Once upon a time there was a little girl. That little girl had no
father but regardless for the most part she was happy. The little
girl's family consisted of herself, her mother and her older brother.
Throughout the little girls childhood they moved around from one place
to another always low on money. With the pay of a single mother the
little girl's family found it hard to survive by themselves. When the
little girl entered preschool, life was finally going as planned. The
little girl's mom had found a good boyfriend and started going back to
college. From there on everything started to turn around for the little
girl and her family. The family settled down in a cozy house in a
pleasant neighborhood and all seemed well. For that little girl life
was peaceful and the only worries she had were simple. For years that
simple and happy life continued with only minimal bumps in the road. A
few spurts of drama, or a rage fueled fight that was eventually
resolved. In fifth grade the Little girl gained a new father. For her
it seemed like her family was finally complete. When the little girl
watched her mom walk down the aisle she couldn't help but be filled with
joy. The groom and soon to be father was a kind man who took care of
them, watching out for the little girl and her brother like a real
father would. The little girl never knew that this event would be a
turning point in her life, the last shred of happiness she felt before
the despair. It wasn't long afterwards that the little girl entered
into the sixth grade, moving up the school ladder into middle school.
From there on the little girl's life changed. You see the little girl
was really curious, and as the say curiosity killed the cat.
It all started one afternoon, on some long forgotten weekend. The
little girl's mother was upset and yelling at someone over the phone in
the bathroom by the little girl's room. The little girl, afraid and
worried, crept around into the hallway pressing her unprepared ear to
the wall, attempting to find out why her mother was so upset. Soon she
could make out her mother's words, occasionally interrupted by brief
pauses and sobs, "...I can't deal with this right now!... No you don't
understand I just.. I can't do this!... GOD DAMMIT I MIGHT HAVE CANCER
FOR GODS SAKE! ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW?!" The world around the little
girl started to break. It seemed odd, what was once so firm and
unmoving now seemed fragile like glass, breaking with every move the
little girl made. With every breath the little girl took the world grew
darker and darker. With every step the girl took the world shattered
into millions of tiny pieces, threatening her with their sharp edges and
dangerous realities. With desperation the little girl ran as far away
as possible, but she couldn't hide from the truth of the words the
little girl's mom had just said. Like a ricocheting bullets words
bounced around in her head, she couldn't think, she couldn't breathe.
Days afterwards the girl moved around in a haze constantly thinking and
debating. I must have heard wrong, the little girl said to herself. It
can't be true, the little girl desperately hoped. Those days seemed
like a living nightmare but eventually she convinced herself it was
nothing. At most it was just a tumor on the skin that could be removed
simply and without any worry. At least that's what she and her closest
friends wanted to believe. After a few more days passed it seemed to be
an unnecessary worry, a distant thought that the little girl managed to
put behind her with uneasiness. Well that was until one day when the
little girl's mother and father called a family meeting.
Together the four family members huddled into the living room and a
tense mood was in the air. The little girl's mother was looking down at
the floor and it was silent for a bit. The little girl's mother
glanced up looking straight into the little girl's eyes and the little
girl knew almost immediately what the mother was going to say. Suddenly
struck by the urge to cover her ears and run away, the little girl
prepared for the words that were to come next. Cancer. Big fat
stinking cancer. The little girl's mother opened her mouth but the girl
already knew what was going to happen. The mother talked for a while,
filling everyone in. Breast cancer, and a rarer kind of inflammatory
one at that. Luckily it seemed as though the doctors had caught it just
in time so there was a big chance at recovery but to get there it would
be a long journey.
Over the next month the little girl's family prepared for all the
changes. The family went out shopping buying hard candies to deal with
the metallic taste that the dreaded chemo would leave. The little girl's
mother cut her hair short so that when she started to lose hair it
wouldn't be as big of a deal. The mood changed drastically for the
little girls family and soon there were no more jokes or happiness.
Soon chemotherapy started. The little girl's mother started losing hair
by the hand full. She would comb through her hair with her hands and
clumps would fall out. Bags of hair were tied next to the little girl's
mother's chair. Eventually it came to the point that she decided to
just shave off all of her hair. The little girl was terrified. To the
little girl her mother had always been strong, always there to support
her. Cutting of her mother's hair was a symbol of powerlessness to this
merciless disease that ravaged even the strongest and bravest of
people. With tears in her eyes the little girl watched as her mother's
hair was shaved off bit by bit.
As the months past things grew worse and worse for the little girl's
family. The little girl felt like a zombie, living a constant nightmare.
At night the little girl wouldn't be able to sleep, either kept awake
by the moans of pain or by the fears of what tomorrow may hold. The
little girl was afraid of sleeping for she felt that when she opened her
eyes her mom wouldn't be there anymore. The little girl couldn't take
the pain and the pressure. She sealed herself off to the world, away
from the pain and away from her family. She abandoned her mother and
herself. The little girl drowned the moans of her mother in music,
escaping from her helplessness. Months passed like this and the little
girl began to hate the feeling of helplessness. She hated it so much
that whenever she felt helpless she would become inexplicably angry and
upset. This helplessness could be triggered by anything from being
touched to even trusting someone.
In seventh grade the little girl's mother had her surgery done. A
double mastectomy, which means she got both of her breasts removed. By
this time the little girl was numb, she couldn't feel anything anymore
and just wanted everything to be over with so she could be happy again.
She wanted to wake up from the nightmare she was living. Unable to face
her mother the little girl ignored her, locking herself away in her
room. The little girl couldn't stand to see her mother in pain and
couldn't bear look at her. But from that point on it only got worse.
