A Really Bad Birthday

CW: Suicide Ideation and Abuse

When I was 20, I thought I was going to kill myself. It was July, it should’ve been a break from college, but I was too adamant about taking a summer course I did not need, and it was my birthday.

Granted it was Thursday, you know when your birthday falls on a day that should be Friday or Saturday- Sunday if we’re pushing it, so everyone pretends that it does indeed fall on one of those days because you know… work… and… capitalism. So it didn’t really feel like I was planning on killing myself upon exiting adolescence- because I’m not that poetic. 

My mom was at work. 

I detest how suicide is archetyped as a spur in the moment decision- nothing that festers in perpetuity. I somehow deluded myself into thinking that because my suicidal ideation had become as ritualistic as daily affirmations, I would never actually plan it. 

When I was 16, the thought had grazed my mind but I thought to myself, life has got to get better by the time I'm 20. Just a couple more years of performing stability, and the thoughts would stop. Anyway, how it could it get worse than the year my soccer coach was arrested for soliciting nude photos from minors, merely days after he guided us in exercises, my weird McDonald's manager who would graze my hips and speak a little too close to my ear, my mother reminding me to tell my dad to “stop” when he tries to grope me- if he visits, and the friend group that was overtly bigoted towards me- who I was too afraid of cussing out. I then felt an embarrassingly overwhelming amount of guilt. The church taught me that not only was this thinking selfish, but it was sinful, so I asked God to forgive me for my transgressions while begging “him” to make the abuse stop- that it just makes sense that in order for me to stop “sinning” he protects me from receiving the brunt of sinful acts from others- but he never answered my prayers, so the thoughts persisted.

I think the words “child” and “abuse” should interact as repellents, like oil and water or America and the number one. But they meld more effortlessly than people assume. My mom- the one who was at work- said that she wished she never had me when I was about eight because I dropped toilet paper on the floor of the clinic bathroom, where I was ironically said to have social anxiety disorder.

I have to note the days I can recall from childhood because my brain often halts my recollection.

I grew up closeted and shy in a conservative household- conservative in the sense that my family would vote Blue because of overt racism and anti-Haitian sentiments from the right, but would say I’d be disowned if I were queer and that I should know better than to dress like a “slut” because a man could only control himself to the extent of which I allowed, so yeah conservative. 

My youth was filled with ritual beatings and screaming for reasons that didn’t even meet the requirements of why some abusive parents say they “justly” terrorize their children. The list included but was not limited to, “for not kissing me on the cheek when you got home,” “for saying ‘yes’ too loudly (in response to a question being asked),” “for not cleaning your brother’s dishes,” “for laughing too loud when I was on the phone,” “for not picking out the dress I wanted you to wear,” “for not wearing the lipstick I wanted you to for prom,” “for not finding the shoes that I had lost” and the list goes on. These weren’t rules I had to abide by, to not get abused, as they changed as often as they were administered, but rather scattered reasonings for why an authority figure decided to take their anger out on someone incapable of defending themselves.  

I didn’t realize I was a victim of child abuse because of its normalization. It wasn't until confiding in friends, as we laughed about childhood trauma, that the room suddenly fell silent when my filter malfunctioned, and I talked more than I usually allowed myself. When the laughing stopped and everyone asked if I was okay, I realized what I was experiencing wasn’t not, not normal, because I already knew it wasn’t, but that others had recognized the abnormality as well. 

So, it’s July on my birthday and I’ve just relayed an even more diluted version of these events to the suicide hotline operator, who keeps intercepting to ask if I’m about to kill myself, to which I keep diverting. 

I didn’t want the cops to be called. I think it’s ironically convenient that the institutions that people implore us to use when we think about suicide are the same institutions that freely kill others- the same institutions that will not bat an eye to strip you from your rights and blanket their racism and ableism, not just as “protecting” you, but “protecting” the public from individuals like you. What do you do when it also seems like society is hell-bent on wanting you to kill yourself in order to do the work for them? 

The operator tells me I’m lonely, which to be honest is even more humiliating to admit out loud. I tell him I don’t think my family cares if I die, to which he responds, “Well, that’s not true.” He doesn't know my family. You know when you tell someone that your mental health is deteriorating, and they initially respond with shock and ask if you’re okay, in a way that appears to be a little too calculated- as if they’re rehearsing the script we all learned in our mental health high school seminars. Then they forget about it like two days later and never ask if you’re okay again because it’s too “awkward” to acknowledge that they’re essentially speaking to a walking corpse. That’s my family but instead of that they say, “Well, pray more” or “We all have problems too” and “Are you trying to blame ME?” Sometimes, sometimes, they ask if they did something to make me feel this way, not out of care per se, but more so annoyance that they may end up in a letter and have to address why they were in said letter for said heinous deeds. So, I lie, which they’re aware of, and say no.     

The operator takes about three minutes to respond to each of my oddly (considering the circumstance) polite messages that I curate just in case I’m a bother. I never expected hold times when chatting with… suicide hotline but I digress. Amidst the silence, I consider ending our chat and attempting to overdose- which I obviously keep from the operator. I contemplate if using the suicide hotline chatroom was the best decision- just in case they think this is a prank or that I’m not in despair… because why am I being ghosted by suicide hotline?  

When the operator reappears, in a misfired attempt to relate to my circumstance, he reveals that he’s a college student and also knows what it feels like to be overwhelmed with life- he almost failed his finals. This makes me want to scream. He asks me if I’m safe, and I know my time is up, he reminds me that there are people who do care about me, and I appreciate the sentiment, he says to contact them again if I feel like my life is at risk, and I guiltily feel like I’ve wasted his time.   

But, something worked because while I did sob for the rest of the night- I did not kill myself.

My mom comes home and tells me happy birthday, she says that it looks like I’ve been crying which I deny. It always seems like the only times she asks about my tears is when she believes she wasn’t the cause.

Some family members and I go to a restaurant, the day my birthday should have fallen on- Friday, and I’m chastised for being too silent at dinner. There’s a sense of nausea that comes from sitting at a table with some of the people who have abused you your entire life, for your 20th birthday, the day after you planned your suicide attempt, and then being asked about your silence at one of those restaurants where they’re paid to insult you (which I illogically thought would brighten my mood). 

It’s going to be my 23rd birthday in less than two months, and I’m proud I’ve made it this far. But, during these last three years, I’ve been grappling with the repeated question, how do you continue to go on when the people whose job it is to care about you, don’t- while living in a country where it seems to be intentionally constructed for marginalized people to want to die? 

I think what keeps me going, besides the fear of not knowing what happens after life and being preemptively mad as hell if certain people were asked to speak at my funeral, is that I want to know what being loved in abundance feels like, with no fine print, and gleefully reciprocate. I’m banking on seeing my 100th- I’ve checked and it falls on a Friday.