My name is Molly Parker. I’m going to be 18 in only two more weeks and I feel like I’m 30. Depression has a way of taking over and making you into someone you’re truly not. I feel sharing my story, and the struggles I’ve experienced, will help others come forward and share their stories. I know what it feels like to believe you’re alone. I’m hoping, after reading this blog, you’ll understand that you’re NOT alone.
I can still remember the first time I picked up that razor and believed it was my friend. It was almost nine years ago. I had come home from school, after another day of being bullied and pushed around, and just said to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” I know, you’re thinking, “That’s so stupid. Why would you think about something like that at only nine years old?!” It comes to the point to where you don’t know what else to do. You don’t know who to turn to anymore, because everyone you turned to let you down. You feel alone, and you just want the world to stop, just for a minute. For that one minute, you feel like you’re the only person in the world. You feel like everything is gone for the moment and it’s just you. You’re on top of the world, kid. Then time starts again, and it’s like that split second of happiness never happened. So you pick up that razor and do what you do best, you cut. You cut until you can’t see straight anymore. Until your head hurts, and your eyes are watering. You see red, and you’re done. You put the razor away and walk out of the bathroom like nothing happened. “Just wash the blood away and put on that big hoodie you wear all the time. No one will know.” That’s what I told myself after every cut. I was right, no one ever knew. Not until you raise up your sleeve and forget your inner struggles are now being seen on the outside. “It’s just scratches from the cat.” No one ever believed it, although they looked at me and smiled, changing the subject. I couldn’t tell anyone. No one would understand. Everyone will think I’m crazy, or stupid, or laugh at me. What’s the point?
A couple years pass, and the scars become more difficult to hide. How does a child explain to their parents that they don’t feel good enough? That their best friend is a razor blade? How could no one know that I feel dead inside? Then I would sit and think to myself, “Maybe if I’m louder, they’ll hear me.” No one did. No one heard my cries for help, making me feel even more alone. I found a way to cover it up though. Drugs. It started with the Xanax, Adderal, Hydrocodone, pill after pill, cut after cut. “Just take another pill, darling.” That’s what the voices in my head would say, and they’d laugh at me. I always listened. Finally, one night, I took one too many pills, and overdosed. I can say I never tried to stop it. I just sat in my bathroom floor drawing, waiting for the mixture of pills to kick in and kill me, take me out of my misery. I almost died that night. I laid down, holding the suicide not I wrote close to me. Then it happened. The pills kicked each other in the face and came right back up into the toilet. I failed. I was very disappointed.
My first trip to the mental facility, Valley, was April of 2013. I had cut myself 50 times on various places on my body, and I couldn’t hide it. I faked my way out of there very quick. I was only there for five days, and smiled my way out, just to go back home to my razor I had hidden. The second time was pretty much the same. I was there for the same reason, except this time I had overdosed. When you’re ready to go, you’ll try anything. I went from trying to hang myself in the closet to slitting my wrists and taking pills. I would have to say jumping in front of an 18 wheeler was one of my closest near death experience. Well, second closest. The third and final time I was sent to Valley was in February, right after Valentine’s Day. The drugs had gotten harder, and to me, my time was running out. I was destroying my body with meth, everyday, for months. I dropped 30 pounds in a two week period. My teeth began to chip, and I began getting paranoid that something really bad was going to happen to me. Nothing specific, meth just whacks you out. I made the mistake of smoking so much meth, I lost myself. I wasn’t even Molly anymore. I went crazy, beating on my family, and finally slit my wrists. I was dying. I could feel myself actually dying, and I was so happy. I was ready. I was done with everything and I just wanted to go home. The meth made me aggressive, so even while have in this world, half in another, I still managed to try to destroy everyone that got in my way that night.
After my drug test, and stitches, I was transported to Valley by two police officers. I was still pissed, and all I wanted was a cigarette and to go home. I tried fighting my way out of there, but it just got me sedated. Valley never helped me that much, but I can say that visit, I found who Molly really was. The Molly hiding behind the drugs, and the scars. I’m a human being. It took me realizing that to begin to fix myself. I still live with the scars everyday. I’m reminded every single day of the struggles I went through and it makes me smile. I made it. I finally made it. Now I’m graduating, I have a job, I’ve been clean from cutting and drugs for over a month now. I’m singing again, I’m smiling again, I’m MOLLY again.
The whole point of this blog is to show those struggling that it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to cry, it’s okay to scream. No one here is going to try to save you. We are going to stand by your side as you learn to save yourself. You’re not alone. Go to as a therapist, or a psychiatrist to put you on medication to help boost your enthusiasm in helping yourself. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. It’s going to be a long, hard road, but this site is for you, so you don’t have to walk that road alone. You’re worth something! I promise.
Rant, vent, cry, let this be your diary. Let. It. Out. It’s okay to not be okay.
– Molly Parker
I invite you to take a moment and look around. You may be at work, school, home or out with your loved ones. Perhaps you are alone. If so…it’s okay. Wherever you are, think about those you love near and far. Who comes to mind? Who do you picture? What do you do when you are with that special person or persons? I know that I immediately picture my husband, my three kids and two granddaughters for starters. When I think about what we like to do, when we are together, I think about family dinners, trips to the park and family games. I think about the laughter that I hear and the smiles that grace my loved one’s faces and the warm embrace of a hug from a loved one.
This Is Your Sign! 