The treatment center I went to for 6 weeks was wonderful.   I went to find new coping methods to suicide.  Most or all others were drug addicts or alcoholics.  I got in because the similarities are so much the same in the way we cope.  Some drink themselves into a stupor, some swallow drugs like candy...and me...I cope by suicide.  I just don't have it in me to drink or drug myself slowly...I need to just die sometimes.  Now. 

I only lasted two weeks, unfortunately.  The first 3 weeks are the hardest at the centre because they delve very deep into your past and force you to look at what brings you to cope the way we do.  I have always been able to write about my fucking background, I have been able to share verbally.  But what I had to do at the center was actually DRAW the abuse and other traumas throughout your lifetime.

Go ahead, you try it...you draw your most utterly painful childhood or adult hood pain.  See what happens to your mind.

I got to age 12.  By then I realized so clearly that my mother is a monster, and always has been.  Sure I've bitched about her, said some of the things she did to me as a child...but, as I drew the events in my life I was sicker than a dog in the head.  I couldn't cope and there was no help that one evening I was trying to finish.  No counsellor, they had all gone home.

When I started to draw my experiences at age 12 I (apparently) went into a disassociated state, where I had no thinking in my head.   I simply got up (it was about 9:30 at night) and walked out of the center.  An earlier blog explains what I did in that state - wandering around a major city in my pyjamas, calling on cabs and going here and there and nowhere - until I ended up on my son's grave and fell asleep.  When I woke up at 5:00 am I had a small sense that something was wrong (I was beginning to 'think' again).

Long story short on that part (it's detailed in the blog before), I couldn't go back the center because I had left (broke the rules).  They did not know at that time why I had left, they just wrote me off because I had left.

A friend drove the 4 hour distance and picked me up at the hotel that let me in.  When I got to my city my friend drove me straight to the hospital.  Only, the hospital was very busy...I was stuck in a room with 4 walls for 8 hours; no one even asked if I wanted a drink of water.  Finally, a nurse came in and apologised for the delay.  I was so numb I just accepted her answer to the long wait on the hard chair in the 4 walled room.  Finally a doctor came and decided I was well enough to go to my friend’s home, come back to the hospital in the morning when it would be far less busy in the hospital.  So I left with my friend....and in the morning made sure we were there early enough to get looked at.  I was still foggy and numb but I was hopeful to get admitted to the mental health department because I knew I was not safe to be by myself.  I just knew it and my new coping skills tell me to reach out when it gets this bad...so bad I need to die.

I again waited.  From 8:00 am to 2:00 pm (again, in that same dim room and not one offer of a glass of water, let alone a meal.  No one came in...It was like I was forgotten completely again.

My mind went mental.  I began to think there was absolutely no help for someone like me, and it was pointless to continue sitting in that room waiting for...what?  I sense the mental health part of a hospital do not respect or care much for mental cases, which is what I am when I think suicide.

I walked out.  I had some cash so I walked out of the emergency room, and the hellish 4 wall room I was sitting in.  I called a taxi and went to my friend’s home (ex boyfriend).  Before I got there I stopped at the store and picked up a pint of rum, some coke, some potato chips (I was STARVING!), and cigarettes.  When I finally arrived (my ex was working and no one was home).  Frank has a huge back yard.   Now in the past it didn’t matter if I swallowed 3 bottles of deadly meds, I always still lived.

I remember my cousin killed himself by hanging in the closet.  He died so easily, it seemed to me.  So, I started to fantasize about hanging myself in |Franks back yard with all his trees and ropes and equipment...I continued to dream about dying.  This time it must work...I use to think God didn’t want me because he never let me die before, and bloody hell not for my lack of trying!\

I was sitting on Franks patio having a drink of my rum and coke (I poured some of the coke out of the plastic bottle and added the rum); and cramming the chips into my hungry mouth; and smoking those delicious cigarettes, and setting my plan.  There were neighbours that would see me and I didn’t want that, so I looked around the big backyard for a suitable place to hang myself without the neighbours knowing about it and ruining my plan.

I went back to the patio and had another gulp of the rum and coke, and a soothing cigarette.  As I scanned the yard I noticed Frank’s old trailer.  I walked over it and to my pleasant surprise; it was roped all around for some reason.  So I undid the one knotted rope, and just pulled it and it all came to me like it was meant to be.  I had the rope now.

Now what to put the rope on to ensure the neighbors didn’t see me.  Frank was building a new fence and I walked over and was excited to see I could tie the rope around the top of the fence, and, being on the other side of the fence no one would see me!

I did a pretty good knot on the fence top, and wrapped the rest of the rope around my neck.  I kept throwing up this black stuff, but I wasn’t DYING!  WHAT THE FUCK!  I knew I was hurting my neck, I manovered the rope to ensure it cut off my breathing, but just hanging there (my feet still touched the ground but I was trying to pull myself down – do die.

No luck.  I unwrapped the rope around my now sore neck and decided to have another drink of rum and cigarette, and figure out what went wrong and how I could make it right.

SHIT!

