To Hell and Back

 

I realize now that I have not written here since the end of 2021, and now it is 2023.

 

It is because I was in hell all of last year.  2022 was my year of personal hell.

 

In January 2022, I found my daughter in her room dangling from her neck, minutes away from death.  Her face was blue and she had almost lost consciousness.  Fortunately my brother was there and he held up her body as I unraveled the bed sheets from around her neck.

 

Thirty minutes before that, she had told me she was hungry and wanted to order McDonald’s.  I was not happy as I had already made breakfast and told her that she should not be eating so much fast food.  She muttered something unintelligible, went into her bedroom, and slammed the door.

 

The delivery guy came.  I went to her room and knocked on the door.  No answer.  I knocked again, this time louder.  No answer again.  I tried the door knob.  She had locked the door.  I felt like something was wrong.  

 

My brother was visiting and I told him that I felt like something was wrong.  He picked her lock, and that was when we found her.  She had tied bedsheets around her neck and hung herself from the steel window bars.

 

If she had not ordered food, we may have found her too late.

 

I spent much of last year taking her to different therapists and doctors.  She was prescribed some antidepressants, which she refused to take.   She slashed her arms multiple times.  I lived in a constant state of fear and worry.  Every day I was sure that that day was going to be the day that I would lose her forever.

 

After over twenty years of not going to church, I started going last year.  Every Sunday, I went to church and prayed to God to save my daughter.  I prayed non-stop to a God that I had hated for over two decades ever since I lost my sister to cancer.  

 

I urged my daughter to also turn to God.  She even joined a youth ministry.  Things were starting to look up for her, but then the youth minister started sending her inappropriate messages.  She became disgusted with the church, and she and her fellow female colleagues stopped attending the youth services.  Eventually, the priest was sent away, and she and her colleagues slowly started coming back to church.

 

A year later, my daughter is better.  She is still healing and still fragile.  I am also still healing and still live in a constant state of anxiety and fearful with the thought that my daughter may slip back into a dark hole.  Praying to God helped me and my daughter last year.  I will continue to pray this year.