Stitched: A Story of Pain, Despair and The Healing Power of Love

by ChaShiree M.

  STITCHED: A Story of Pain, Despair, and The Healing Power of Love

  ChaShiree M.

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  The End in the Beginning

  Invisibility Cloak

  It should have been me

  Not Her

  Maybe something like hope

  More than a second chance

  Let there be light

  The Beginning of Our Forever

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Also by ChaShiree M.

  Dedication

  Sometimes the light is where you least expect it.

  To anyone who has ever felt alone, hopeless or forsaken. You are not alone because I am riding the wave of despair with you. You have not been forsaken. God will never leave you. All is not hopeless, because HOPE is everywhere.

  Also dedicated to those walking in the darkness. You are not alone. I am walking with you. Together, we can find the light. Let those that love you, lead you. You are worth it. You are worth everything.

  Blurb

  Lydia has never known love.

  Born to a mother who didn’t care, she has only ever known pain. Bullied in school her whole life, if it wasn’t for her best friend she might not be alive.

  Her life is finally looking up as she goes off to college. Starting a new chapter, with her bestie by her side.

  Until tragedy strikes. She should have known her life would never be good.

  Primed to end it all, she is shocked to learn, she is not the only one living in the darkness.

  Perhaps together, they can find the light.

  I originally wrote this story as part of a Suicide Prevention Anthology last year. I jumped at the chance to do this because like so many, depression is a part of my life and I wanted a chance to inspire others. I used to be ashamed of my illness, until I learned there is no shame. Instead of condemning those in need, reach out. Lend an ear. Sometimes, having someone listen and genuinely care is enough. Sometimes it’s not. Either way, we all deserve a chance to overcome. This story was part of my journey.

  Author’s Note

  Most of you have probably never heard of me and that is fine because that is not what this is about. However, this is not the type of story I write. My books are filled with lust, sex, and flirty fun and best friends you cannot live without. But for this, I stepped outside my comfort zone to bring you some reality wrapped in fiction.

  As a person who has and still is struggling with depression and attempted suicide once, this is a subject near and dear to my heart. I could have gone through the hard stuff in this story and then vamped it up and made it all the things I normally write, but that would have been an injustice to the point of the anthology.

  So, there will be no sex, though sex is implied. There will be no overtly sexy, lusty descriptions either. But what there is, is plenty of pain, self-doubt and HOPE. There is lots of HOPE.

  I wanted this to not only show that you are not alone in your darkness, but also that you can be accompanied in your HOPE. There is always someone out there that could use your experience and ability to bounce back. Someone who will miss you even before they meet you. The point of this story is for you to know you are never alone.

  If you feel like you have nowhere to turn, or like you want to harm yourself, please DON’T!!! Call the hotline immediately. Call your best friend. Call a sibling. Hell, email me at authorchashiree@gmail.com. I will give you my number and we can talk. Or you can talk, and I will LISTEN.

  If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

  I hope you enjoy the story!!!!

  The End in the Beginning

  ‘Wow’. I think as I am looking at myself in the mirror. If someone would have told me six months ago I would be here, I would have looked them in the face and laughed. There is no way I should be here right now. I should be six feet under. The way my life was going, up until the very moment everything changed, I should be a corpse. I mean hell, I was already one.

  For months I was a walking, living, breathing body. Maybe living is taking it a step too far. I wasn’t living. I was only existing. But barely.

  When someone lives with the emotional and psychological abuse I have had to deal with, you learn not to expect too much out of life. You learn to fly under the radar and pray for invisibility.

  That is what I was doing the day he found me. I was standing on the edge of never, praying for invisibility. But in truth, I was praying for the end and fully intended to see it through. Then he happened to me.

  I didn’t know him from one person to the next on the street, nor he me. But for some reason, he says something led him to the place I was at that night. Led him to me, so he could save me. Well, whatever it was it worked.

  Here I am six months later, not fully healed psychologically or emotionally, but I am alive and learning to deal with these foreign feelings of happiness.

  I am standing in front of a mirror with my best friend, him. Turning from one side to another as I look from different angles, while trying not to let the past intrude on my present.

  After all. It is my wedding day and I am supposed to be feeling elated and euphoric. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel all those things. But, the overwhelming feeling I cannot seem to shake is, ‘It should have been me.

  Six Months Earlier

  “Lydia. Lydiaaaaaa.” Oomph. I shift the blankets off my face as I feel something smack me in the back of the head. Looking out from the covers while still half asleep, I am not surprised to find my mom standing over me with a look of disgust. The same look of disgust I have seen my whole life. At least since my father left when I was five years old.

  “Lydia, get your fucking lazy ass up and get ready. Today is the day. The day I finally get rid of you. We don’t want to be late for that, do we?” She asks as she walks away.

