by CeeCee James
I could only stay for a few weeks before I had to leave. They had their own family to take care of. I tried couch hopping at a few different friends’ houses, but their parents didn’t know I was a runaway. With a sinking feeling I realized there was no place to go. I had to return home.
My parents were stone-faced when I returned. They didn’t want me back, but they had no choice. Mama had involved the police. She stood at the door, barring my entrance.
“Are you going to do what I say?”
I nodded.
She continued, “You ever leave here again, you aren’t coming back. I assumed the police were taking you to the detention center. I don’t want you back, but the police told me you’re still our legal responsibility.”
She looked me up and down, and thumped my chest with her index finger. “You don’t like it here, leave. I’ve always told you when you’re eighteen you’re out the door. You only have a year left.”
I spent as little of time as possible at home, instead, choosing to sit for hours by the river trying to think of a way to permanently escape. I couldn’t come up with a plan. The money I made from my job was a pittance.
The weight of depression began to crush me.
I cried every night, when the darkness hid all distractions. Razors no longer helped me cope. I burned myself with cigarettes, hoping the greater physical pain would bring a little relief to my inner core. It didn’t work.
Death seemed to be the only option for escape from the pain.
I had only been home a few weeks when I went to a friend’s house after work. That night I raided her parent’s alcohol cabinet, taking big swigs out of every bottle I found in there, even draining the little bottles I found rolling in the back.
I hoped I might sleep my way into peace. Instead, I woke up the next morning covered in bruises, with my friend sobbing over me.
“You stopped breathing! I was so scared! I prayed for you. I thought you had died. Don’t you ever do that to me again!”
She believes in God?
One day Mama found out. She pulled up my sleeve and saw the hundreds of cuts on my arm. She gave her sarcastic laugh and shook her head.
“I’ll be checking in all the ditches for your dead body every time I drive to town. I’m going to buy you a blue casket, and bury you with your book of poems and a teddy bear.”
I had one dear friend, who I was very close with, try to help me. “Things will get better, CeeCee. My life isn’t easy either. I understand,” she said, patting my arm.
A week later she dragged me out of the middle of our town’s main road, where she found me lying outside her house after a fight with my parents.
“Stop it CeeCee! I can’t take it anymore!”
I was ashamed for making her worry, but the guilt of what I was doing to my friend was just one more weight on the heavy load.
One day, I had enough. After work, I went to the little park outside of town. With my back against a tree, I watched the river flow through its grassy banks. The sun was in my eyes, and made me squint. I had a package of straight razors next to me in a paper bag. Pulling one from the package, I looked out at the dark water and cut it deep into my wrist. Then I lay back on the grass and waited, warmth running down my arm, and hoped peace would come soon.
I was found by a couple of drugged out teenagers and carted off to the hospital by ambulance. The Paramedic bandaged my arm. He patted my arm and gave me a half smile.
“What could possibly be so bad?”
The hospital was cold, with bone white walls and floors. The emergency room was teaming with injured people, so they strapped me to a bed until they could attend me, and left my gurney outside in the hall. A woman screamed in the other room from gunshot wounds. The old person next to me had their heart monitor go to a solid flat-line. Tears ran down my face, but I couldn’t wipe them with my hands tied to the railing.
They assigned me to a room, first taking away my clothing in case I could hurt myself, and left me makeshift hospital jammies. My arm throbbed under the gauze.
My second night there I received a phone call from another friend. I was happy to hear from him, ignoring that his voice had a crack in it.
He had called to tell me that my good friend who had dragged me out of the street had committed suicide.
I threw the phone as far away from me as I could. I couldn’t cry, instead, deep guttural moans ripped out of me while I lay on my side, my arms and legs wrapped around a pillow. I rocked back and forth, back and forth.
“No!No!No!No!No!No!No!No!”
When the psychiatrist came by on his rounds later, I couldn’t look up from my pillow.
“So,” he said, “How are you doing this evening?”
“Just give me whatever drugs it takes to make the pain go away.”
He glanced down at his chart. “Do you suffer from highs and lows?”
“Sure,” I answered, crumpling the tear stained pillow in my hands.
“Hmmm,” he answered and walked out. The nurse brought me Lithium that night.
After I was released from the hospital I was court-ordered to continue to see a psychiatrist because of my suicide attempt. The new doctor immediately took me off of the Lithium, shaking his head in surprise that I had been prescribed it.
I asked him, “What can you give me instead to stop the pain?”
He crossed his legs in his leather office chair and said, “Let’s talk about why you feel the way you feel.”
He wanted me to talk about my past, but I wasn’t ready.
A few weeks later, I snuck out of the house again when a friend knocked on my window at midnight. She was frantic to have me come help her with her friend who was suicidal. It was a long, harrowing night, and when I finally returned home there were three police cars sitting out in the driveway.
I couldn’t go home. Mama was done with me.
Through the grape-vine at school, I found a half-way-house where a few other homeless kids camped out. I stayed there for a while, struggling to combine work and going to school. Life was dark, depressing, and scary. I was surrounded by kids who felt the exact same way. Instead of being a comfort to me, being around like-minded people fed the depression roaring inside of me.
