Awakening

When I was twenty two, I snuck into my grandmother’s bedroom and stole her bottle of sleeping pills.

I swallowed the lot.

At some point the next day, I woke up. Ravenously hungry. I seem to remember eating about four bowls of cereal, then I went back to bed and slept for the rest of the day. Eventually I woke up for real.

I woke up and realised that I hadn’t died, that I really should have. That no one had found me or saved me or discovered me but that I had still woken up. It was a serious attempt and well executed but I was still here.

There must be a reason.

I told my mother and we dealt with the practicalities of whether there would be any further side effects. Then it was never mentioned again.

There must be a reason.

I told my boyfriend and a couple of friends who added it to my catalogue of ‘crazy’ and never mentioned it again.

Life carried on. My addictions carried on, my crazy head carried on. But no one mentioned that I had just tried to take my own life.

There must be a reason why I am alive because I should be dead. So I decided to find out. I started my long and powerful journey on this road to healing and self discovery. It really is self discovery because what I discovered is that my true self had been totally and utterly buried under my assumed self, the one I thought I was supposed to be. Good and bad.

I am still uncovering it. As I approach 40 I have reached a new layer. A layer of ownership.

I have realised that up until now, up until this very blog as I write and unravel it, I have believed myself to be inherently wrong. The bad one. The one that has had to do therapy and workshops and write and share because I am troubled and damaged.

I am, in part, troubled and damaged, though I wasn’t born this way and I don’t intend to die that way. I am a little broken still but other people have played a part in that and some still do. I have protected those people by believing that it was ‘just me’; I have protected their reputations and facades by being the ‘difficult one’.

Just this week I broke up with a friend because she decided to throw her judgements at me in the name of love. And I realised that that is what I have accepted for nearly 40 years. All in the name of ‘love’.

Except now I have really woken up. I have woken up to my truest self that was born full of pure love and joy. I will no longer be the black sheep or the fall guy. I will no longer accept judgments in the name of ‘love’ & ‘family’ on my life. I am stepping out from these bonds and into my freedom and it feels invigorating and amazing.

And also deeply sad. I have lost my sister, my cousin and two friends to suicide. This awakening has brought new perspective on their passing and that of so many others. Our wounds, that which create the pains, some so great that only death seems to be the answer; these wounds are created from our lives and from the unhealed wounds of our families. This is not to place the burden of blame on any individual but nor will I carry on protecting the damaging acts of others. For me, my desire for death and escape was not because I was ‘genetically malfunctioning’, or ‘in with the wrong crowd’ or even because I was ‘a troubled soul’, it was because the open spirit I had arrived on earth with had been utterly crushed.

Ownership means I will take what is mine and heal that. I will no longer carry the infected wounds of my ancestors. I do this for me and for my children so that when they come to me in 20 years and say ‘I hurt’. I will be able to say ‘let us go and heal together’. For my children’s pain is mine, somehow I will have been part of creating it and, to be complete & loving with them, I choose to also be part of healing it.