At night the little girl was kept awake by the cries of her mother. Her
mother who had lost everything, her hopes, her dreams, her future,
cried during the night like a mournful ghost. Every now and then the
little girl would hear parts of a conversation, "They were staring at
me, some even pointed at me... I don't feel like a woman anymore...
people avoid me and treat me like the plague... I DON'T FEEL LIKE A
WOMAN". The only thing the little girl could do was pretend she didn't
hear anything. After the surgery came radiation therapy which resulted
in even more pain.
In eighth grade the little girl lost all of her motivation for
everything. The little girls grade started to drop and she didn't care.
Her friends started to drift away and she didn't do anything to stop
them. It was around this time that the little girl started noticing a
change in her mother. It was subtle at first. The little girl would
come home and hide in her room, trying to get away from the yelling and
anger. It seemed like the little girls mom was always angry now. The
little girl's mother lashed out at anyone and everyone who walked by,
making everything tense and nerve wracking.
The little girl's mother always had to have everything her way. If
something wasn't the way she wanted it she would cause a scene. The
little girl didn't know what to do. She felt guilty, always asking
herself what if she hadn't turn her back on her mother? Would everyone
be happy then? As the little girl's life changed more and more all of
her friends left her. Soon the little girl noticed that none of her
good friends were talking to her anymore. Alone and lost the little
girl couldn't take it. The little girl broke even farther.
Eventually it was time to once again move up on the school ladder and
the little girl became a freshmen in highschool. By then the little
girl had lost all of her friends and barely spoke to her family. Her
mother grew worse with each passing day and her stepdad started to side
with the little girl's mother. One time the little girl was chased
around the house in tears for accidentally dropping the hose on the car
while cleaning off the gutters on top of the roof, even though if she
hadn't had let the hose fall then she would've fallen off herself.
Another time the little girl was almost strangled for losing her phone
in a hotel room while on vacation. The mother took a more mental
approach, downgrading everything the little girl had ever done or said.
The mother would flip flop back and forth between caring and treating
the little girl like air.
Soon the little girl couldn't take it and spiraled deeper and deeper
into depression. She picked up bad habits and started cutting. With
every cut she could forget the pain for a few seconds. In those few
brief seconds she felt as if nothing mattered but that small cut on her
thigh. To the little girl those brief moments were the highlights of
her day. The little girl couldn't sleep at night and grew terrified of
the dark. Her fear of helplessness grew with every passing month and
soon she would get physically sick at simply being touched. The little
girl took lots of sleeping pills every night, not caring if she ever
woke up, the little girl just wanted some sleep. It wasn't long until
the little girl decided it was time to end everything. Tired of all the
pain and of just being tired she made a resolution. One month, the
little girl said, if I am not better or on my way to getting better in
one month then I will end it.
During that one month the little girl found some motivation. She
decided that if she was truly going to end everything that she owed it
to the world to try her hardest to get better first. Whenever it got
hard all she had to do was think there's only one month left, just try.
The little girl did what she could and went to talk to her councilor.
That point was the turning point. With the councilors help the little
girl worked up the courage to talk to her parents about her depression
and self harm. She was wary about what they would say but eventually
she was able to do it. Alone with her mother the little girl was able
to finally bring up the topic and after everything she wanted to say was
said she waited for her mother's response. The little girl's mother
just turned her head and asked one question, "You talked to your
councilor first?" The little girl didn't know what to feel. She felt
mad, sad, and numb at the same time. The little girl tried though, she
continued trying to get the help she needed. She talked to her mother
again, this time about therapy and treatment. The little girl's mother
listened and helped look up a website that listed some of the local
therapists for the little girl. The mother sat the little girl down in
the chair in front of the computer and slowly, almost methodically,
listed out the pricing of each and every one of the therapists listed.
Almost absentmindedly, the mother wickedly commented about insurance not
covering the therapy and complaining about how much it would cost. As
if waking up from a daydream the little girl's mother snapped her head
around with a sickly sweet smile on her face and asked one simple
question, "So do you REALLY want a therapist?"
The little girl was enraged and finally after so long she gave up on her
mother. The person who had been there her whole life was now gone.
The only thing left of the person the little girl had once called her
mother was a bitter monster stuck in the pain of the past. Shaking her
head at the monster's question the little girl stood up and walked out
of the room, never glancing back. Fueled by rage, the little girl
learned that she didn't need her mother's approval to be happy and set
out to achieve it on her own.
After a while the little girl was able to get some great new friends and
finally started to heal. Two years later, the little girl still has
issues with her family but with the help of her friends, the little girl
is able to finally see the better parts of life again. Unfortunately
though, the little girl still has a lot of problems and insecurities
left to deal with, including the fear of helplessness. To this day the
little girl cannot stand to be touched or loved but maybe even that will
eventually be dealt with one day.
If you haven't realized by now the little girl is me and everything in
this story is real. I am living proof that things can and will get
better. I left some parts out of the story(like anorexia and some of
the more recent events) because I just couldn't find a way to word them
and I felt that the story was getting really long but these are the most
major events in my life. This is unedited and a rough draft so sorry
for any of the grammatical errors I probably made. I wrote this for
many reasons, mainly because I can't stop thinking about this and
because I feel like some people need to know that there is a better
ending out there. This is my first and probably last post on this site
since I found this place just to dump my thoughts. Thank you for
reading and I wish you all a great and happy life.
