Leaving

It is a long hard road I'm on, but as hard it might be I'm so very glad to be on it. I never thought that I could be happy. What I always wanted was to forget what happened and move on. Not necessarily forgive my abusers, but move on. I always wished I would live a different life, a life without my family. I thought that if I was only away from them everything would be alright. When I was younger I knew that going away wasn't an option.

So there was only one option I thought about. I can't remember how often I was lying in bed wishing not to wake up in the morning. I was 3 years old when I first contemplated suicide. I don't know exactly how I knew what I knew about death but I remember that I went into my parents bedroom because my sister was in our room and my parents in the living room. We were then still living in an appartment on the 2nd floor. I took a chair and looked out of the window at the backyard. I thought that if I would just open the window and 'go' outside, everything would be over. Fortunately I wasn't able to reach the window catch.
That was the beginning of my suicidal thoughts.

Deep inside I didn't want to commit suicide I just wanted to go away, to make it stop in some way. I already mentioned that as my suicidal thoughts stopped it all turned into self-harm. It had the same reason. I wanted it to stop hurting, I couldn't handle the built-up feelings and swallowed emotions anymore. I felt relieved every time I cut myself. I was able to handle the physical pain but not the emotional one. It was the only way I could let my emotions surface. I directed all the anger towards myself, why not I thought, it's all my fault anyway. First I was cutting myself with scissors. After I discovered how much better I felt afterwards I kept a piece of broken glas in my desk for that purpose only.

All this stopped just after I got diagnosed with Rheumatism and went to the hospital at least twice a year for 3 to 6 weeks each time. So after I was able to go away - even just for a few weeks a year - I didn't need it anymore. Now I just had to wait for the months to pass. I had something to hold on to. I never cried going to hospital, I always cried leaving it. Always, even the last time I was there when I was 20 years old. The hospital was about 4-5 hours by car away from where we lived so it wasn't possible to visit me there.

When I got older I was not only waiting to go back to hospital, I was waiting to turn 18. I knew that then I could leave. Of couse I didn't think about how difficult it would be to leave without finishing school. But as I turned 18 I thought that I could do the one year I had left until graduating. I had no idea about where I would go or what I would do but it comforted me that I would then have an option.

As it turned out, I was wrong. Nothing was alright after leaving. I had no idea what damage was done. I thought something was wrong with me. Why wasn't everything alright, now that I left? Why did I feel even worse at times?
-Because I didn't leave my emotions behind. I didn't really leave. My abusers were still there with me. Instead of them I was now the one abusing myself without knowing.

Leaving was the best I could have done. It was the first step of so many to come. It took me another 4 years until I began to leave for real.