Chapter 3- when words cut deeper

I attempted to end it all and take too many antidepressant pills and anxiety pills 'by accident' when the kids who still had mum and dad told me to "shake it off," as if crippling sadness caused by a black storm in my heart could be remedied by anything found in a first aid kit. It was a sadness that clung and consumed people who laughed loudly but cried silently. This storm made me describe how the sky twists before it breaks, and while the world slept, I walked a tightrope in the dark, praying not to fall, yet wondering if falling would bring peace. Still, they said words shouldn't hurt. Except the words were wounds, and I was bleeding.

It was always the words, wasn't it? They came in all shapes and sizes: whispered judgments in the hallways, sneers from those who couldn't see the invisible weight I carried. It felt like I was suffocating beneath them, the air thick with their cruelty. And yet, the more they spoke, the more I learned to silence myself, to hide the turmoil that churned beneath my skin. No one asked me how I was, no one cared enough to look deeper. They assumed the silence meant strength, but really, it was just a shield, one that cracked more with each passing day.

The anti-depressants weren't enough anymore. The pain melted, slowly, when I found my saviour: a little white tablet—bitter at first, but holy in its hush. It slid down my throat like a prayer and bloomed beneath my skin like smoke—warm and forgiving. It didn't erase the ache, just tucked it beneath silk sheets, kissed its forehead, and told it to sleep for a while. It was a temporary reprieve, a fleeting sense of peace that faded too quickly. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was knowing that this numbness was the closest I would ever feel to a normal life. I didn't need the high, not really. I needed the quiet, the space between the thoughts that used to suffocate me.

I bought oxycodone from dealers at school—not for pleasure, or escape, but for quiet. For sanity. It wrapped around me like a cocoon, muting the noise of my wounds and it protected me from the world. But the high began to slip faster, and when it left, the weight returned—louder, heavier, crueller. The darkness would creep back in, more suffocating than before. I learned to dread the comedown, the moment when the pills wore off, and I was left with nothing but the empty hollow of my soul, aching and raw. I thought maybe the silence would last longer if I could just keep going, keep numbing it, keep pretending it wasn't there. But the emptiness always returned, and it was even louder now.

For a year, silence became my sanctuary. My father, of all people, couldn't understand that sometimes, the need for drugs had less to do with addiction, and more to do with sanity. I knew better. It was fragile, but it was armour that kept me from collapsing beneath the weight of my own mind. But he saw it as weakness, as a failure. To him, I was just a disappointment. To me, I was barely holding on to anything, and this was the only thing that kept me tethered to reality. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him I wasn't doing it to hurt him, but to save myself. But I didn't. I kept it inside, buried beneath the layers of silence that I had become so accustomed to.

When he found my stash, his hand came down hard. It felt like nothing—just a hollow thud on a body worn down by too many hits. His words hit harder than his hand ever could. He kept repeating, "You've changed and become a disappointment." The words echoed in my mind, and I couldn't escape them. That was the last time I saw him. I wish I had even a sliver of self-respect to tell him "I changed partly because of you." Instead, I stayed true to myself and remained quiet. The silence was safer than the alternative. It was in this silence that I realised something cruelly poetic: the bruises never hurt as much as the names I couldn't forget.