I’ve never been the pretty one, or the popular one.
I’m not even close to being the poster child for “America’s sweetheart”. I’m not the smartest girl in the world. I’m not a size two, or even a size ten. I mess up daily. These things don’t define me. These are nothing but chemical failures. I hate that just because I grew up in a small town, in a happy church going family, people assume that THAT was my life. God, I wish that it was. That’s just simply not the truth.
I have dealt with mental disorders my whole life. Bipolar disorder, ADD, Depression, and even Suicidal Ideation. On numerous occasions just talking to my peers in a group on the topic of any kind of struggle, you name it, I’ve been told that my opinion is irrelevant because I grew up in a “Perfect Home”. On some levels they were right. But, oh they’re so wrong.
I grew up with the best parents possible for me. My mom and dad divorced when I was so young that I had no clue that it wasn’t normal. And that made it that much easier to love my Stepmom. My mom lived further away and was facing her battles in life with addiction. I also had my brother Colton, stepbrother Robby, and half-sister Autumn, and half-brother Noah, in the same household. I also had Joshua and Keylin, my half-brothers that weren’t in my life.
I love them all equally. I hadn’t really fully processed what I was feeling within my heart until I lost my brother Colton in January 2009. After that I didn’t want a life without him. I was angry. I was sad. Depressed. My dad and step-mom did everything within their power to console me, and to help me. I tried to conceal everything in me. It felt like every time I tried to talk I just cried because i felt that no one could understand.
When I was in eighth grade I came to my first breaking point. I remember having what I now know, was a panic attack. It came out of nowhere, and everywhere at the same time. I was thinking about my brother’s funeral. I was thinking of how my mom was late. I was thinking I hated her. I was so out of my mind, I felt like she was more in the room than I was. I remember working on a paper, the led in my pencil had broken, and I was still trying to write. I laughed. It reminded me of myself. It was broken, but it was still there;unusable. Just as the bell rang for lunch I asked a classmate for a pencil sharpener. I told her that I would return it, I had planned on it. I went to the girls room and sat against the wall in front of the mirrors. I wanted to write. I wanted to scream. I hated myself. I sat there staring at myself and being overwhelmed with rage as I realized I was growing into my mothers face. Without even thinking about it, I broke the sharpener and drug the blade across my face. I felt nothing. No pain. No relief. The next thing I remembered was sitting just inside the cafeteria door and wishing I was gone. I watched the other kids as they talked with friends. The laughter. The smiles. I wanted it all. It came as no surprise to me that I was there, on the floor, tears and blood dripping from my face, for 10 minutes before anyone even knew I was there. I remember my dad taking me home, and leaving me with my step-mom. I remember feeling like I shouldn’t speak. I couldn’t. I was choking on air. I took a shower, and I remember feeling what felt like fire on my arms. I don’t remember doing it, I had carved words into my arms. I got dressed and put on a jacket. I sat on the floor next to the recliner where my Step-mom was sitting and put my head on her shoulder. I cried and then I slept. They took me to a counselor. She didn’t help. My parents helped me stay busy. I was in the Student Athletic Trainer program for my Freshman and Sophomore years of high school. I got my first job at Dairy Queen. I became so busy that I still couldn’t keep up with my heart. I buried it. I had friends. I didn’t go out, but they told so many adventurous stories I felt like I had. My junior I finally got up the nerve to message a boy that I liked from church. He was musically talented and everything that you could hope for in love. That’s what I thought, but I was in love with the idea of love. It was something I looked for everywhere I went, and I thought I’d found it. We gave our parents hell in the beginning. His family didn’t approve of our relationship. We were both so stubborn and wouldn’t listen to any given advice.
The summer after graduation I got married to the boy that I thought I’d have forever with. We had a great relationship. We had our baby boy.
But, somewhere along the line the bow that he made out of me turned into a knot. And I wanted anything to fix it. I prayed for a miracle. In October 2016, I found out that I was pregnant with our second child. I thought this was the miracle, God has answered my prayers. At our third doctors visit we came to find out there was no heartbeat. I became so depressed so quickly. I thought “Was I being ungrateful for my son? Was this not enough?” I told myself that I was undeserving of anyone’s love. I told myself that I didn’t know how to give love. I wanted everything to end. And it almost did. It started as an argument about mine and his mother’s relationship. He told me that he didn’t care if I was miserable for the next twenty-five years, I was stuck with him. Just like that all over again, I was back in front of a mirror thinking I didn’t deserve love. I downed 8 hydrocodone capsules, drank half a bottle of NyQuil, and began drinking wine coolers. It wasn’t fast enough I wanted the pain in my heart to be gone. I grabbed a pocket knife and I tried to slit my wrist. I could barely hold it because of everything in my system. I couldn’t feel it. I was in and out of this weird sleep. Just before being taken to the hospital, I remember my ex-husband pulling open the door to the bathroom which I had locked. His mom is a nurse so he let her in. I remember being told that I was stupid, and that all I wanted was attention. She asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. No.
I got up to walk to the car, she tried to help stable me, and I pushed her. I didn’t want her there. Hell, I didn’t even want to be there. On the way to the hospital I was told that I was going to be put in a “home” and I was told that my son was going to be kept from me, because I didn’t love him. But, that was not true.
I have had some of the best and the worst experiences in the last 10 years. But, it wasn’t until this last year that I learned how to deal on my own. To love myself. To love others. To have hope. To see the good in the bad. I have gone from having a nice car, to walking. I’ve gone from having a nice apartment, to living with and depending on my mom 5 hours from everything I’ve ever known. And the hardest part, I’ve gone from being able to see my beautiful Gavi everyday, to once a month.
I’ve learned that I can’t be prideful with him. He comes before me, and he always will. It’s all about how we look at things. Because I could sit here and cry all day about how I don’t get to see him, but I won’t. Because I know that I need to do something about it. All I need to look at is how I am going to get back to him. It says a lot about my character now compared to a year ago.
I’ll be the first to say If I had half of this pressure on the old me I wouldn’t be breathing.
And that’s what this takes, it’s everything in me. The good, the bad, and my chemically imbalanced brain.
All of me.
-CasslynnCaye 05/30/18