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Suicide Thoughts
by
Jessica Protzman
When I was in the 4th grade, my parents got a
divorce. At that age it didn’t really take a
huge toll on my life. But when I entered 6th grade
things took a turn for the worse. I started feeling
like I wanted to kill myself.
In 6th grade I started to realize that most of my
friends’ parents were together and that they
were happy. And that most other families didn’t
have abusive fathers that drank a lot. This problem
made me feel so unwanted, because on all the
weekends he had my brother and I, he would end up
going out and coming home drunk. I thought it was
my fault because he didn’t love me enough to
stay home. I was running myself into a brick wall.
What I didn’t realize until recently was that my
so-called dad had been taken over by a bottle many
years ago. He needed it. He felt like he
couldn’t live without it. This alone is what drove
me into a corner. I felt as if I had no other
choice
but to kill myself. The reason being I wasn’t good
enough for him so I shouldn’t deserve a life to
live. The middle of my 6th grade year, I shared
this with my brother, Matt. He then wrote a long
letter to my school counselor, Ms. Cassidy. She
talked to me and then told my mom. Ms. Cassidy
and I developed a great friendship. By the end of
6th grade, I wasn’t thinking about death anymore.
But yet, I still wasn’t over my suicide thoughts
and I knew it.
All through 7th grade Ms. Cassidy and I kept
talking. Deep down inside I wanted to die, but
by this time I knew that I would never have the
guts to kill myself.
Halfway through 8th grade my father finally did
enough to make me not want to be in his life
anymore. One night he came home drunk. Matt and I
had told him before that we didn’t like him
drinking as much as he was. That night Matt was on
the internet at his house, I was sleeping. My
father came home and said something to set off my
brother. They started yelling and woke me
up. I heard my dad tell Matt that if he didn’t want
to be there then he could go ahead and leave.
Matt said fine, and got up to try and go to his room and pack his things. My father realized what he said was wrong, and that this time it was him that messed up. He grabbed my brother in a bear hug like position, where he couldn’t move. Matt was screaming at my father to let him go, saying things like he was never a good father, and that he never cared before so why did he care now. I distinctly remember hearing that he was nothing more than a selfish drunk. Then hearing nothing, I could hear my dad panting from trying to hold Matt from going anywhere.
At this point I thought to myself that this time was different than all the others and my father was drunker than he had ever been before. I ran out of my room, down the hallway, pushing my dad and brother out of the way so that I could get to the phone to call help. I picked up the phone, looked at the numbers, and dialed 9-1-1 as fast as I could. So many emotions were running through my mind right then. When the lady on the other end asked me what the emergency was I told her my dad was drunk and had just told my brother and I to leave the house and now he wouldn’t let us go. She said someone would be there soon to help us. She then asked if he had hurt us that night. I told her not yet; she asked if he had ever hurt us before, I guess it was an answer by itself when I started bawling even harder than I already was. She said she would stay on the phone with me until the cop got there to make sure we were safe. I told her it was okay, because I knew my brother wouldn’t let anything happen to me. At that point, my own brother felt more like a father to me than my actual father ever had been.
After I hung up the phone I went into my room to pack my things. When I walked past my father and Matt, I mumbled that this was it. My dad drunkenly asked what I said. Without any hesitation, I yelled back at him that everything between him and I was over, that I didn’t want him to be my father anymore. When I finished my screaming session at him, I ripped his grip off of my brothers’ shoulders and told him to stop making my life a living hell. When I did this the look on his face was priceless. He hit the wall behind him and then made his way to his bedroom with his head facing the ground. Matt and I packed our things and went out to the driveway right when the cop was pulling up to my fathers’ house. Matt had told him that everything was just blown out of proportion and I got scared and didn’t know what else to do.
Earlier we had called
our grandma and told her that we needed a place
to stay. He offered to escort us to our
grandmother’s house, Matt declined, knowing that
the cop
had better things to do rather than show a couple
of teenage kids to their grandma’s house. On the
ride to grandmas, Matt kept reassuring me that it
wasn’t my fault that this happened to us. And that
I
had done nothing wrong. While walking to my
grandma’s front door, with my brother’s arm around
my shoulder I realized Matt was the closest thing I
had ever had to a father. And that he would be
the only man in my life for a long time because I
wasn’t willing to put myself out there to get hurt
again. Then I thought about me getting married and
if I ever would be able to forgive my father
enough to trust another man. All I knew then was that I loved Matt to death and I was so thankful
that he was there going through this with me.