One day, I was offered the chance to move into an apartment with three complete strangers. They had needed a fourth roommate to be able to continue to pay the rent on the apartment. That opportunity changed my life forever.
Chapter 20
~The Yellow Apartment~
I moved into the apartment two months shy of my eighteenth birthday. There wasn’t a spare room available, so I shoved my bed against the back living room wall and jammed garbage bags filled with my clothes underneath it. There were three other roommates, all teenagers.
My first night there one of the roommates tapped me on the shoulder.
“You hungry?”
It was Jim. His dark hair hung low on his forehead, and he flipped it back. I smiled and nodded.
We hit it off right away. A few days later we started to date.
The four of us were a loud, rowdy group. There was always alcohol around, and I drank whenever I could. Alcohol was the best escape I’d found yet. But, a heavy buzz always brought out my tears. I’d cry in the corner, my defenses down, babbling incoherently, “You don’t understand.”
I wasn’t like everyone else. I didn’t belong. Being drunk highlighted that I’d always be on the outside looking in.
When I sobered up I’d rush to apologize to Jim, making every excuse in the book for my behavior. He’d take me in his arms, his green eyes looking down at me with worry. But, he always told me not to worry about it.
Jim pulled at my heart in ways that no one ever had, but I still didn’t trust him. He’d abandon me when he really got to know me. I knew I had to hide that part. Every day was a hard acting job, as I tried to continue to be happy. The echoing pain always pulled at me, telling me I didn’t deserve him, didn’t deserve love. I’d smile anyway, my
face cracking under the façade.
I thought about breaking up with him, before he could do it to me. Depression pulled me down. One day, I couldn’t take it anymore and needed some relief. I ran to the bathroom and slashed at my ankle with the razor.
Jim knocked on the door.
“CeeCee? You in there?”
I yanked a ream off of the toilet paper, sending the roll spinning.
“Be out in a minute!” I interjected a cheery tone to my answer.
The doorknob rattled.
“Open the door now!”
There was blood everywhere. Red smears all over the floor, toilet, myself.
“Please! Just give me a minute!” My heart pounded and tears ran down my face. I wiped the floor as fast as I could with the toilet paper.
He kicked down the door.
All I could do was hold myself tight and stare at him wide-eyed in horror, the crumpled toilet paper forgotten in my hand. I’m a monster. Now you know.
He looked at me, at the floor, then back at me. He was breathing heavily. In two strides he was next to me, lifting me up, looking me over to find the source of the blood.
Then he held me.
His love was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
Later, he bandaged my cuts. He wiped his eyes with his arm and asked me to never intentionally hurt myself again.
I never did.
I cut back on the alcohol, but we still had crazy parties every weekend. It was a Thursday evening two weeks after he caught me in the bathroom. We were lying on the couch drinking beer, when Jim surprised me again.
“You believe in God?” He took a drag off of his cigarette.
I nodded.
“You know he loves you more than anything. He loves you more than I love you.”
I considered that for a moment. That was a big statement.
“Don’t you have to be good? I’m not good.” I said, tipping the beer bottle for emphasis.
Jim insisted God loved me anyway. “Just tell him you want him to be your savior.”
I definitely needed someone to save me. I became a Christian that night, even though I didn’t understand why God would want me.
Jim and I eloped eight weeks later. I stayed up nights questioning myself. What did I do? Was I ready for marriage? Jim would give me a loving look that pulled me back to him again.
One of the first things we bought was a used bookshelf. It was a treasured possession, and I went to every library sale and yard sale I could find and scooped up books. Looking at the jam-packed shelves made my eyes fill with tears. Books I could read, any time I wanted. My books.
The first year of marriage was touch-and-go for me. It shouldn’t have worked. We fought weekly over everything, and each time I waited for him to use the “D” word. How could it end in anything but divorce?
There were times that I fought with him, just to push him to see if he’d give up on me. It was hard to reconcile afterwards, because I didn’t believe he really forgave me. But Jim did, and I learned to forgive, too. His love for me, wrapped in a human body that still got angry and made mistakes, opened my mind to what love really meant.
My first daughter was born in the middle of my twentieth year, the same hour that I was born. When they put her in my arms I burst into tears, and hugged her sweet, warm body close to me.
I felt like God was saying the broken places inside of me were going to be restored. I smoothed back the little curl on her forehead. My baby will always love me.
A week later she developed colic. She screamed for over fourteen hours every day. The doctor told me that it was a stage my baby had to outgrow, and there was nothing they could do. Sometimes, I wanted to bang my head against the wall with frustration when she screamed nonstop, hour after hour. But, even when everything I tried brought her no relief, I still rocked her in my arms to comfort her. “Mama’s here, Mama loves you.” I never would have shut her away until her face turned black. She was my treasure.
