Unexplained scratches and scars are hidden behind my sleeve. The mirror reveals a scared face; flesh pale, eyes empty. I see a person from awhile ago, and when I remember the times, I am immediately taken back. The familiar sensations overtake my present emotions and I feel the fire inside. What hurts is everything, it melts my insides, bubbling and burning, it shoots up my throat to escape but I clench my teeth and swallow it down every time, keeping the pain deep within me. I want to talk about it, to be done with it, but there’s something in me that will not let go. I’m fettered to the past I have lived, the wishes I made on a star that were never granted. I’m trapped within dreams turned to nightmares when they failed to come true. Now there is an alarm going off in my mind, I know if I don’t let this all go I will end up insane; I won’t be able to breathe any longer. My heart pounds irregular and my veins pump liquid ice – I am numb to all things except for the memories that won’t wash away.
I remember my mother tied down to the bed, wrapped in white sheets, yelling as though she were possessed. Her eyes were wild green and raging with long suppressed anger. Anger I caused, possibly; anger intensified by the cards she had been dealt in her life, absolutely. It was at this moment that my childhood ceased and I was thrust into a deep dark world with only the light I would discover inside of myself as a guide.
I still haven’t fully found my way through the darkness, but I’ve seen brief reflections of hope in an otherwise darkened corner and somehow, amid the bumps and bruises, I am alive and grateful for all of the trials that have tested me and all of the pain that had conditioned me. I don’t pretend to seem like I’m always so optimistic about my future, you only have to glance at a few of my journal entries to find that I’m still very weak in some aspects and still utterly torn apart over the past.
When times do get tough and faith hangs by just a strand I am reminded of the book of James; it is about having joy in your trials. I really need to have joy in that God is preparing me and refining me through these tough times, the only way to get past them is to give everything to him, who has already given everything to me. I really think I am going to be alright. If you have no idea who I am or what my life has been like, I would like to tell you that I am the daughter of an alcoholic and his mistress. My father disowned me, he already had a family, and my half-sister’s name ironically is Misty, so very similar to my own name, Mandy. I don’t remember either of them; all I remember is my stepfather, the man whom I consider to be my real father, my mother and my younger brother Sam.
I grew up rather poor. I was a fanatical tomboy who loved Popsicles and climbing trees. I wasn’t the most popular kid, I was pretty shy but, I was happy. When I wasn’t sitting in the old apple tree playing with the neighbor boy I was in my room, reading and writing. I found a peace when I was alone with a book or a piece of notebook paper, like I could drown away anything bad with the help of my imagination, that would help me dramatically when I was older. When my mother and stepfather got a divorce when I was twelve I plunged further into books and isolated myself from the rest of the world.
My world at that time had exploded and I was diving into unfamiliar waters. I felt like I didn’t even know how to swim. The divorce itself is not what pushed me over the deep-end, everything came rushing at me at once, my mother blamed herself for the failed marriage, my stepfather grew even more distant and colder than before; I barely ever saw him.
One night after my stepfather had been gone for several months my mother Diana sat and thought at a desk in our basement. Razor blade in hand she concentrated on the profanity she had been carving into my stepfather’s desk for weeks and as she thought about her life she began to slip. She released herself from all of the emotions that were flowing through her body like a current. She slit her wrist. I wasn’t with her while she did this, I was upstairs getting my brother Sam ready for bed. I didn’t realize that anything was wrong until some people came and to take my mother to the hospital. That night I was left alone to care for Sam; I was only twelve and he was only seven. I cannot remember that night, though I have tried. I don’t remember being afraid or upset; I had to be strong for my brother so he wouldn’t cry for mom. I do remember the days to follow, especially April the twelfth, my thirteenth birthday, which I spent visiting my mother in the Mental Health Institute.
When I saw my mother so completely broken and destroyed I vowed never to be like that, not to do things that brought her to that low of a place. My family had been involved in drugs, alcohol and various forms of abuse, beginning with the abuse of my mother as a child by her alcoholic parents and hopefully ending with the metal anguish my brother and I have suffered from our own parent’s unfortunate mistakes.
I do not hate my life because I have had to experience so much, so early on. I am grateful that I know the true meanings of the words patience, faith, strength and unconditional love; without finding each one buried inside of me I would never have been able to overcome the tribulations I have already come across. I also wouldn’t have found God; I believe that it was God who watched over me when my mother tried to call herself. I believe that God is saving me for a purpose and I can’t lose faith in Him because I have felt his love when I couldn’t feel anyone else, when I had nobody, when I was orphaned and alone.
Now things aren’t going the best, but it is just a matter of time before I’m soaring on the clouds again. It’s just a moment away from the time when I can look into the mirror and instead of seeing who I want to be, I will see who I am, not a soulless shell with troubles and terrors, but someone who loves life and wants to live life more than anything. I will discover someone who is uncovered with the petty things in life and I will be a girl who looks further down into the pain of people, far past the mask that people wear to hide their true identities and much deeper than the surface of the glass.