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Getting Through : Dealing
No Way Out | from madly - Wednesday, January 17, 2007
accessed 1296 times I am sitting in a small room with 21 beds. All of them three story bunk beds. I have a 12 inch sign around my neck that states “Do not speak to me. I am on silence restriction”. My eyes and face are stained red from crying. My teen shepherd’s evil face is burned into my memory and his screaming continues until my ears ring and my head pounds. My hands are cut and covered with blisters from hours of hard labor out in the fields. My back aches and my body is weak. I have no idea where my parents are or if they even care that I am suffering. I feel alone, scared, unloved, and I have no idea what to do. How could I live with so many people who preach love and happiness and yet never know love for myself? I look around the room and I see a bleach bottle over in the corner that I was supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms with. All of a sudden the bleach becomes my way out. I grab the bottle and chug it as fast, and as much, as I can. I then hide in the corner and wait for it all to disappear. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but anything had to be better than this.
I didn’t really want to die, but I was sure that I no longer wanted to live the life that I had been given. I had reached the point of hopelessness where death was better than my life; for this wasn’t life, but torment and perpetual anguish. As I waited for what I hoped would be the end, I scribbled these words on the back sheet of my bible:
Life, what a way to live,
Hurt, afraid, empty, misunderstood,
Love, did you forget me?
Or did you lose me somewhere along the way?
Hate, why do you want me so,
What pleasure comes from my pain?
Did you bargain for my soul?
Was a life spared for my life’s trade?
What purpose was a life like mine?
A child that never knew love,
A life of endless pain and torture,
To live on; why would I dare?
Was it a Test?
If so, I guess I could not pass it.
My life will remain a stranger to me.
For my ocean will never be sailed.
For those who hurt and destroyed me,
I do not wish you pain, or ill regard,
As I was not given for you to love.
You did not win and my hurt must never be your gain.
Don’t remember me,
For I won’t remember you.
I was nothing to you and you gave nothing to me.
I am done, gone. God, let me be through!
I didn’t die that day, although for the longest while I wished I had. I lived on my tortured and meaningless life for years, until I had gained the strength to escape, but not by death. I learned a lot about myself that day and I shall never forget the depth of my tortured soul at that point in my life. They took everything from me and the ghost of their memory haunts me still.
I may feel broke inside, but I won’t admit; even though, I know that the reality of my given strength lies within my brokenness, which has inevitably made me strong. It is all in me and is all the same, strength from brokenness, a simple part of who I am and what my life has made me. I must learn to not be ashamed, but to accept it as a gift that has made me thus; knowing that if it had not been mine, I would not be me.
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Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from snartist
Monday, January 22, 2007 - 20:25
 (Agree/Disagree?)
I just read your article. I don't know what to say, except that you've given me hope for the future. You're right, we've got to move on. Thanks, Patrick
(reply to this comment)
| from Oddie
Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 22:48
(Agree/Disagree?)
Actually, I've never really been seriously suicidal. It was always escape to live. I attempted escaping TF for the first time when I was 6. One sibling was in on the attempt. We packed bags with clothes, food, even a frying pan (Not sure why we thought to bring that) and some TF books. After leaving, we had broken down crying about leaving behind our youngest sister, and had turned around to go bring her as well, and got caught by police on the way back home. So I was caught by police and brought back, only to be subjected to further interrogation and cleansing by local TF leaders, namely a one Marianne (which I remember as being a overweight caucasian woman). I remember refusing to tell the police my reasons for wanting to escape.
My moms hubby attempted to kill me once when I was an OC, and since then I've always had a strong desire to stay the fuck alive. Where there is life there is hope. I was born a victim, I refuse to die one. First I wanted revenge, then I just wanted to prove them wrong. Then I just wanted freedom.
