Self Story 3: Villainy

● Relate a time that you felt the impact of your socioeconomic status.

TW: Suicide, Self-Harm, Anxiety

The only time I'm ever grateful for the curved legs of my office chair is when my anxiety shakes my bones and steals every breath from my lungs because it makes the incessant rocking more comfortable and less painful. Once I saw the notification pop-up on my phone, that my dad was streaming on Twitch, I knew it was the only opportunity I had to ask him the question that had been tugging at my every thought. I gripped my drawing pen tighter in my hand, savouring the cushioned plastic and the stability it brought to my otherwise shaking hands. I closed the tab on my laptop playing Criminal Minds, I knew they would catch the bad guy at the end and everything would be okay, but I wasn't okay and I needed to ask. The new tab flicked purple as I loaded the streaming site, ignoring the pain in my gut as the hue burrowed into my deepest fears. I put down my drawing pen as I opened my dad's Twitch channel, so nervous I didn't pay attention to what he was playing and immediately picked up the pen with my other hand as I slowly typed out my question.

"Will you pay for me to go to online therapy?" I stared at the question, black text amongst the white box of the screen, weighing my options. Was it so dire that I was willing to ask this, willing to subject myself to the answer? Yes, judging by the last few weeks and the timer keeping track of the days on my phone, yes, it was that dire. I rocked slowly back and forth, trying to focus on the drawing on my other screen that was slowly turning blurry as I waited for a response. Maybe he would say yes, maybe he would say okay and it could all be okay. I prayed and begged that he would say yes. I needed him to say yes because I didn't know what would happen to be otherwise.

“Why do you need that?” popped up from his end. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to tell him that a week ago I tried to kill myself on the cold floor in the corner of my apartment. I didn’t know how to tell him that I have to shower in the dark so I don’t see myself and that every mirror in my apartment is covered. I didn’t know how to tell him that I dissociated every night and texted my friends telling them that my bones aren’t real because in that state I couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake. I knew that no matter what I said, his response would be snarky and sassy, as it always was, no matter how many times I told him that I had autism and I can’t understand his sarcasm.

“I’ve just been having a really hard time lately and my friends told me it’s something I should look into,” I responded, feeling my breaths become shorter and deeper and the pain in my sides dug in further.

"Oh really? You're telling your friends about this stuff? What else have you tried? Do you eat three balanced meals a day? Do you exercise for 30 minutes a day? Do you go on your phone before bed? How about you try doing those things before we talk about therapy?" He typed back. As I read his response, I lost all hope. It would be this every time I asked and the pain wouldn't go away. I couldn't tell him that my mental health was so bad that every time I ate I wanted to throw up and so I could barely eat one meal a day. I couldn't tell him that if I tried going for walks I wound up sobbing because I couldn't be alone with my thoughts. I didn't know what to respond to him, I grabbed my phone and savoured the cool plastic screen against my sweat-covered hands before playing the songs that made me feel valid in this space. I opened discord on another app so I could text my friends because I knew they loved me and wanted me to be okay.

“With two mortgages and yours and your sister’s schooling, we can’t pay for online therapy right now,” Oh. Oh. So, my mother can go to LuLuLemon and drop $400 like it’s nothing and go online shopping all day and all night, but I spend every waking moment wanting to die because she can’t stop telling me that I’m mean and cruel and awful. It didn’t make sense to me, though money rarely did. My mom has two degrees and gets paid more as a teacher, and my dad’s a CEO, and they can’t pay for me to get help for the things that they caused. They refused to buy me two pans to cook with because it was too expensive, but my mom bought a custom blanket with her cat's names on it. Not even including the fact that my parents had always said that they will pay for anything if I asked for it, which I always knew was a lie. "Why’s your anxiety been bad lately?” he asked, and I told him that I set the smoke alarm off in my apartment so cooking has been scary. “How about next time you call me and I’ll tell you what to do if you think the smoke alarms are going to go off?” Even though I was sobbing, I scoffed. If I did that, he would immediately tell me to Google it. It’s what he always did, without fail. I told him that, and it was the wrong choice. His next response rattled my bones and there’s not a moment that I go about my life without feeling the weight of those words on my shoulders.

“JORGIA YOUR PISSING ME OFF> ITS LIKE YORU TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE SHIT.” He typed back. It was my point of no return. Here was the other parent telling me that all I can do is make people feel awful about themselves. Here was the other parent confirming that I am nothing more than a villain who deserves to die so the world can be better off, and no one would mourn because when the villain dies the city celebrates their defeat. He couldn't even call me by my chosen name because I knew he would never respect it if I told him. I typed my goodbyes to my father and retreated to my couch. I texted my found family a few quick messages before blasting the song I always listened to in this state and grabbed the knife I often kept next to my couch for this reason. I absorbed the sounds of the rain in the remix of the song like it was the only nutrition I had ever received and internalized the words like I would never hear again.

“Jorah deserves pain and suffering? Hmm, I think yes. The corner is where scum like Jorah belong. They'll never be proud of me, and so I will keep pushing and eventually I will break, but that's okay." I sent my closest friends, Lauren and Noe, knowing that even at my worst they'll support me. I tugged my legs to my chest and started hitting the dull end of the knife against my ankle, just a test to see if it would break my skin. I wanted it to break my skin. I wanted to bleed out on the couch because it's what I deserved. I'm a waste of time and money and my parents had made that plenty clear to me. I found the contact in my phone for the Canadian Suicide Hotline and dialled the number. In hushed words, through tears, I told them what happened as I fought off the dissociation and switched the knife to the sharp side and continued to tap against my ankle. The cool metal of the blade felt nice. It felt comforting because I was truly alone, despite the voice on the other end of the call. Eventually, I lied to the person speaking to me and said that I would be okay for the end of the night, knowing full well I would not be, but the knife was no longer in my hands and I had migrated to the corner of my last suicide attempt.

For the rest of the night, I was in an intense dissociative state. I found a text the next morning to another friend saying I wanted to plunge a knife into my stomach because it would be cheaper in the long run for my parents. Another text to the same friend saying that I should give up on my dreams and drop out of school so my parents could buy all the cat-themed items they wanted and could buy a whole LuLuLemon if they really wanted. But, the dissociation made me pass out before I could do anything like that. All I remembered from that night the day after without reading texts is that my mother's personal shopping habits are more important than my life. They still are. I don't think all the money in the world could change that. I don't think any achievement I could ever make could change that. I don't think anything in this world could change that.

The song I listened to while sitting on my couch: