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I attempted suicide at sixteen. Feelings of worthlessness and disgust with my own body and the idea of intimacy caused me to severely reject my “first love”, and in such a distasteful way. I broke up with him at my junior prom, at a school he didn’t even go to. He didn’t do anything wrong. I was ruled by Catholic guilt and putting my vulnerability on display severely triggered me.
It was also my tenth change of schools, then living with my single mother across town.
I couldn’t stand myself then, and not for many years would I understand why.
He didn’t deserve it. He was a sweetheart with only positive intent and although we truly loved one another, I could not side-step my own feelings of self worth. For breaking his heart I thought it already too late for me, that I’d never be suitable for love. So I took the pills and laid down in my bed. I “took my life” that weekend.
The next day came, and I could barely function. I fell down a flight of stairs, landing on a basement floor. My mother discovered me and an ambulance soon came. I didn’t know who I was, what year it was, or what I had done. At the hospital, I was hastily treated for a concussion and released. I didn’t know I had taken those pills, so they cycled through my body, ravaging my brain and destroying my recollection of facts and memory. What came after is its own story.
I know what took me to deaths door. The rejection and abuses I experienced at an early age caused me to feel such seething self hatred that any degree of vulnerability triggered extraordinary fear and I’d eject myself from any situation no matter the circumstance.
My first love said I was like Lucy from the Peanuts, that every time he’d go to kick the ball I’d swipe it away.
I’ve spent my life unraveling the mysteries within through all of my relationships, always leading me back to myself and the one true path.
My self love has been hard fought, and I am living proof that it’s worth the work.
Only love can make you free.
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Handmade sacred heart of clay, desert rabbit pelt, antique arrow, metal, enamel, chiffon, wire, handmade frame.
2020
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