There Was A Time In My Life Where Darkness Defined My Existence: Chapter 1

By: SherryJo Crandall

Word on the Street Issue 47, September 2024

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There was a time in my life where darkness defined my existence. I felt like I was being swallowed whole and there was no one to help me.  That is often how people who commit or attempt suicide feel.  They often experience the feeling of being alone in a crowd.  I have struggled all my life with depression and feelings like those above. My journey was made all the more difficult by a family that had no clue and still have no real clue. They, when they take the time to notice, see how the struggle is hard and challenging but don’t give a flying fig.

My mom once told me that when I turned five, I changed drastically. She never did elaborate on that so I never knew what she meant. I have a feeling now that even at the age of five, I was showing signs of depression and anxiety. Looking back on what I can remember of my childhood, the signs were there. 

The journey from that five year old child to the adult writing this story has been filled with bumps, peaks and valleys.  They often defined the person I am and will be. It’s so hard to describe the feelings that 

Depression serves to isolate first and then gradually wears down our natural defenses. You begin to believe others when they say things like, “Wish you were never born,” and “You are worthless!” Your inner voice soon convinces you that maybe they would be better off without you. 

My first attempt was at the age of 11. It was a tumultuous time in my life.  It was at this time my parents divorced. I felt my world come crashing down around me. My life wasn’t normal anymore. I didn’t know how to deal with the changes and still don’t like dealing with change. The onset of hormone driven teenage years plus this was too much for me to deal with. On top of that, I was an overweight kid with no real friends and brothers who took immense pleasure in beating me up or forcing me to fight my other brothers until someone got hurt. It was usually me that ended up with the injuries. 

I ended up taking the pills, with a glass of water, to my room. I remember wearing my pj’s and swallowing between 30 and 60 of my mother’s diet pills. I don’t know the reason for it but I woke up two days later. I had slept for that long. These pills were, at that time, legal speed. They were meant to speed up your metabolism and help you lose weight but in me they made me sleep. The immensely funny thing is my family had no clue what was going on. When I told my mother years later what I had done she didn’t believe me. 

In this attempt, I thought about it, figuring out how to do it. I found my mother’s diet pills and pondered what it would be like to take them. Would I feel any pain? Would I go to sleep and never wake up? Would they cause my heart to just stop?  I thought about how the people around me would be better off without me, never really thinking about the pain and guilt they would have to go through because of my actions.  Even to this very day, I feel guilty that I attempted to push these emotions on my family.

I thought about it, even showed signs but because my family had no idea what was going on, the signs often fell on deaf ears. School was no different.  I did manage to have a few teachers that managed to get in but they really didn’t see the pain that I was going through. Suicide, or thoughts of suicide serve to isolate you. 

To this day there is one who doesn’t believe he abused me and I don’t ever think he will change his mind. I have long ago given up on him and don’t allow him to have any part of my life.  The rest know that there are more forms of abuse than physical abuse. I have long suffered from the scars of the emotional abuse that they in their stupidity have heaped on me, only recently learning to come out from the shadows of the abuse.