When I started this "blog," or what I like to call my "Online Journal;" it was to share my life as I see it. To maybe one day, it will reach to someone and they will not feel so alone.
PLEASE, PLEASE, If you may get TRIGGERED do not read this journal entry. This entry does talk about abuse and may be graphic to some. PLEASE, PLEASE keep yourself safe.
I can NEVER explain, even if I used an infinity of words, this overwhelming feeling of wanting to die. It was not like I woke up one morning and said, "Okay, this is the day that I am going to feel like dying." I don't even remember feeling anything else good or bad. The only thing that I do know is that feeling of wanting to die, is what consumed my days, nights, hours, minutes, and seconds.
All of my thoughts.. one played over and over again.. "If my mother and father could not love me.. then who could?" Seriously???
Let me explain:
I am a survivor. Well, in reality I like to say, "I am a Conqueror." I am a conqueror of physical, sexual, and mental abuse growing up. My childhood? I do not have the memories of the family sitting around the supper table, it wasn't the life that television portrays.
When I was 17 years old, I gave birth to a baby girl named Teleaitha Anne Olaes. She was born on July 22, 1990 at 7:07 am. She weighed 5 pounds and 14 ounces and was 20 inches long. A few hours before birth, the cord wrapped around her neck, and she died. However, she is the reason I was able to walk away permanently and never look back no matter how hard it was to never look back.
I have been told over and over that I could never be good as good as my brother. Or why could I not be like him? I have been told over and over that I was worthless as a human being. No matter how hard I tried, or what I did.. I would always be a failure. And of course, I should have never been born.
Growing up I lived with my mother. My father would come to the apartment always bearing gifts for my brother and me. In fact, we would laugh about him being "Santa Claus." We wouldn't see him all the time, but when he did see us, he definitely made it known that he loved us.
I was special. I was Daddy special little girl. Of course, at that time I was Daddy's only little girl. I can remember him taking me for a car ride and I sat on his lap to drive. I was close to being 9 years old. And Daddy put his hand between my legs. I jumped and he told me not to move because we could die. After all, I was driving. I can not even begin to tell you how many times he would find ways that he could touch me. From sitting on the couch watching a movie and having a blanket over us because I was "cold."
If I ever told anyone Daddy said he would not love me anymore. He said that everyone would hate me because I am just a kid. Eventually though, My mom moved to South Carolina and seeing Daddy would be in the summer.
My brother and me ended up in a foster home. (That in itself is a very long story). My brother wasn't there long, he got to go back home to live with our mom. I am really unsure how that all played out in details. However, I do remember being told was that he was getting into a lot of trouble and being back home he would do better. Yet, I was still there. Remember I had said earlier that I was never going to be good as my brother.
Bob and Sherry Crunkleton.. or what I call them, "Ma and Pa." was my foster home. In fact, at that time they were the biggest foster home in the county. How I love them with all of my heart and soul. Ma would bring me to a store that was by her house to be able to meet with my mom so I could visit. Many times, my mother would not show up. I would just sit there on the bench, just waiting, just kept telling myself that she would be there. When the sun would go down.. It was time for me to go back to Ma and Pa's home.
I was an outcast. I could not cry anymore. I just did not care anymore. Pa said that he knew what was going on. One day, Ma said that she had to drive me to Mental Health. (Years later I found out that Pa did not want me to come back home until I got the help that I needed because he knew that something was wrong).
The counselor took me back. I don't remember exactly what was said, but I do remember this.. I was given a choice.. 1) Either I signed a contract saying that I would not hurt myself. or 2) Jake (the counselor) said, be admitted to a psych ward.
Funny isn't it? What 13 year old do you know that wouldn't sign the contract? Of course, I signed it.. I wasn't going to any crazy home for sure!
I became this robot. Just existing. I just wanted to die. Nothing more and nothing less. I wrote in a diary saying, "The silence of nothingless and sweet darkness will surround me with the earth's dirt covering me like a blanket. Would be much better than the air that I breath into my lungs that suffocates me with each breath that I take."
Each night I would pray and ask if there was truly a God would you please take me and not let me wake in the morning's light. And each morning, I would find myself suffocating on the air that I breathed.
I did hear Pa's words as he spoked to me. He would want me to talk to him. He would tell me that they loved me. That I was part of their home. It would get better. But, I could not see past anything then the feeling of anguish in my spirit and soul.. and could not shake the words that spoke in my head constantly, never shutting up.. "If your own Mother and Father can't love you, than who can?"