Just as I was sitting on the patio guess who walks in?  YEP, FRANK.  He saw the rope, and the rawness of my neck, and knew instantly what I was doing.  He called the paramedics and off I go, conscious, alive, and PISSED OFF TO NO END.

I lay on a gurney for a time before they admitted me to the mental health unit.

If you read my blogs before this, you know I am against all medication for the brain.  Anti-depressants, anything...I wanted nothing to do with them...to me; they do weird things to you and your thinking.  At least that is my experience.

I was put in the suicide watch (jail cell) where I was able to lay on a think mattress, and stare at 4 cement walls with several cameras on me.  At least in this room I was fed from time to time.  After 2 days they finally allowed me to go into the regular mental health ward which was restrictive, but heavenly for me in what I had been in.

I agreed to take the medication, all of the meds they wanted to feed me I just took.  I was stoned out of my mind most of the time.  But, I didn’t care.  I met some other residents (inmates) and played cards...and looked forward to meal time every day.  It was all bearable.

Since I was such a good girl to take the medication I was allowed out on an overnight pass to Frank’s house.  Since we were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend (hadn’t been for months) I slept on the sofa.  Suddenly I felt Frank on top of me, and without going into the details he raped me. 

The next morning when I got back to the hospital I told them, and they wanted me to call the police, have a rape kit done and blah blah blah.

The police took my statement (my statement was that I was on heavy medication and unable to fight back in any way).  They also went to Franks and took his statement.  Frank said it was concentual.  That I wanted sex (remember. I have a pelvic bottom prolapsed that needs surgery – I didn’t think I could even have sex...guess I could because Frank did take me as I lay like a lump; scared, furious, betrayed, you name the feelings I had.

I went through the humiliation of the rape kit (where sperm was found, but bruises were not).  I spoke to the hospital social worker, the nurses, the doctor.  The police came back and said this, “This is a situation where it is his word against your, and, you are a patient here at the mental health unit and on heavy medication, there is no way we can determine you did not give consent, therefore, we are closing the case.

STORY OF MY FUCKING LIFE!  I had just tried to press charges against my stepfather who sexually abused me from the age of 12 to 14 – and that ended up nowhere too since my family didn’t back me up, and it was ‘his word against mine.’ 

I GUESS HIS WORD AGAINST MINE ALWAYS MEANS HE WINS.  Whether it was my stepfather, or Frank, HIS word discounted MY word.

I don’t know what happened to me at that point.  I became numb again.  I was discharged after 3 weeks in this hospital.  I came home to my empty condo and made a very important decision.  Sexually, I don’t matter.  People can do whatever they want to me and get away with it, my word and body means SHIT and anyone can fuck around with you and too fucking bad.

And you won’t believe what was on 20/20 or Dateline that night.  A guy in Boston or something found a victim who was listed in the erotic section (call girl) of Craigslist...he killed her.  They made a big deal about the problem being Craig’s list and how they must shut down their erotic section.  HA!  The internet is full of dating services and other venues this killer could have found his victim ANYWHERE.

I am going bankrupt, I have no cash left...while I still have my condo and my car, I have $52,000 in credit card that I couldn’t possibly pay now.  I am going bankrupt and am not allowed to earn any more than $1800.00 per month.  Anything after that they take half. 

I got a great idea.  If people just take sex from you – why not make them pay?

I listed myself on Craig’s list erotic section.  I am offering myself for sale.

And guess what?  I am enjoying it!!!!  I am meeting some wonderful guys; they come to my home, pay up first, and then get their sex.  I am making some $800.00 per day depending on how many clients I can take in a day (remember, I am sick and waiting for surgery.

I could give a rat’s ass what anyone says about what I am doing.  I am eating right, I can pay my utilities, and I can indulge in some nice things I’ve been wanting for a long time.  And, the best part is that every client has been in their 45 – 55 age (I’m 49) and they are married but not getting sex...they don’t want drama, they just want to get laid from time to time!!! 

I love it!  So, my new life is I am a whore, a prostitute, a hooker...whatever you want to call me.  I don’t care.  The numbing medicine is helping me not care.   And I don’t.

So, that is the strange, strange twist to my life.  I once had a career in human resource management and adult education and career counselling; I once had an 11 room house with a son and husband to care for.  That was so long ago to me...

There is not a soul in my world that cares one way or another I am doing...I lost my entire family long ago.  I have isolated so much I don’t know too many people in my city who would even GUESS that I am doing this.

It doesn’t bother me.

I’m enjoying it.

I’m getting a lot of money.

How I got to this point (this type of thing would have horrified me a month ago) I don’t know...but, this is where I’m at. 

I was just wondering, though...why are the girls who supply this service called whore, hooker, prostitute, etc...but the married men who use us are simply called ‘John.’? 

That kind of bugs me.

Sigh.  So, readers, go for it...knock my head off for my new career.  I have one girlfriend whom I told and she and I talk about journeys and why we do things and how we find ourselves in situations that cannot be helped.  She supports me.  She doens't like it, but she is here for me....thank God for Rhonda!

Can this be helped?   I can’t work.  If I don’t work I lose the condo and car.  I don’t qualify for welfare or any other benefit...it would take months to get social security. 

Well, it is what it is. 

SPEAKING UP