“I’m here to try to help you, but I can’t help you until I know how you got where you are.”
“There is no helping me, and I am the way I am because… that’s just who I am.”
“So your suicide attempt is something you thought of on your own, no help from anyone or anything.”
“What the hell do you mean? That’s why it’s called suicide… because you do it to yourself.”
With a smile on her face, “Your right, I’m sorry. So let me refuse the question. What started this thought of suicide, Jay?”
With my hands in my lap, and looking at her with my big blue eyes and said, “While I guess it came from my mother, father, school, and…”I paused and looked blankly into the mirror on the side of the door, which was right in front of me and said, “my boyfriend… well ex-boyfriend.”
“Now we’re getting so where.” This witch, oh sorry I mean Doctor, writes away in her journal that she has had since my father died two years ago. “Don’t you want to tell me what all of them have to do with the emotional distress you have been experiencing.” Looking at me through her glasses which are sitting on her nose, she says “Well, are you going to tell me Jay, or am I just going to have to assume what they have to do with it?” As if she doesn’t already know the answer.
Screaming and yelling, I said “Well, where do I start? Do I start with the fact that my father left me with my mother how at that time didn’t care a damn about me? No, or with my ex-boyfriend who dumped me because I am too “NORMAL”.
“Calm down…calm down, there is no need to get all hostel Jay. I’m here to help you remember that, okay.” While moving her hands up and down, and trying to hand me a cup of water, “Can you tell me about the day this all happen, or what lead up to this day? What I’ve learned is that people just don’t do these kinds of things out of the blue. There are usually events that led up to them.”
Sorry, let me get you all up to speed, my name is Jay Marie Kennedy. I’m 18 years old and use to be one of the happiest girls in the world, until April 5, 2007. What is that day you ask? Well, that day was the day my father died in a car accident. Some jerk decided that he was going to get in the car in drive home after drinking, and ran into my father’s car. We were all there, my mother, of course my father and me. We were coming home from my school’s football game. My ex played football for them. He’s the quarterback and I was the head cheerleader. Can you believe that? Let me get back to the story. My father died on his way to the hospital and left my mother and me with everything we could possibly need to live a happy life. After this night I was never the same.
My mother, father and I, use to do everything together, we were the typical American family until that night. Now my mother and I do everything together after my suicide attempt, but before then we didn’t do anything together, and we barely even talked. Mrs. Kennedy was too busy trying to find another man.
“Well…” with a half smile on my face and running my hands through me brown hair, I said, “I guess it came from my father’s death and feeling like my mother wished it was the both of us, not just my father that died that night. Oh yeah…and my boyfriend dumped me for a bitch which use to be one of my closet friends.”
Looking into my eyes and trying to make me believe that she was one of my friends, she says, “No need to get mad Jay. Do you want to tell me about the day that has brought me back after six months?”
Saying it with no expression or remorse in my voice, while leaning back in the sofa I say, “Sure why not. Where would you like me to start?”
Tell it as if you were going to write a book about it.”
Folding her legs and looking at me with her blue eyes and brown hair I began, “Well…It was another day in this boring place. Newark, New York or Newdork I like to call it. I swear this is the only place in the whole world where it rains every day.
“Jay”, my mother was calling for me. Asking as if I didn’t hear it, I continued to lie in bed hoping that I would get lost in my dreams again. “Jay Marie Kennedy”, my mother called again.
“I’m coming mother.” I yelled from under my blanket. I then decided to jump up and pick an outfit from my closet. As I opened my closet I looked in the mirror and looked at my face wondering, who in the world am I. Yesterday afternoon my boyfriend Rickey decided that he no longer wanted to go out with me because, how did he say it “you’re not the girl for me anymore, your too… average.” Then he turned and walked away. Looking in the mirror I think, what he means I’m, average. I wear what everyone else wears.
“Jay, Jay… damn Jay. I’m sick of always having to repeat and yell at you. Don’t you need to be on your way to school?” said my mother with frustration.