My grandma ended up staying up most of the night
trying to comfort Matt and me. I had
been crying from the time I got there until I
finally fell asleep. About 4 a.m. I heard Matt
finally let out
his frustration, I was already in bed, and grandma
was in there trying to calm him down. I imagine all
she could do was hold him and tell him that he had
done the right thing by coming over here. Hearing
Matt bawl, trying to be quiet so that I wouldn’t
wake up, made me break down once again. I knew
he hadn’t wanted me to see him cry and that’s why
he had held it in, but I wanted so bad to just go
into the other room which he was in and lay beside
him and just cry. But I knew he would act like he
hadn’t been crying and try to hide his eyes from me
knowing they would be as red and bloodshot as
mine.
A couple of weeks later Matt and I decided to give
our dad a phone call. I told Matt that I
was tired of having dad hurt me physically,
emotionally, and most of all mentally. I shared
with him
what I was planning on saying. That unless he could
stay sober for the two weekends a month I was
there, that I wouldn’t be there anymore. I remember
a long silence before my father finally said that
he was not gong to give up drinking for me. Trying
as hard as I could not to bawl, I told him to have
a nice life. He said that he would, and hoped I had
a good life too. That’s when I hung up the
phone, ran upstairs, and bawled for what seemed
like two hours straight. Matt had continued to talk to
dad on the phone; I figure that he was trying to
convince him that he had said the wrong thing
and that he didn’t want to lose his daughter over
this. After Matt was done talking to dad, he walked
into my room and whispered to me that dad didn’t know what he was saying. He tried to explain what it was like to try and answer an
ultimatum like that coming from one of your own
children. And in return I tried to explain to him
how much dad had hurt me in the past, and I that I
wasn’t willing to put myself through the pain of
that ever again. I looked at him dead square in the
eye and said that I never wanted to see our
so-called “dad” again.
The next few weeks at school are all a blur to me.
Maybe I'm just choosing to block them all
out of my memory, or maybe I was just like a zombie
walking in the halls, not talking to anyone, and
not expressing any kind of emotion. But one of the
main things I do remember about 8th grade is my
science teacher, Mr. Phillips. I had made a
connection with Mr. P from the first or second week
of
school. I remember the day that I had written my
best friend a letter telling her that I woke up
every
morning feeling like I wanted to die. Not knowing
where else to turn she gave this letter to Mr. P.
In
third period, his class, he took me out in the hall
and asked if I had anything on my mind. As a single
tear ran down my face, I said that I was fine. Then
he told me to go ahead and start the walk to Miss
Cassidy’s office. To this day I don’t know why he
felt like he had to be there for me, he had always
told me it was part of his job. I don’t think so. I
believe his job is to make me understand, or even
partially get the mysteries of science. And to try
and stuff all the information he can into my little
brain
so that I can pass a quiz; and to my surprise, I
passed quizzes. Even more, I understood it. What he
thought was his job, I think was just him helping a
lost little girl who didn’t know what else to do,
who
thought she had no one else to turn to.
Ever since the day at my father’s house, I've felt
like I don’t have a father. I know I do, but
I would rather not show that off to everyone I
know. For about a month after this happened all I
could think about was killing myself and how much
better my life and everyone else’s would be if I
was dead. It seemed pointless to me, living without
a father that didn’t love his daughter enough to
know her. Now I am going to be a sophomore in high
school. My freshmen year is just about over,
and I'm about to turn 16. I've only tried to commit
suicide once this year; luckily, that didn’t work.
I'm trying to live my life for the moment and just
enjoy the life I do have instead of wishing for all
the
things I want and don’t have. I'm trying to have
the mindset that everything in my life will happen
for
a reason and will in fact make me stronger in the
end. Everything is done for a reason. With this I
know my life is going in the right direction.
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