  I am scheduled to leave for college today. Even though the campus is only an hour drive away, I know I will not be coming back. My mom has always made it clear, the only reason she kept me around is because she was able to get welfare for keeping me. But, if that was to ever change she would leave me on the doorstep of a church. At least it would be somewhere safe. When it came close to the time for me to graduate, she let me know in no uncertain terms I wouldn’t be one of those kids who lived at home and went to college.

  I found it a bit humorous she felt I would consider it as an option for myself. The thought never crossed my mind. I was always going to leave. Scholarship or not. Luckily my therapist found someone on campus I can talk to.

  “Hurry up. We leave in an hour, fat-ass.” She yells from downstairs. This was why I needed a therapist. Among other things. Graduating high school was akin to shedding a massive amount of baggage.

  I have been the victim of bullying that started at middle school. When I turned 13, I woke up one morning with the biggest boobs I had ever seen. They seriously grew overnight. And, let's not talk about my ass. I went from having an average middle school ass to getting something out of a porno, and for what? What the hell was I going to do with all of that? My best friend Macy, who is going to be my roommate, told me that I was lucky. When I got into high school all the guys would want to date me. On the reverse side, she said all the girls would hate me. Well, she got half of it right. The girls never stopped hating me and because I am so weird and awkward, none of the guys wanted anything to do with me. Which was just fine.

  With all the new weight I was carrying around, it made me a target for extra bullying. In one day, I w
ent from being invisible to hearing, “Fatty-watty ate a catty.” Apparently, they couldn’t come up with anything better or more original than that. Things quickly escalated into tripping me in the halls, pouring food on me at lunch, and spray-painting my locker with obscene names. Seeing as how my mother didn’t care what happened to me, there was no one to fight for me. I endured the humiliation the best I could.

  After getting home from school, I would sit in my room and cry. I’d cry my eyes out asking God, ‘Why me. Am I so unworthy. Unlovable. Such a disappointment you decided I am to be the forsaken?’ I tried starving myself a couple of times. Epic fail. Apparently, I love food too much for that to work.

  My teachers knew and saw everything. Although, they would reprimand the students in a stern voice, none of them would fight for me. I am trailer park trash compared to their silver spoon students. The one time someone took notice was when I was walking down the stairs towards the microfiche room for a research project. A couple of the cheerleaders were coming up the stairs and as I was passing her and her friend, she put her foot out and I fell down the stairs breaking my arm and collarbone. The librarian heard the fall and came out of her room to check. She saw the girls standing there laughing, then she walked over and took me to the nurse.

  I was taken to the hospital and to my surprise the police showed up. They asked me for a recounting of how I fell. I know I should have turned them in, but it would have made it worse for me later. So, I lied. I said I was reading a book and missed a step.

  It was never quite as bad as that again, but the torment didn’t stop. Finally, my guidance counselor referred me to a therapist the day she walked in on me in the bathroom with a razor blade to my wrist. I was not about to slit my wrist, instead I was going to make a little incision. You know, find a focus for the pain.

  The first visit with the therapist was nothing how I expected. She didn’t say anything after introducing herself. She simply stared at me and took notes intermittently. I was so confused and felt so self-conscious because I had no idea what I was supposed to do. When the hour was up, she thanked me for my time and I left. I stood outside her door for at least ten minutes wondering what exactly she thanked me for. I kept going back time after time, until finally one day I broke and didn’t stop crying the whole 55 minutes.

  After that visit I opened myself up and told her how ugly I felt and how many times I put my head into a noose. A noose I had hung from my ceiling, knowing my mom wouldn’t care. The only thing that stopped me was thinking about leaving my best friend behind. She too was being bullied, which is how we found one another.

  I told Dr. Lawrence about the time I stood in the middle of the railroad tracks, waiting for a train to come and hit me. After four hours of no trains showing, I gave up and went home to bed.

  When I finished telling her everything, she looked at me and said.

  “Why would you end your life because everyone else has a problem with theirs? They are not mean and brutal to you because their life is perfect. It is quite the opposite. It is their own insecurities that make them lash out at you. They see something in you that threatens them and that my sweet girl is what you hold onto.”

  I have no freaking clue what the hell she is talking about, because there is nothing anyone needs to be jealous of me for. I took her sweet words anyway and let them become a positive talisman for me to get through the rest of high school. And I made it. Scars and all.

  Therefore, I was so excited, despite the wake up I received, to be getting out of here. College was a fresh start for me. I was going to be surrounded by young adults who had education on their brains. Surely, none of what I endured in high school would be an issue there. At the University of Michigan, I would become someone different and brush off my past.

  It didn’t hurt that my best friend was coming with me. She wouldn’t be joining me for two months, because she got her financial aid papers in late. They wouldn’t be approved until October, but either way she would be there. Until she came, we had the phone and I had classes. My plan was to keep my head in the books and make my dreams come true.

