My limp and unconscious body had been pulled back by the person who had been there and quick enough to grab me. When I had been pulled back over, I’d fallen back to the ground and had hit my head on the concrete ground. The person who had saved my life was a man who had been driving the car that had almost hit me. He’d parked his car right there on the bridge, and when he’d seen me climbing up the wall, he’d started running towards me. He had been screaming out to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
As I had been launching myself off the wall with Mr. Sharp, I’d grown light-headed, and then I remembered only seeing black. That’s when my savior had gotten a hold of my shirt. He’d told the police that he barely got a hold of an inch of my shirt, just in time. He said that I had been so heavy because I was passed out and unable to move myself or take control of my own weight. He didn’t think that he was going to be able to keep me from falling. I was told that he had almost lost his own life trying to save me, because he’d really had to pull to get me to fall back and not make us both go forward and down. He certainly had pulled hard enough, and he’d been able to let me go before we could fall over. That was when I’d fallen backwards and had landed back on the concrete ground of the bridge. I had suffered a serious concussion, but the doctors had said that I was lucky that a concussion was all I had.
I woke up from that concussion a few days later. Mom, Alison, and Nick were there beside me. Mom told me that they would not leave my side until I had woken up. I did not fully regain consciousness for three days after I woke up for the first time. After those three days, I did not have any more blackouts. Coincidentally, the day that I regained full consciousness was the day of Jack’s parole hearing. To my surprise, Mom, Alison, and Nick were there at my side. Mom promised me that she was not going anywhere.
She said, “I am right where I am supposed to be.”
“What about the parole hearing?” I asked her.
Nick and Alison stood next to Mom, one twin by each of her sides. She squeezed them tightly with one arm each as she smiled down at me. Genuine tears fell from her eyes and, one by one, they made me happy.
“That’s not important,” she said. “Our family is what is important right now. You are important to us.”
I knew that this was certainly not a dream. I was wide awake, and what was happening was for real. Everything that Mom was saying was true. Her tears were not fake, and her actions were not of my imagination.
Every tear that was shed between the both of us that day proved that I didn’t fail this time. I was given the strength to push myself back into the light. I could not stay in the darkness and let myself rest eternally in hell where I did not belong. That was where Jack belonged, and that was where he was going to stay.
CHAPTER 64
Dr. Pelchat’s office was terribly familiar. I sat in the same chair opposite his as he sat behind his big, wooden desk. He had my same familiar chart open with a pen in his left hand. He and I were alone together in that familiar room with the same familiar window that I had a habit of staring out of when I felt too closed in.
“You’re a strong girl,” Dr. Pelchat said.
His voice crept in and disturbed my silent thoughts.
“I didn’t think that you would want to see me this time,” I admitted to him.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t think so. After all, I did become a statistic.”
“No,” he corrected. “You would have been one of those statistics if you had actually succeeded in killing yourself.”
“You’re right.”
“Do you remember what happened that day?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I let him go. Mr. Sharp is gone.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m taking it one minute at a time.”
Dr. Pelchat nodded.
“There are times when I wish he would appear again, but I know that he won’t. Especially now that you put me back on Risperdol.”
“Does that make you upset?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, sometimes it does. Sometimes I am very upset because I have to take the medicine, and Mom really pushes me to take it every single day.”
“That’s good. She is only looking out for you. How are you doing, now that you’re at home with your family?”
“I’m doing all right,” I told him.
“You will continue to be all right. I’ve told you this before, and I will say it again. You’ve come a long way from when I first met you. You’ve made progress in such a short time. We do have a long way to go, but you are a fighter. We just have to watch out for those moments. Those moments that cause the desperation that you feel when you are about to do something impulsive. As you learned, Borderlines tend to make irrational decisions based off of their intense emotions.
“For instance, when you cut, from the patterns on your arms, I see that you are a fast and compulsive cutter. You slice at yourself in a rage. You make these impulsive, self-abusive decisions. You release your anger all out on yourself at those moments where you feel loss of control and despair. Sometimes the past becomes something you hold on to, and it comes up every time something goes wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that has nothing to do with your mother or Jack. Somehow, you are able to work it up in your mind that all of these things are coming down on you, and because you don’t know how to deal with it, you jump to the most desperate conclusion. The almost fatal conclusion, Kristen, was when you tried to kill yourself. You need to know and understand that when those moments arise, you cannot give into despair. You have to use your coping skills and talk to someone.”
“When I’m in that moment,” I said, “I feel as if there is nothing in the world that could pull me out. When I did decide to end it all the first time, I thought that the only thing that would give me rest was death! That is how it felt. I wanted to sleep and never have to wake up and feel that way again. When I tried to jump, I needed to get out of the darkness. I was so afraid.”
“The darkness was where you felt you had failed. You were afraid of what you thought would happen if your mother had taken Jack back. You see, it did not turn out the way you thought it would. You did not fail because you managed to come out of that darkness. Kristen, you’re alive. If you had died that night, you would not be here right now. You wouldn’t have had a chance to see that you are strong enough to survive. This is your only chance to open your eyes and see the light that you have been searching for. Now that you are aware of what it is - your illness, which is Borderline Personality Disorder - you have to think about what you know and use it for your survival, because this is real. What happened to you and your family was not your fault. Therefore, you shouldn't feel sorry. Stop punishing yourself. Kristen, this is your life. It’s no more excuses.”
I thought back to when Ms. Mosley had told me about the moment when I would truly understand. She knew, just as Dr. Pelchat knew, and they were both right. These weren’t just random words from a book or psycho-babble crap that doctors just say to get you in and out of their office. These words were true. There was no way to deny or reject any of it, because there it was, laid out right in front of me, and for the first time I understood.
In realizing this, I felt something change inside of my mind. Something clicked inside. The change that I felt within myself brought on a new feeling, a new way of thinking, and a new understanding. I realized that, this whole time, Dr. Pelchat’s words were being used as a potent force. These words were powerful enough to help me out of the darkness, and they began to lead me into a new light. Dr. Pelchat, Ms. Mosley, and even Dr. Cuvo’s words all seemed to come together and somehow began to make sense to my mind. It may have been because this was the moment I began to understand that everything that had happened to me and my family in the past was not ever going to disappear, and if I did not want it to destroy me, I had to begin coping and healing so that I could get on with my life. I couldn’t use it as an
excuse anymore. It was going to be hard, and it was going to take a lot of time, but it had to be done. It had to be done for my family and me. None of these people wanted to hurt me. I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore.
This is my life, I thought to myself. Then I realized who I was, and who I was ready to be.
Dr. Pelchat stared at me silently. He was watching me. He was waiting to see if I would respond. Did it bother me that he was staring this time? No.
Without another thought or hesitation, I stared right back at him. I could tell that my direct eye contact with him caught him off guard. He shifted in his seat a little, but he did not take his eyes off of me. In a straightforward and mild manner, I raised my head up higher while keeping focused on Dr. Pelchat’s eyes, the way I remembered Dr. Cuvo used to do.
I said to Dr. Pelchat, “I want to be a survivor.”
EPILOGUE
Her
Her story was one that waited to be told.
In order to tell a story there has to be a story to tell.
There has to be
A beginning,
A middle,
And an end.
For Her,
There was a beginning,
And there is an end.
This is where the story of Her ends,
And my story begins.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Felicia Johnson was born in Philadelphia, PA. Felicia is a writer, youth mentor, behavioral health worker, and big sister. She loves ice cream, dancing, and seeing her little sister, Laura, smile. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her Page 44