The Door Girl, Part 6

I decided to use this strategy for myself after mother’s disappearance. I read once that if a certain situation is too painful for you to process, you tell yourself a new story to cope with the pain. Like, if your boyfriend who you were madly in love with breaks up with you and you are absolutely sure it’s because you have small breasts, you tell yourself that he had to leave because he was so in love with you that he wanted to marry you, but he didn’t have any money and so he had to forge his way in the world and he would eventually return to you—with perhaps enough money for you to get a boob job. This helps you not to hate yourself for still having to buy bras in the little girls’ department at Kmart. And it helps you to swallow the bitter pill of rejection.

So when my mother was suddenly gone, the first story I told myself was that I fucking hated her. That she was a drug addict and probably living in some hell-hole shooting up. Those were the words of the story I said out loud to my friends when they asked where she was.

The words I said in my head were that I fucking hated myself. That I was worthless. The pain of being a teenage girl without a mom was like being an apostle without Jesus. And I sure the hell didn’t have the Ten Commandments of “How to be a Pre-Pubescent Chick.” I just had a hole—a mom-shaped hole. And the ever-present fear of how I would ever learn to use a tampon when that dreaded day came.

And so I told myself a new story to assuage the pain. I was able to do this with all of the knowledge I’d gleaned at Al-Anon over the years. This story went something like this:

My mother is an addict. When people are addicts, they live in an addictive fog. The only thing they see, crave, dream about is the drug. Addiction is a heavy cross to bear. It is the thorn in one’s side. I must not take it personally because she doesn’t want to be like this. I am valuable and worthwhile, but my mother just can’t see that because she isn’t thinking clearly. Her struggles have absolutely nothing to do with me and I must learn to separate myself in order to not let the pain of missing her affect me. I will be strong and self-composed. I will astound everyone by being a perfect student. I will be practical and thoughtful. I will, at all times, be self-controlled. I will follow all the rules. I will be the opposite of my mother.

That was the new story I told myself.

But inside, the dying had begun. No matter what story I told myself—the true, the false, the empowering, the destructive—they were all threads wrapping around the part of my soul that allowed me to feel, slowly but steadily stopping the pulse of the thing that made me human.

And that first day, the day she disappeared, was the first of many ways I committed suicide. Unknowingly and against my will. It was a suicide of the heart.