  Eventually, I ran out of the house as fast as I could. There wasn’t much for me to take with me, except what little clothing I had. I didn’t work during school, because I was too busy studying. That is how I earned a full academic scholarship to University of Illinois. Most of my clothes came from the free shelter down the road. My therapist suggested the place, because she knew my mom wasn’t buying them and I didn’t have the money.

  I took a train all the way there, which was a nice change. The train ride from LaGrange Park Illinois took five and half hours and I loved every minute of it. I have never left Illinois, mainly stayed in the town I grew up in, so this was an adventure within an adventure. The people on the train were nice, talkative, and seemed to genuinely care about what I had to say. Not that I had much to say. But it still made the ride pleasant.

  I finally got to the school after having to take a bus from the train station, arriving in the middle of all the chaos. Everyone was coming or going for move-in day, causing the need for a deep breath while taking in my surroundings. I felt different there, as if I could be whoever I wanted, and no one would care. Here, we are all trying to figure things out and navigate this mosh pit called life. I felt…. hopeish.

  Freshman orientation was a bit...much. And not in a good way. I expected, well I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t to be surrounded by half-dressed girls and barely educated jocks. I decided not to pass judgement yet, because they could all turn out to be decent people. I hope. I kept my head down, took notes, and prayed for it to be over as soon as possible. It was. I made it through it unscathed and that made me feel like I had accomplished something.

  The realization of what I was doing had given me pause. When had I become this person? A person that felt it was OK, not having to interact with people as an accomplishment? Is this who I am now? I felt the tears starting to form behind my eyes and I blinked fast to hold them off. I told myself I wouldn’t do that no matter what. I had promised Macy, I wouldn’t drop one tear the two months she was at home and I am going to hold my promise.

  I finally made it to the dorm and found my room. Walking in, I felt something I don’t ever remember feeling. Safe.

  It took me 20 minutes to put away what little I had brought with me. After that, I just sort of sat there wondering what next. Since it was Friday, I had the whole weekend to explore the campus and get to know my surroundings. What I want to do first is to I time the walk to all my classes and then just be. But, the more I thought about doing that, the more depressed I felt. Is this what my life is going to be? A boring humdrum existence? With that thought, I decided to venture outside the room and see what the festivities look like.

  When I walked outside of the dorm, immediately I am handed a flyer about a party at some frat house. My initial instinct was ‘Absolutely not. Are you crazy Lydia? You have seen Carrie about a hundred times. It never ends well for girls like you’, but I immediately brushed that off because I want to be different here. And again, surely the people here are going to be different.

  Macy. I needed to talk to Macy. I walked back into my room, picked up the dorm room phone, and used my long distance calling card that came with my scholarship to call her.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey Mace. How's it going?”

  “You know. The same as always. Mom is on me about my weight. Dad is oblivious and Trent, well is Trent. What about you? Did you get settled in?”

  “Yea. You know I had nothing to settle, so. I miss you already and wish you were here. Tell me these two months are going to go by fast.” I should have known something was up when she hesitated. Macy had always been my biggest support. She never hesitated to reassure me or give me words of wisdom. But, I guess this phone call I was too overwhelmed by everything to notice something was wrong with my friend.

  Finally, after a few seconds she said, “Yea sure. It is going to go by fast.
You’ll see.”

  “I hope so. Ok, I have a question. I got handed a flyer to go to a party at a frat house. I know I shouldn’t go….”

  “YES!!! Absolutely yes. GO!” I was stunned by her absolute declaration.

  “Really?!?”

  “Yes really. That is what we said we were going to do. Be different. Reinvent ourselves. What better way to start than a party.”

  “But I was going to do all of that when you were here with me.”

  “Listen. You can do this. Put on the gray long sleeve V-neck shirt, those kick ass jeans I gave you, and the wedge sandals you got at the shelter. Let your hair down, brush it, and put on some mascara. You will be perfect. Have fun and call me when you get in. I got to go. Mom is summoning me.”

  And like that she hung up.

  More of the same

  I stood around for a while as usual, feeling lost. Macy is my guiding star. I took all my cues from her. How to act, when to get excited, and when to be angry. Everything. I needed that road map. I have spent so much time being numb and unaffected that I couldn’t remember how to be anymore.

  Deciding to pretend her advice was given face to face, I did exactly as she told me to. Down to the last detail. When I was finally ready, I looked at myself in the mirror. Although I saw nothing special, I looked alright. Since that was as good as it was going to get, I left the house. Following the arrows on the ground like the flyer said, I made it to the Frat house. Immediately, it felt as if I should turn around and leave. Instead, I shook those thoughts from my mind, because I felt like that was ‘the old’ Lydia talking. Not the Lydia reinventing herself.