At sixteen, my first overdose was nearly my last. I took half a bottle of amitriptyline, an anti-depressant which is highly lethal in large quantities. Mike and mom left to go to dinner with my brother Jeff and a friend of his from his mission. I expected them to be out late and sat in my bedroom listening to Karen Carpenter sing sad songs and writing in my journal. I was severely depressed and actively suicidal. I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I was convinced that I would never live to see twenty-five. I did not expect it and I did not want to. I emptied the bottle in my hand and swallowed two handfuls of pills. Fifteen or so minutes passed and I heard a noise upstairs. Mom was calling for me – but was she not gone? I climbed the steps and went into the laundry room where I found her and Mike. They had forgotten something so had come back. As soon as they saw me they knew something was wrong. Mom demanded, "What did you take!" I could not answer her. Instead, I felt all the bones in my body turn to liquid as I passed out. A moment later I was sitting up in a hospital bed with nursing staff all around me.
Someone was feeding what felt like a garden hose up my nose and I was violently gaging. Once they got the tube placed, they pumped activated charcoal into my stomach. I had no idea why I was suddenly projectile vomiting pure black liquid. I just remember looking at my mom at the foot of the bed and the black vomit hitting her dress as it flew. The more they pumped into me the more I vomited. If I had not been found then I would have died. I was horrified to find I was still alive. After a while? Hours? The rest of the night? Mom and Mike took me home in veiled anger and concern. Why they did not hospitalize me at that point I have no idea. Perhaps they thought they could handle things on their own. With the help of the church, of course. I write:
Pain
A familiar feeling
Looming over
My darkened
Soul
Sorrow
A friendly emotion
Easing into
My confused
Mind
Empty
Always dark
Always present
In my heart
Hate
It kills
It kills me
It's killing
Me.
I was increasingly unstable. Drinking, doing whatever drugs I could to cope with my intolerable life. I soon learned that Mike had been molesting my sisters. After watching a TV show on a girl who was molested by her father he told my mom that he had been molesting both my sisters. They went to the bishop and the bishop had to explain to my mom what incest was. She could not conceive of such a thing and looked to the bishop to guide her. He told her that because Mike admitting the wrongdoing and was repentant she should forgive him and they should work on their marriage. I was horrified that she would let him stay after what he did. My rage came bubbling up again and I began to cut myself to give a voice to the pain. I write:
A razor's edge
A narrow view
A cry for help
Deep in the
Night.
***
The end of my junior year I was seventeen and Mike bought a donut shop. I went to work there during the summer. Mike hired a guy named Seth as the store manager. At twenty-one, Seth was a newly returned missionary with close-cropped brown hair and a nice smile. He was only a few inches taller than I and had a wiry muscled body. We spent the last half of the night making donuts, our clothes becoming infused with melted grease and caked with flour. I had to keep my donut making clothes separate as the old grease odor that never washed off was so pervasive. Seth was flirtatious with me and I was bored. Soon we began to date. I was not that attracted. He was too clean-cut, and, well, a boy. He ate at our house frequently. He was just the kind of man that any Mormon mother would want for her daughter. Mike and mom saw it as a step in the right direction. Maybe this God-fearing young man would bring their wayward daughter around. I dated Seth through my senior year. Dating him was like biding my time, like it was the right thing to do.
Liz and I shared close intimacy throughout. I did not feel the same in Seth's arms as I did in hers. I did not long for his touch, his kisses. I rebuffed most attempts to go farther than kissing. Although sex was a sin outside of marriage, heavy petting was not out of the question. I had already explored that with Paul. Paul was Wayne's stoner friend. We would sit in his car making out and he would become excited, his penis pressed stiffly against his jeans. I would straddle him and move over his erection, freed from his jeans but still tucked in his tighty whities. His wanted me to take his penis in my hand and stroke it as he took my nipples in his mouth. Dry humping was a compromise, because I was, after all, still a good Mormon girl. I got him off that way, with him sucking my breast and me rubbing his cock with my jeaned covered crotch. He was happy, but I was not. It was mechanical. A job. Something I was supposed to enjoy. God knows I tried. At least Paul was a bad boy and fed me alcohol.
Seth was Seth. He loved my long limbs though I could never be thin enough for him. Mike and mom would fret about me not eating, but Seth encouraged it. He could not understand what the fuss was about. To him, I looked great. Soon enough, I realized Seth had a cruel streak and a biting tongue. He found that calling me fat was the worst insult he could hit me with. He would be driving us in his car and we would see a fat woman on the street and tell me that my ass looked like hers. We would eat out and after a few bites of my meal he would take it away and tell me that I had had enough.
While Liz built me up, Seth tore me down. Liz's touch was tender and caring, and Seth's was hard and full of frustrated need. The few times I allowed him to fondle my breasts his excitement grew and he would come in his pants. He would then become angry with me and blame me for his sin. I knew Seth wanted to get married. There is tremendous pressure on a newly returned missionary to get married right away upon returning home. He had a girlfriend before he left for his mission and the threat was always there that if I did not marry him he would marry her. He applied more and more pressure during my senior year as my graduation loomed near. I could not possibly think of marriage, though. I could not belong to a man, his property, shackled by marriage and babies. I knew I should want it, it was what was expected. But I just I could not think of giving up my body to any man.
As the donut shop failed, like all of Mike's money-making schemes, my relationship with Seth flagged. I told him I would not marry him. I was still in high school (read: any excuse!). In a last-ditch effort, Seth showed me the small diamond ring and told me if I did not accept it he would give it to his old girlfriend. Just like that I let him go. I knew I should have felt something but I just did not. Unlike me, Mom and Mike were disappointed. They had hopes of him reforming me, taking me in and making me better. Of marrying a good (read: Mormon) man.
YOU ARE READING
The Hole Within
Não FicçãoMy soul-searching story of a dark past. Growing up in a strict Mormon household I slowly withdraw into a dark world of my own; self-mutilating, suicide attempts and self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. I go into therapy and discover repressed mem...
