A Dark Time

I was 19.  Married. Alienated from my family.

My husband…an ex-con with a desire to spend more time with his friends, partying with his booze and his drugs.  Nightly.  Some nights…some mornings…he never came home.

When he did, there were arguments, complete with mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.  Then he’d sleep.  Only to get up, shower and be gone again.

Then there was my baby.  He was beautiful and who I could rely on to love me…as much as he relied on me to care and love him.

But that didn’t stop the pain.  So much pain.  And loneliness.

It overwhelmed me.  Pushed me toward an abyss where I shouldn’t have been.  Not at 19.

The first time I tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills, he kicked the bathroom door in and slapped the pills from my hands.  Shook me, pleaded with me not to do that again. 

I loved him sooo much but he loved his partying life more.  He couldn’t understand how much I depended on him and even if he did…he didn’t care.  Not really.

Slowly…I slid toward that abyss and tried a second time.  I poured several pills into my hand and was about to swallow them when the silence of the apartment was broken.  My son lay in his crib…crying.

Reality sunk in, and I flushed the pills down the toilet.  All of them.

I couldn’t let my child grow up without a mom.  I knew that road already as I had lost my mom when I was a teenager.

I swore on my son’s life that I would never, ever attempt to take my life again.  No man would ever push me toward that dark place in my soul again.

I was 19.  Changed.  Stronger. 

Alive.