Woke Up Crying…
By Joyce Davis
Recently I woke up feeling a little sad but that happens sometimes. I remembered a friend from Twitter who has been working with me on an article she wants to write about race sent me a link to something she wrote in her blog. It was titled the cost of a broken heart. She described the many times of being married and divorced that had left her broken still to this day. On came the waterworks.
I could not stop the tears from flowing from my eyes and even now I write this with tears choking me and flowing freely from my eyes. I am ever so thankful that you can not see the ugly cry face going on behind my keyboard. I know that we are all unique and comparing lives is not what we should do but I couldn’t help it on this Father’s Day. I could not stop looking at all the heartbreak she had and wish that that was my life and my sob story.
My sob story was so much worse than broken hearts and loss of money but a life stolen before it ever started.
I was raped for the first time when I was 8 years old and I will spare you all gory details but by the time I was twenty one I had been raped four times, molested twice, and attempts of rape three different times and one of those was a kidnapping. My first memory of wanting to commit suicide I was nine years old with a butcher knife to my thumb because my sister told me if you cut your thumb off you would bleed to death and they would never be able to stop the bleeding. I still have both my thumbs as my sister was able to talk me out of this idiotic plan and I am grateful to this day I still have my thumbs. I tried again at thirteen taking a full bottle of Pamprin. It didn’t work then either. I threw up for twelve hours straight. My last attempt was at fifteen and I got stronger pills that I thought would do the job and my sister saw me and told my mom and my mom put her finger down my throat to make me throw up the medication.
It really is a miracle that I am still around to tell my tale. Father’s Day is a trigger for me because I do not speak to my father anymore. He was not around for most of my life but when he did come back to being in my life he wanted me to rekindle my relationship with my brother Keith. Keith was one of my molesters. My dad says we are family and I should forget it ever even happened. It is not like he raped me or beat me; he only touched me and I should be able to just forget it ever happened. I can’t forget it ever happened.
Days like today I would usually cry and fall into a deep depression and try to convince myself why living is better than dying. Some days that argument is not won by the pros of living but I live because of my determination that I will never attempt suicide ever again. Everyday of my life I feel less valuable than other people. No one else is the garbage of who I am. Trash abused and hurt and thrown out more times than I can count on one hand. BUT I AM NOT TRASH. I just feel this way because life has dealt me so many terrible blows I honestly don’t know how I am still here.
No matter how I feel about myself I feel the need to fight every urge that tells me I am not good enough to be in the world. Fight every urge that tells me I am nothing more than a heap of trash stinking up any room I set foot in. I fight my voice that tells me to do yourself a favor and just get it over with why don’t you. I fight and I fight hard because I deserve to keep trying to have a good life despite all the pain I have seen and been through. I truly believe that somewhere there are better and happier days for me. I am worthy of love. I just have to keep reminding myself that. I may not be the best writer in the world. I make mistakes in life and I beat myself up like nobody’s business, but what I do have is my voice. My words of pain that I share with the world to say no matter what you go through you are worth fighting to see a better day.
Today I woke up in tears and I will possibly cry all day today but at some point I will pull myself together and remind myself I am worth fighting for. I am worthy to see a better life because it could be just around the corner.
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