CINDY

PHOTO BY RANDY BACON

CINDY

“To Find Peace”

I just remember life starting not much before my mom died. And I remember that night. And, being woken up with a gunshot sound and going downstairs and finding her in the basement… and things being a mess. Then my dad came home and I ran back up and got in my bed. I didn’t know what to do. Then I remember the neighbors coming and covering up my head and taking me next door. I saw the ambulance and my mom being taken away. I knew my mom was dead when I saw her downstairs after I heard the gunshot, because part of her head was gone. My brother and I were just told to not to talk about it, and it was never spoken of again.

We were never allowed to talk about my mom’s death, so that was kind of the hard part. I had already had panic attacks and for years was afraid for my dad to leave the house because of what I now realize was fear of my other parent dying. I was always terrified that my dad would never come back. I had panic attacks and suffered with depression, but there was just no one to discuss it with. Things never really got “better” in our family, so I just left at seventeen. I graduated early, moved away, and ended up going into social work. It’s been forty years now and my dad, my brother and I still haven’t discussed the suicide.

Even now as an adult, I see the abandonment issues always creep back up in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever really feel secure in anything. I’ve just adopted the mindset of “I’m going to leave you before you leave me”... Not having closure is a big thing. My mom did leave suicide notes, and we had two because she tried it once with pills and it didn’t work. It irritates me and I have had a lot of anger towards my dad for not talking to my mom about what was going on with her after her first attempt. I just don’t understand how her failed attempt wouldn’t provoke a conversation to address what was going on.

Not having closure from such a young age, is now just a lifelong frustration...it’s like an itch that you can’t scratch. I think that has always made me demand answers and want to solve things and make sure nothing is left undone or unanswered. I feel like I have stayed in toxic relationships longer than maybe it would have been healthy for me to stay in because of such an early abandonment. And the abandonment doesn’t just come from my mom dying, there still wasn’t a substantial love from my dad because he was just always unavailable. He was there physically, but he was unavailable. I’ve carried that into adulthood; trying to be heard and seen and make it work because that’s just all I know. I also definitely think that my brother and I both internalized some guilt about my mom dying, like maybe she wouldn’t have killed herself if we had just done something different.

I realized early on that I couldn’t think of one positive memory with my mom, I only had negative ones. I remember the fighting between her and my dad, I remember knocking on the bedroom door to wake my mom up but her being too drunk to get out of bed. She would lock the door and she didn’t come out, so I was on my own all day. I remember that one day when I was around three, I wanted to know what a word meant, and so I knocked on the bedroom door to ask my mom. I kept knocking and she finally opened the door and screamed the answer at me. I remember thinking later after she died that if I had just not bothered my mom...maybe if I hadn't bugged her during the day and just let her sleep, she wouldn’t have killed herself.

I try to take my experiences and mentor other people and volunteer so that at least I can use what I’ve gone through to help other people. I’m forty-seven and still just trying to understand myself. My dream for the future is to try to make some sort of substantial difference… and I’m hoping that this project will be part of it. I think there’s a plan and don’t think anything happens by accident without a reason. I want to do something big that makes a big impact on a lot of people. As far as personal dream for myself, I want to be able to defeat some of my demons. It sounds small, but I want to be able to find peace.