Someone asked me, after seeing how devastating a certain turn of events was to my psyche, "Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?" That specific turn of the phrase sounded more like an insult than a question at that moment. Maybe I took it the wrong way. However, over the years, as I asked other people how they would have taken it, they too said that it was more of an insult…a goading to suicidal tendencies, than concern. At that moment I said something smart assed and ran off. I can’t remember exactly what I said because I was highly emotional. It was my fiance that asked me that. He knew exactly how much pain I was in and in some misguided concern or perhaps hateful attempt to goad me he said those words. His eyes said confusion and concern, but his words stung.
English was a second language, but he claimed (and still does to this day) to be fluent in it. Although he was very close to fluent, I feel he may have mistaken a few very important details between the different dialects of English. What you say in America can be an insult in England and vice versa when it isn’t meant to be. He was taught English in England and I was born American. Anyone that has seen how the tiny differences cause huge confusion can understand what I mean. Someone that learned English as a second language in that way may never understand the differences and wrongly claim they are fluent in American English, where in it sounds like the same language, but it is an entirely different animal.
Whatever the case with him may be, pure hatred or a linguistic mishap, it pretty much sealed the deal when it came to my heart with him. I knew that we could not live together as husband and wife if something like this could get so confusing and twisted. I have thought a lot about that moment. I have thought a lot about all the moments that lead up to that also. Why haven’t I killed myself?
I could say it’s because I believe God would send me to hell. That is the appropriate response after all in my society. That isn’t why. I have lived in hell here on earth and if God were as merciful as claimed, he would never send someone to hell for failing and being weak. Afterall, the Bible reminds us of the weakness of man constantly. No, my ability to go on is not a purely religious one, because I kept going before I had fervent belief. I do have a very spiteful spirit and I used to live on pure hate.
Oh, but that’s awful you say. Ah, so it is for the person’s health that is doing it. "Oh, but unusually quiet, hatred is evil…" I beg to differ. Hatred will get you up in the morning to go to another day of hell if only to say I made it to the end of the day. Hatred can fill your belly when there’s no food. Hatred can make you keep going when your muscles are about to give out. Hatred is a super power that is often misused and abused. Hatred should be used for good. I’m not saying it’s more powerful than love. Nope. However, when you can find no love in your heart, hatred will keep you going.
What do I mean about hatred? Hatred is this quiet smoldering rage that sits in your belly and keeps it warm. It makes you turn away from the world entirely and look within to find your own guidance. No amount of gifts, affection, money, or comfort can make this white hot rage that sits beneath the surface cool down. The only thing that can calm it is a type of sacrificial love that is so rare, we adore Jesus Christ for it. Like I said, hatred is not stronger than love, but you would never know it when you actually encounter it. In fact, that sort of sacrificial love is so very rare that hatred tends to run rampant and so we believe that either true love doesn’t exist or hatred is stronger than love. Both assertions are wrong. Love exists and love is stronger than hatred.
However, back to why I hadn’t killed myself yet. I had concluded I kept living on pure hatred. I didn’t know that sort of love back then. That isn’t to say people didn’t try to show it to me. I just hadn’t felt it yet. I had many people try to reach me, but me being the difficult, angry, testy, ruinous, young lady I was, I had to test them…everyone. I had to test the limits of their love. I felt if love was conditional, then it wasn’t love. Oddly enough, and perhaps quite hypocritical of myself, I didn’t want any limits on myself. So I had to have someone that loved me unconditionally as I acted like they were of no consequence to me or my condition. Can you see what an awful person I was to be in a relationship with? Who could love such a person? Only Jesus Christ you are probably saying…interestingly enough there is such a man alive today. Not Jesus Christ, but someone that could love such a person.
Yeah, I didn’t know it at the time, but even my feral, angry, spitting, hissing self could be made as docile as a house cat with enough love, patience, and time. I said cat, because just like cats I still have that "Oh you are still here" attitude. You see, I guess the man that came next into my life saw something no one else did. After my fiance and I broke up, I started to date a man that I wasn’t too sure about. He seemed familiar, but there were parts of him that were way different. No matter, one day shortly after we got together we were arguing. I was in my typical fashion angry at him about something he had done that day and something I myself had done a week prior. He questioned me about it patiently and showed the absolute hypocrisy in my behaviour. I, as usual, refused to budge even though I could see how he was right and I was wrong. Then out of nowhere in the middle of this argument, he started laughing. "Oh I see. You know you are wrong and you refuse to budge. Why? To be difficult?" He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know how to respond. I puckered up my lips and looked like I was about to cry because no one had ever gotten that right before.
This made him laugh even more! Then he came over and hugged me…in the middle of an argument. He was laughing and hugging me. He kissed me as I started crying. It’s like my entire defense mechanism against people was see through to him. He was trying to make me stop crying while kissing me. "It’s ok. You can be as difficult as you want," he said to me like I was a toddler. "I will love the anger out of you. I will love you no matter what."
I was crying now and said, "No you won’t. You’ll see! You’ll leave like everyone else." I was crying and angry. He had struck a chord in me. He saw through my difficult behaviour to the root which was to push anyone away that might leave anyway. I was setting myself up for failure in every relationship because of this attribute of myself.
When I burst out in tears he said, "I will love this out of you. I will be here in twenty years. Then will you admit that I am not going anywhere? Then will you see that I love you? That even if everyone else couldn’t see that all you needed was loved, at least I did?" I nodded. I cried and nodded much like a small child would. I know I was emotionally immature. I wasn’t allowed to grow emotionally. I began to grow as soon as I found this man, who is now my husband.
I wish that was the end of my childish behaviour, but no…like every child I had to test the waters over and over again. I had to push. I had to fight. I had to resist. I had to rage. I took out all of my childhood trauma on him and pushed some more. You would have thought he would have left. Scores of others had given up well before he was tired of fighting. Nope, he just stood and took it. He could see through to the root of my issues and concisely sum them up in a sentence or two and this would usually reduce me to a puddle of tears. That tended to end the argument.
After twenty three years he turned to me the other night, "I told you a long time ago I would love the hurt out of you." He was petting his cat. He went on, "You were like this little guy inside when I found you. Remember how weak, small, and feral he was?" I did. "Look how happy and calm he is now. Most people have parents that love them and raise them to be happy and calm. You didn’t. I knew though, eventually, even if things were difficult, you would be happy and calm." He smiled, "People don’t turn out like you were without being seriously abused. What would more abuse bring you? It wouldn’t show you anything except to confirm that people are evil, just like feral kittens think." He kept playing with the cat.
"Why did you do it?" That’s all I could wonder. Now instead of why haven’t I killed myself, I ask why would I kill myself? Now, even when I say I want to die, I don’t actually mean it like I used to. Even when I get close to meaning it, my husband does something that reminds me how lucky I am. Sometimes it’s something as stupid as interrupting my thoughts with a sturpid rerun of Babylon Five (which he never liked when I knew him before) or as sweet as making me an omelette at midnight when I had a long stressful day working. Why would I kill myself when I am so loved?
You know what his answer was? "I did it because I love you. Don’t think I was selfless. In the process of saving you, I saved myself." I may never know the battles he fought in his soul, but somehow he saved us both.