Smirking up her face, and with attitude towards her, I said, “I am, I just…just…I’m going, and since when do you care if I go to school?”
“Fu…” she begins to yell at me, but the door closes with a slam.
“What the hell was that?” I could hear Jason, my mother’s boyfriend yelling from upstairs.
“Nothing, baby excuse her,” my mom pleas with Jason.
I remember thinking I just wish there was a time when my mother would just take my side on something.
“So… how was school that morning, did anything happen there that triggered your thought of…” The Doctor asked trying to not say the words that she has been saying all day, now finally realizing that those words should say in the past where they belong.
“No… no… ” Trying to convince myself that seeing Rickey with Stella wasn’t the cause, when it was. While it was just the final wood to the fire, where flames have being rising since my father died.
I parked my car in the school parking lot and said, “Welcome to the worst place on Earth.” while reaching in the back of my cherry red Mercedes LX 2009. “Another day in hell.” I would always say when I arrived at school since Rickey and I called it quits. Well since he called it quits.
Stepping out of the car Lisa runs up on the side of me, “Hey Jay, Jay!” She has been my best friend since forever.
“Hey, what’s up?” trying to put a smile on my face.
“How have you been doing?” she asked. Putting a fake smile on my face, I said I was, “fine, all average people are fine.” Looking at me with disappointment Lisa said,
“OMG, you’re still on that. Everyone is average, damn he is average. You don’t need any boy who doesn’t want you for you anyway Jay.”
Looking back on what she said to me now, I realize that she was right, but at the time all I could do was smile and say “your right.” I remember Lisa smiling back at me as she ran to class and I walked to mine.
Science class was the class I was going to, and God knew that class was going to be my breaking point. Rickey was in that class and once I walked in I saw him and Stella all over each other. I sat at the table that I always sat at right by the window, so that I could look out of it when I got bored.
Today was Lab day and Rickey and Stella got teamed up with me. To make a long story short, Stella decided that she was going to tell me that Rickey and she were now dating. She said, “Hey too bad that you and Rickey didn’t work out. I guess he was always meant to be with me.” She sat there smiling in my face while Rickey just looked out the window into the gray sky. I felt and could tell that Rickey truly was dating Stella, and did I care? Yes!
After Science class I ran right by Lisa to my car. What the hell is going on, I kept asking myself. As I sat in my car, my heart felt like it was going to stop. I remember putting my keys in the ignition, with tears rolling down my face. I could not believe that Rickey would be so harsh and do that to me.
“When you arrived home later that night after going and sitting at your father’s grave, what was going through your mind?” asked the Doctor.
“What do you think? I was thinking about ending it all, just being with my father.”
When I arrived home my mother and her boyfriend were sitting on the sofa. “Say Jay how was school?” Jason asked. Acting like I didn’t hear him, I went straight upstairs to my bathroom.
On the sink sat my razor that I used to shave my legs. I kept hearing this voice in my head say do it, do it. So I took the razor out of its safe guard, and cut my waist. As the blood run down my wrist, I felt the pain of life leaving my body. The next thing I remembered is being in the hospital and my mother crying and saying how much she loves me.
“Do you regret what you did?” The Doctor asked me and I said “No.”
Life after my father death and everything else that happen after that took a piece of me that I never thought I would be able to get back. I thought that life had no meaning at all. Why should anyone have to live when they feel that there is no love in their life, I would always ask myself.
“Did your suicide attempt fix what was going wrong in your life?” he asked.
I looked at him with a dumb look on my face, not believing that he was asking me that, and I pause and finally said “yes.” My mom and I get along great now, and Jason is a really nice man who I should have gave a chance. Looking at Doctor I said,
“I almost took my life because I wanted things to be the way they were when my father was alive, and when I was with Rickey. But after that day, I realized that I can’t remain in the someplace forever. Living is all about learning from one’s mistakes and accepting the changes of life for what they are. Life is going to change and a part of being human is learning how to change as well.”
