A failed attempt

I remember so clearly that evening, sitting in front of the piano, in a world of my own.

What ever happened before, it didn’t matter. Each key, each chord I played dissolved the ridicule I encountered. I was safe, in the one place I could truly relax and escape.

I felt a blow to my head, I’m pushed forward as my hands slip from the keys and I’m brought back to reality.

I turn to feel your nose against mine and your breath on my mouth.

Through gritted you whisper.

“You think you’re something, you think you’re better than everyone but you’re nothing, nothing to me, nothing to this family, your worthless”.

You tell me to repeat it, “Say you’re worthless”.

“I’m worthless”.

“Get out of my sight”.

My heart pounding, body numb from exhaustion and fear, I head upstairs passing my brothers on the way who say and do nothing. I close my bedroom door and fall to the ground. I try to hold the tears back, gritting my teeth as hard as I can but I cant stop. There is no one who can help me. At school, at home, there is no escape.

I’m completely alone, lost, defeated.

The door opens hitting my back. My younger brother comes in, naive and pubescent. He looks at me with a smirk and says “alright worthless”, turns and closes the door.

Thats when I no longer had control. As quick as turning on a light I lost the person I was. I’m aware of my thinking, I was able to see what I was doing but no power could stop me.

He’s upstairs talking to mum. I sneak down to the living room where I take a bottle of whisky and leave through the back door into the cold evening. I head to the local village shop, no tears, no feelings of sadness this time, just determination. I purchase a mixture of medicines from the shop and head to the bus stop.

I remember staring at the cocktail of pills in the palm of my hand. “Its the only way to stop this pain”. I place them all in my mouth and slowly, trying not to heave, drink the whisky.

The tears start again, I remember feeling scared at this point, sat in the bus shelter, not knowing what would happen next.

I sit back, close my eyes and wait.

I vaguely remember feeling my body move and thinking that this was it, I was leaving this world for the next.

I gain consciousness, I’m in the back of mums car, I hear her on the phone screaming for help. She asks me to talk to her but I feel myself drifting off again. I close my eyes and inhale a deep breathe.

I open my eyes to a room I haven’t seen before, theres something in my hand, I’m thirsty. I look around to an empty hospital room. The previous nights doings hit me. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, guilty and a failure.

I can’t even kill myself.

A nurse comes in, she takes my blood pressure, temperature and then removes the cannula. All without saying a word, she was judging me.

The doctors come in, a group of them, I cant look at them.

One ask me why I did it while the others take notes. Why would I tell them, a group of strangers. I couldn’t even tell my best friend.

I then have a visit from a psychologist who asks me some questions. Every response fabricated, I was good at that, covering things up.

As he gets up to leave I see my mother come in the room.

She’s exhausted and for the first time I understand what pain behind the eyes looks like. She tries to put on a brave face but I can see this has really hurt her. She says nothing, just hugs me for what seemed an eternity. I felt love, utter love and safety. As our eyes meet, she says just one thing, “why?” How could I tell her the truth, about the man she loves, my step father, the abuser. I couldn’t. I tell her that it was something to do with school and that I was foolish and I was sorry. I said everything she needed to hear.

I return home to find him there, he opens the front door and hugs me. I feel nothing, only a little hope that perhaps this signalled the end, the end of the abuse.

But of course, a week later, life was back to the way it was destined to be.