30-Day Challenge: Ending It All

Day 5: A Time You Thought About Ending Your Own Life

I'm not saying that I never have a case of the blues and wonder if life is worth it...we all have those and we move on just as quickly as we had the thought...but there was only one time I ever seriously thought about taking my own life.

My relationship with my parents, my dad in particular, was not an easy one.  I always thought much of it was me, that there was something about me that he just didn't love...like maybe the fact that I wasn't his, that I came along with my mom.  Sort of a package deal.  Lately, though, my mom has been voicing some things she has never said or even hinted at before.  Now, 23 years after his death, I know he was, perhaps not emotionally abusive, but definitely controlling.

As a young teenager, I wasn't really a bad kid, but I was a bit rebellious, something that was probably made worse by the extreme strictness my dad ruled my life with.  I was miserable.  I got grounded for every little infraction and even when I wasn't grounded there was so much I wasn't allowed to do.  

I honestly don't know what set me off one Saturday.  I'm sure I was grounded, but I was home alone.  Both of my parents worked and I was often on my own. Anyway, I was angry and hurt about something and decided I had had enough, that I would end it all and then they'd be sorry.

I knew that there was a bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet and my plan was to take them all.  A plan that I never completed because the pills were not there on the shelf where they always sat, nor were they in my parents room or anywhere else (I searched).  I don't remember the rest of the day or what I did with the hours, but at some point I remember getting past that "mood" and being glad I hadn't done it.

I also remember getting a bath that night and opening the medicine cabinet while I was in the bathroom and there, right where they always were, sat the pills.  And that was the first time I had an inkling that God had put His mark on me and was watching over me.