Why do we want escape? Because what we have does not make us happy. It crushes us. We want to be happy. We are not happy where we are. But if we die, we can never reach that state of happiness. I can understand that at times it seems we could never reach that state. I've been there. It seems we'd end our existence from beginning to end in misery. It seems pointless to try. But we only live once. I'll take my chances. If I live my life in misery, and die in misery, I'd still have done it my way. I'd have nobody to blame. Where there is life there is hope. The games not over till you hear the bell ringing. If you throw the towel, you end all hope of victory. Yes, there are times when it seems there is no hope. But hope is always there. No matter what the odds, you always have hope, as long as you live. Hope is something in us, its a mindset. As long as you live, as long as you have your will, you have hope. It's a choice. Where there is life, there is hope. And where there is hope, there is life. I'm not a victim, but a survivor.
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|  From rainy
Monday, January 22, 2007, 00:32
(Agree/Disagree?)
That's also what kept me going in my last relationship. I could feel everything around me trying to grind me down and I felt there was no longer any purpose for me to stay alive, the one thing that kept me hanging in was the thought, "But then they win. Then they are right. I am useless." I just didn't want them to be right. I didn't want to let them win. That pierced through to my captive brain and lodged there.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | from Nancy
Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 08:30
(Agree/Disagree?)
I've been there, too. Alone in a room, covered in bruises. The thought of escaping the house at night and going to the neighbors to call the police sustains me. But, I wonder if a house full of children not going to school and the bruises on our bodies is enough for the police to take us away permanently. At last, I realize it is not, and if I tried and it was not enough, it would turn out worse than ever. We would be brought back to them, again. As you put it, "no way out."
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| From Oddie
Monday, January 22, 2007, 01:14
(Agree/Disagree?)
But as you now realize, gritting your teeth and bearing it, waiting for your moment. Hope, that was your way out. Why do we dispair? Why are we sad? Because we don't have what we want. Whether it be love, or freedom, or joy. We despair cause something is missing. But when we die, when the game is over, when we give up, when we give up our lives, we close the little gap in the door. We seal our own fate. It's always that same reason. That's why I never developed a dependency on drugs, became a hopeless alcoholic, jumped off a cliff, or murdered my stepfather. All those temptations came around at different points in my life. But it comes down to this, "how does what I'm contemplating take me closer to what I want?". When we throw the towel, we might end the pain. But at the same time, we throw away any chance of victory.(reply to this comment) |
| | from house1a
Saturday, January 20, 2007 - 18:24
(Agree/Disagree?)
I too have been at that place that you describe. I hate over-dramatizing things, but I really felt as you did. If you were a child in the 80's and in TF, you probably have a story that is similar.
I was eight, and truly thought about suicide. It felt like an easier route than life. I wasn't left alone long enough for it to happen, and I'm glad for that. I'm happy to be alive today!
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| from profoundly
Friday, January 19, 2007 - 20:39
(Agree/Disagree?)
It's been so long, but I still feel it today. No way out. Unless I make one.
(reply to this comment)
| from idiots anonymous
Friday, January 19, 2007 - 09:38
(Agree/Disagree?)
I don't want to turn this into some sad, pathetic, depressing, sob-story contest, but I must say that I love the poem you wrote and I completely understand the situation you were in in life when you wrote it. I was definately in a similar state of mind and am sure many others of us were as well. I never attempted to kill myself while in TF, but I used to dream of strangling my 'uncles and aunties' and wake up in a cold sweat, my heart racing...that was probably the highlight of my day too!
It's hard to put into words how destroyed my confidence was and how psychologically incapable I was of trying to come to terms with that feeling of inadequacy that was constantly instilled in me. Anyways, I'm going to shut up. Just wanted to say that I liked the poem and appreciate you posting it and the story surrounding its creation.
(reply to this comment)
| From rainy
Sunday, January 21, 2007, 01:26
(Agree/Disagree?)
After moving into big homes from about the age of nine, my childhood nightmares began, and all with a recurring theme. Mum couldn't look after us any more, we were now in our 'groups', and I was trying desperately to keep my family together and save my little brothers and sisters.
