Surviving Insanity

By Audrey Michelle

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Surviving Insanity

I once tried to kill myself.

I wasn`t successful in my attempt, though I don`t think I cared either way at that point. I had reached rock bottom and ambivalence is the only emotion that survives there.

It is said that only the good die young and I have never been good enough for anything.

Thoughts of dying were constant within my abused mind. They occupied my bed, attended every meal and followed my every movement. I was buried alive and the air that I breathed lasted way too long.

In the moment that could have been my last, I didn`t know the difference between right and wrong. I was crazy. I wasn`t the "hearing voices" kind of crazy though. There was only one voice I ever heard and it was not self-created. I could close my eyes and shield his face but there was no way to vanquish his belittlement. His words were dehumanizing and the pain they inflicted was willful. Through the years of torture his beliefs became my own. Once he gained full control of my mind he manipulated reality, distorted my perceptions and forced my behaviors.

If I had died, it wouldn`t have been by suicide.

The attempt was involuntary, a reflex. His abuse was like a hammer that never stopped striking, in the instance of my near death experience, he just happened to hit the right tendon.

Somehow I was able to escape his manipulation while maintaining my life. It took all that I had and years of recovery, but I am now as close to sane as I`ve ever been.

In retrospect, I realize I was accountable for the attempt on my life. I was brainwashed however nothing and no one can dominate a mind that does not surrender control.

I no longer desire to die and there is something to be said for surviving insanity; Lunacy makes for really good poetry.

 

-- Audrey Michelle

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