I took about 600 pills of Theophylline. I made sure before I took them that I was exhausted.. If I started to fall asleep I'd cut. Because of my foster parents, because of my Pa, he listened to God.. and sat in the living room, in the dark, because he told me that he knew something was going to happen. I did fall asleep, I remember throwing up.. and I remember being in ICU. That is all that I remember except someone saying, "How stupid can you be?" and walking out of my room at the hospital.
Ma and Pa never left my side. Even when I was committed to a hospital for quite some time. Even though it was against what everyone was telling them to do, they let me go back home with them when I was released. They never once rejected me. And they are the reason for me becoming the woman that I am today.
My father did contact me.. he wanted me to go live with him. We would talk on the hours before. and yes, he even said that he had changed and didn't mean to ever hurt me. He did come to South Carolina, (I found out years later that he actually did fail a polygraph test) and that is why I could never go live with him, but he told me that I couldn't go live with him because it was out of state and my foster parents wanted the money from the state for keeping me (which is a huge lie). Hence, why I ran away from my foster home, while my father waited for me at the end of the driveway.
That very night, my father had sex with me in a hotel room that we stopped at traveling back to Massachusetts. He told me if I ever told that he would kill me. That he would leave me stranded on the side of the road and nobody would come and get me. He told me that he loved me so much. That he wanted to show me how much he loved me.
And this is what began years of him having sex with me. Until I became pregnant. When he beat me in the parking lot of the abortion clinic because I couldn't do it. The constant sex, hitting, calling me names, was nothing as painful as the people that walked by and did nothing to help.
To sum this up:
Years later, I walked up to the police department and I broke the silence for the first time. They did arrest him. The community (Of Lynn, Massachusetts) raised up money to get my father out of jail. Daddy was very active in the community and well liked. I was just a daughter that was jealous and causing problems. That I was a liar. That he could never do anything like this.
They exhumed my daughter's body (In 1999), they didn't think they could get anything from her because it had been almost 10 years. Yet, they did. They did 3 different DNA tests.. and all of them came back 99% that my father was the father of my daughter.
The state wanted him to serve the max. (It would of been 88 years+).. But, I didn't want that.. All I wanted was people to know the truth. That maybe if someone would finally believe me, I wouldn't want to die anymore. (That isn't what happened though)..
Antonio Dulay Olaes, Jr., in the month of January, year of 2000 he plead guilty. He received 4 to 6 years.
Suicidal??? Yes, from time to time I do feel that feeling cropping up within me. It isn't like I want it to crop up from time to time, because I don't. However, those times when I find myself getting triggered to began allowing me to feel that way, I try to stay away from. And reminding myself.. "This is now.. you are safe."
It isn't an ordinary feeling. It is a feeling that is very heavy.. Suffocating heavy. As if there is no air in your lungs and you are gasping for breath. It is a feeling that makes your body feel like it has been hit over and over on every inch of your being. It is a feeling as if you are locked up in a room, that is totally dark, and you are begging to find a glimpse of the light. It is a feeling of tangled branches and you can't see the end nor the beginning.
How do I deal with that feeling now as a grown woman? I just remind myself that is the present and that was the past. That even though I feel that way from time to time, there isn't a justification for it and that there is "hope" after the "storm." That this feeling will pass. Even though I don't ask for that feeling to sneak up on me.. I know it is there, I recognize it, and don't act out on it.
Yes, at times I wish that one day my father would recognize me.. Apologize and accept me and love me as he should that is healthy because I am his daughter. And because I have this wish from time to time, it also brings the weight of rejection, and this causing the suffocating feeling of wanting to die. And with this.. my support system helps me get pass this moment.
There is help.. being "Suicidal," feeling the depths of despair, it is vital to have a strong support system out here. It is okay to feel what you feel.. However, it is NOT okay to act upon those feelings. There is a rainbow at the end of the storm.
I shared this with you because I want you to know that you are not alone. I promise that you are not alone. Feel free to hit "Email Me" button and I will respond to you.. You do NOT have to walk ALONE with this FEELING!
For other suicide help you can go to:
* https://afsp.org/find-support/
Or Call: National Suicide Prevention LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
Or Crisis TextLine at: 741741 and text TALK
This Journal Entry was written in Honor of "Suicide Awareness Month" (September)..
*My thoughts.. my feelings.. just as they are.