Soon after she was born I opened the bible at random, hoping for some encouragement. The book of Matthew stared up at me. Like a punch in my stomach, the memory of the adultery scripture hit me. I wanted to thrust the bible away and go flip on the TV. But then, something Jim said came to mind, “There’s no condemnation in Christ.” My stomach rolled. I took a deep breath and looked down to where my thumb was resting.
In red letters it said, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
In the next instant, I felt God destroy the lie that had connected the adultery scripture in Matthew 5:3 to my memories with Grandpa. A huge weight I hadn’t known I was carrying fell off of me. I felt God’s reassurance that I had been the victim.
Jim and I began attending a local church every week. One Sunday, I heard the pastor talk about God’s love for all of us. What did that mean? When the pastor spoke of God as our father, my wisp of trust in him shrank; fathers were scary. Then the pastor read from the bible, “If you love me you will obey me.” I arched my eyebrows. I knew how well that worked with Mama-- a big fat failure. I could only imagine what God would do if I failed him.
But, then I remembered the times I had prayed and felt his comfort. It was confusing.
In the meantime, life went on. Jim and I were blessed with two beautiful daughters, and two wonderful sons. I had to smile to think that God had heard my prayer all those years ago in the club house when I was a little girl.
My children made me feel like the richest person in the world. They taught me so much about myself. I couldn’t understand why parenting didn’t teach Mama the same things. I couldn’t wait until my children were old enough to tell me what their favorite color was, their favorite ice cream, or favorite book. They amazed me. I peppered them with half as many questions during the day as they asked me.
The most important thing for me was that my kids knew I loved them. I wanted them to know they had a voice, and I was there for them even if they thought they were in trouble. God gave me the idea of a “mad bed”. When my children needed to get something off their chest, we sat on my bed and I listened – even during the times when everything in me wanted to react. It was an open door policy. And it was a place where I could tell them I was sorry if I learned that I had somehow hurt their feelings.
This tradition forged our family motto – “We’re not the perfect family, we’re the forgiving family.”
Trying to walk in love and trust made the shackles that fear had over me glaringly obvious. I started having anxiety that something bad would happen to one of my loved ones. Nightmarish day-dreams would flash through my mind of my husband getting into a car accident if he was a few minutes late, or my children getting kidnapped, choking, or becoming sick.
I’d talk to Jim, and he’d try to help. Sometimes, I thought Jim saw fear as a choice, just a flip of the switch that could be turned off. He told me to talk to God about it, but I was sure I’d be punished for my lack of faith. For some reason, that fear finally made me realize that I had put God in the same place Mama had once held in my life. Mama had punished me for any weakness, and destroyed all hope, happiness, or freedom that I had, so why would I expect God to be any different?
The more I thought about it, the more that I saw how I was locked in a cycle of begging for God’s forgiveness, and trying to turn over a new leaf, like I had with Mama.
It didn’t end there. I realized the same cycle was being reenacted with my oldest daughter. I didn’t trust that my daughter knew that I loved her. Whenever she was angry at me I felt crushed, and saw Mama’s face rejecting me. Several times a day, I apologized to her, almost begging her to recognize that I loved her, like I had done with Mama.
In both situations I knew I was acting out of a damaged place. I was desperate to break the cycle. I wanted to learn about healthy love, and have Mama’s definition eradicated from my life. I wante
d to become whole, but didn’t know how.
Chapter 21
~The Ghost Comes Alive~
“Stupid, can’t do anything right. Such an idiot. Can’t believe you said that! Lazy, so lazy. Everyone else can do it. What’s wrong with you?”
I heard it every day. Words my mom once said, words I said to myself. I never let myself off the hook. “You can do it better! You should do more! They think you’re an idiot, stupid, stupid lazy.”
At the same time I’d tell my kids again and again how precious they were to God. We’d play ring-around-the-rosy, all of us singing at the top of our lungs “Jesus loves me, this I know! For the bible tells me so.”
But I still didn’t believe it for me.
In many ways I wanted to give up. I didn’t see how the puzzle pieces inside of me could ever be put back together. I felt like Humpty Dumpty, doomed to always be broken.
My breakthrough came when I searched out who God said I was in the bible. I needed to know what he thought of me. Did his voice sound like my mom’s? When I read the words-- loved, sought after, friend, and accepted—I softened inside. I saw a choice. I could quit calling myself names and try to believe I was made for something more. God said I was his daughter, desired and chosen. My fear melted when I realized he was never mad at me. He saw value in me even when I couldn’t. My name wasn’t Fifth Wheel any longer. He called me his precious Beloved.
As happy as that made me, I could see that wasn’t enough; I had to love myself too. To do that, I had to be the advocate for the little girl in me who had been abused. With a chill, I realized that for years I had justified the abuse under the guise of love. I did that, because as an adult, I still tried to have a relationship with Mama. The only way I could reconcile being around her was to pull a “blanket of forgiveness” over my past, and treat it as though it had never had happened.
Now it was time for me to validate all of the emotions that had been denied to me as a child. The forgiveness I’d offered hadn’t been real; it was denial. Denying what had happened wasn’t going to bring me freedom.