It's already a tree

 

Last Wednesday when Mark and I were talking, somehow suicide came up and how people are always so afraid to ask if you are thinking of suicide or have a plan. No one wants to plant that seed, many people think that if they mention even the word Suicide, a light bulb will come on and the person will become suicidal.  But the fact is that a lot of the time, nothing is being planted because by the time they say something; by the time that someone cares enough to ask that thought could already be a tree.  

I think of growing up and the times that I didn't want to live anymore.  I wanted someone anyone to ask what was going on with me. Not one person ever did. Not one person cared to ask about the things that happened to me. Not one person  When my arms were bruised and scratched not one person asked if I was ok.  When my wrists looked like hamburger meat, because of the flashbacks in the shower.  Not one person said a thing.  I think that in my head I came to the point, that I didn't care of people asked anymore, because I knew it wouldn't happen.  The summer that I went to Florida, I didn't want to come home. I had no idea how I was going to take my life, but I knew that I wouldn't be on that plane back to Texas.  I could not be hurt anymore; I could not hold it all in. I could not hold in the sadness that I did something terribly wrong to lose Bella. I could not afford to have my body bruised battered and tortured anymore.   I could not walk on eggshells in a family that never cared.  

My thoughts were already the tallest strongest oak, and I wanted nothing more than for someone to see me, and get me help. 

There were many years, around the time that I pressed charges that I would get behind huge 18 wheelers carrying huge loads of pipes and planks.  My only thoughts were just thinking if all those things just fell off, onto my car and it would all just be all over for me. I would think just let one pipe come loose and come flying through my windshield. Bam just like that, I wouldn't be alive anymore.  I honestly wasn't sad about that.  I was wishing for something to happen.  When I would make it home from Denton to plano in 30 minutes, there was a hope that something would happen, and I just wouldn't be alive anymore.  Those were my daily thoughts.  I had once tried to swallow pills after I was raped but got sick and couldn't keep the pills down.  There was the time that I couldn't swallow the pills and was so angry at myself that I felt like I couldn't even do that right.  

Today as hard as things get those thoughts are far away.  I understand exactly why I felt those things and feel terrible for the girl who survived so much hell. So please please please ask the hard questions because you never know just how big that the tree already is. You could be the one to make such a difference. No one knew just how big that tree was for me that Summer in Florida.  I am grateful for that pelican that showed up each and every day.  I am grateful to have found the whales, and a connection to something other than pain. 

I heart your heart and am grateful I am in a different place.  Standing on that Balcony in Florida, I could have never imagined where I would be today.