In one of them, the home decided that all the children needed to line up and be shot in their groups for security reasons. I was trying to tell my Mum what was going on, but she was in meetings with shepherds and would get upset at being interrupted and say, "Go back to your group" "But Mum, they're killing us!" "If that's what your teacher says you need to do, you need to do it"
And my dad would shake his head solemnly and intone "Revolutionaries never ask questions", the answer he always gave in real life when I asked him why we had to live the way we lived.
In another dream, they decided to freeze all the children in the home. I was desperately trying to save my younger siblings, and had snuck two of them away from their teachers, but couldn't find Lisa. I searched for her, and she'd been one of the first ones to be frozen. Her back was frozen solid, and she was non-responsive, but I felt she was still alive, and I carried her up to the bedroom, trying to thaw her out with a hairdryer, but the guilt that I wasn't able to save her in time was so strong that I can still feel it just remembering the dream...I think because in real life she was always a target of her teachers, and I felt so powerless...Shit Lisa, that can still make me cry.(reply to this comment) |
| | From murasaki
Tuesday, January 23, 2007, 05:11
(Agree/Disagree?)
I used to have very similar nightmares when I was around 8 and 9 years old, except mine were about the endtime. I'm the oldest in a large family and I remember always trying to herd my younger brothers and sisters around trying to "save" them while my mom and dad just went apathetically to their fate. I remember the same feeling of helplessness that you described, trying to get my mom and dad to wake up and realize what was going on. Wierd isn't it. (reply to this comment) |
| | From live_fast-die_young
Tuesday, January 23, 2007, 09:19
(Agree/Disagree?)
At the age of 6 I began having chronic nightmares. These lasted till about the age of 11. The nightmares were mostly about "the endtime"....featuring me and my siblings being boiled in oil (Like some John guy who wouldn't obey and wouldn't boil either.) or frozen to death, naked, while older men (not always the anti-christ's men--sometimes familiar "uncles") watched. I would try to save my brothers by lying that they were not Christians, then would wake with feelings of guilt for having lost my crown.
There were others where I thrust knives into my chest repeatedly because I was angry at being unfairly punished and hoped this would prove my unhappiness to the adults.
I don't think it's strange we had similar dreams. I think many of us might have had similar themes of fear, considering the stories and reading material that we were given, as well as the similar forms of punishment.
I was absolutely terrified of some the bed-time story tapes (Though surprisingly not Tom the Gangster!) as they just creeped me out ("The day of miracles is not past. the day of miracles is not paaaast...."), and I knew I would have bad dreams. And then to make matters worse, there were some teachers who would dictate HOW we should lie in bed: hands over the covers, on our back, facing the wall, etc. I wasn't able to block out the words!
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| | From anony
Tuesday, January 23, 2007, 06:38
(Agree/Disagree?)
Gosh, childhood nightmares.
I used to have one recurring nightmare for ages... it finally stopped a few years ago, but it would make me feel sick and dirty and really mad at myself for being so pervy.
In the dream i would be sleeping and my dad (usually my dad, but sometimes one other auntie) would come to my bed and have sex with me. I remember getting up and running to the bathroom to be sick whenever i had it.
I know how it sounds, but let me state for the record that i was never sexually abused by any of the adults or my dad (at least not im my memory). I did grow up in a very sexually charged atmosphere and had sex as a child but only with kids my own age.
I am terribly glad i dont have these anymore but they caused me so much guilt and frustration as a kid and young teen. I have often wondered what caused them.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | From sarafina
Sunday, January 21, 2007, 12:59
(Agree/Disagree?)
Sam do you really think this is the right thread to ask that question on? It only distracts from the content of this article and has nothing to do with it. I don't know about everyone else but it kinda bothers me when serious and helpful articles get hijacked and turned into debates or threads that don't pertain to the original discussion. You eventually have to sort through all the jibber when your looking for the comments that pertain. Just my opinion.(reply to this comment) |
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