, to be fragile, to be incapable.

WHAT YOU DON’T SEE IS MY STRENGTH TO OVERCOME.

Why don’t you ask, rather than look on, appalled and sick to your stomach? Why can I not simply be another young-ish mother, shopping with her kids? I can’t because I’m different than you, I’m an enigma; you can not understand the how, the why, the when. If you could see beyond skin deep, you’d find a story that would bring both tears to your eyes and a cheering pump of your fists that I am still here, alive, capable.

I’ll tell you who I am. I was once upon a time a little girl, broken and afraid by people who had sexually assaulted me, verbally abused me, physically accosted me. I grew older into a teenager, still broken and afraid; finding love in all the wrong places after my father walked out on his five children and wife; for that slick serpent taste of a few oxycontin with a side of vodka for breakfast. I needed affection and attention, but my low self esteem showed me all of the wrong ways to find it.

Cutting myself gave relief, just a scratch or two back then; starving myself gave a sense of control that nothing else could obtain; a few drinks gave me confidence that I’d never found on my own; sex and boyfriends made me feel attractive in a way my mirror never had; a few pills made me forget all of the reasons I didn’t want to remember. I was never sure of myself without a vice to pull me through the days filled with dread and loneliness, an emptiness I never seemed to be able to fill.

There were hospitals, medications, therapists, all shoved down my throat. I was gasping for air, drowning in the “help” that never helped, for fear of opening up a pandora’s box that none of them could ever fathom.

THEN I GOT PREGNANT AND REALIZED SOMETHING HAD TO CHANGE.

When I found I was having my first child I was only 21, my boyfriend of five years at the time was hooked on heroin, and I was at the height of my drinking and Xanax abuse. I was thin from the lack of eating, and my razor began to cut just a bit deeper.

In the moment I saw those 2 pink lines I gave away the two bottles of wine in my closet, trashed my blades, and ate the biggest meal I’d had in years. This baby was my responsibility now, and she needed her mommy. I did everything right, I got a therapist, took vitamins, went to every prenatal appointment and ultrasound, I went back to church; I left the young man I’d been in love with since I was 16 years old because he would not stop using drugs for our soon to be baby girl. I named her Sierra Rose before she was born and had a closet and crib filled with frills, lace, and bows.

I changed when I became a mother. I grew up and I healed.

THEN THE RUG WAS RIPPED OUT FROM BENEATH MY FEET.

I got the call letting me know that my daughter’s father had overdosed and died upon leaving a psychiatric hospital I had placed myself in for severe anorexia I’d slipped back into, after realizing how much baby weight I’d gained.

I didn’t understand, we’d gotten back together, he’d been sober 11 months, he’d done it for us, we were going to be a family! After 7 years of history and a baby together; how could he be gone? It was a lie, they were lying! 25 year olds don’t just drop dead! I was in severe shock as I screamed and I sobbed in the office at the hospital, waiting for my ride home because I’d been given the okay that I was doing so much better.

I noticed the bottles of medication in my bags beside me; the medication entrusted in my care after my clean bill of mental stability. I shoved 9 or 10 of my Klonopin down my throat before someone came back to check on me. Soon my mother arrived sobbing as well; Zachary was like family to all of us after all of this time.

Someone watched my daughter for me and so I drank a few beers at home to take off the edge even more; my family still unaware of those little green pills I had swallowed.

I ran to the basement with a cheap razor I’d broken apart for the blade and I sliced the longest and deepest cuts yet down my arms. My little sister found me and screamed for my brother and I soon found myself back in a psych ward, unable to do anything but sleep, cry, take meds and stare into space.

I was told I wasn’t stable enough to go home to my one and a half year old yet upon discharge. With no place to escape to, I found solace in hotel rooms with a man who got me to try heroin and crack; to show me just why Zach would do this, why my little sister was hooked on this, my my father had left for this. What was this delicious escape they all seemed unable to break away from, no matter the cost?

I fell in love immediately, but after a month of this disaster, I put myself into a day program and back in counseling and on medicine; ready to go home to my baby.

AND THEN THE WORLD STOPPED.

It was around 103o pm, just mere months after the loss of Zach, when I was awoken in my sleep by my best friend turned boyfriend; to tell me that my sister was dead.

I screamed he was a liar, ran shoeless down the stairs to his truck and called my older brother screaming and telling in him this was all some mistake. She could not be gone, not just after I’d begun to heal again, not my baby sister, my best friend, the 21 year old baby who’d been a part of me all my life.

I knew as I arrived home the same moment as my 17 year old sister, Kelsey, both sobbing and clutching each other, as we helped one another walk up the stairwell, finding my mother on the floor screaming with photos and clothing and stuffed animals of Amber’s; that she was really gone. My brother, Jeffrey, sat on the couch in an empty daze, my youngest sister, Alexis, lying on the kitchen table bench seat crying alone; this was real.

I quickly spiraled back into drinking often with my siblings, which led to cutting while drunk because I couldn’t feel the pain; even when the cuts went so deep that I’d nearly died, hitting arteries and veins, needing stitches; I still did not feel a thing. I was numb. The love of my life and the best friend I’d ever had were both gone within the snap of fingers.

Identifying her, the wake and funeral, months went by in a blur of horrifying numb; not feeling nothing, but like water so cold that you feel it so overwhelmingly painful and strong that your brain just knows to shut off this feeling you can’t handle any longer.

EVENTUALLY I WENT TO A SOBER HOUSE.

I got a job, joined a day group where I met a group of some of the best people; aunts and uncles I’d never had, the right group of medications for me, and somehow fell into the blessing of the absolute perfect therapist for me.

I got an apartment with my boyfriend and after two miscarriages; one of them horribly graphic, more of a stillbirth in a motel room, I chose to stay sober and refrain from triggers to self harm. I then fell pregnant with my second living daughter, my Ambrielle Lily, named for my sister Amber. Her father relapsed on drug addiction he’d been free from for 3 years. I almost gave birth to her at 25 weeks and possibly lost her, too, due to physical diseases I was unaware I had at the time, but my double rainbow baby survived to 39 weeks! Her father was deported to Israel; something I have since seen as a blessing. I went through a severe postpartum depression; the worst experience of my life aside from the deaths, but I’ll save that for another article.

Through all of this, I stayed away from drunkenness, pill abuse, cutting, all of it for my two baby girls. I found a strength deep within me when I dug down into the depths of my soul, and I made it. I’d overcome years of ups and downs with almost 3 years now of fighting and stability.

So you see, if you truly knew the young woman at the grocery store with her 2 children, wearing a sundress and buying soy milk and allergy medicine for her children, knowing the best diaper brands for the least money, you’d be amazed. You would see all of the pain she’d endured and finally realized she was stronger than that, a woman who’s pain was held back when she found strength in not only herself, but in who she was as a mother. You would find that I am actually beyond capable.

You’d see these thick scars, years old, and realize they’re truly a badge of honor.

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