Carpe Diem

Family is not an important thing. It's everything.

I grew up as the eldest among my four siblings. I have a loving mother and responsible father who always supports us in everything. Let's just say I've got this almost perfect family, or I just thought. Time flies so fast, we are already in our teenage years. I'm the only girl among my other siblings that's why maybe I guess I got the most attention especially from my father. I admit. I'm a daddy's girl. From all the stuffs that I like, my allowance, going to parties and so on. He always made sure that I am having fun and I am happy. Even my mom doesn't approve sometimes. Maybe this is also the reason why my other brothers got jealous in some ways that's why we didn't grow up that close to each other. But at that time, I don't really care as long as I'm not doing anything wrong. I excel in my studies, also in extra curricular activities I even participate charity works outside school, and that is opposite to my brothers. They do all the worst things like picking up fights in school, failing grades and don't even respect our parents anymore. I don't know the reason why they have to be like that. They seem like strangers to me already.

I'm already in college when a thing happened that started to tear our family apart. My brothers got arrested because of using illegal drugs and they were accused of robbery. We managed to took them out of prison by paying the bail but after that they left home and I was the only one left together with my parents. Everything has changed then. It seems like the almost perfect family that I had before, was already vanished and I'll never have it back again. My mother left with another man and my father completely lose his sanity. I am wrapped with stressed, sadness and depression during those times because I have no idea on how to deal for what is happening to us. There's also a time where I only eat once a day because I got no money left in my pocket. I can't even focus in my studies anymore it seems like my life has already fell apart. It seems like I don't have the right to dream anymore. Then I suddenly fell into an abyss. Got lost in an endless maze. It's like my world has already come to an end.

I am a rape victim. Those five words are harder to write than I thought, let alone accept the fact that it happened. To me. It’s been four long years and I am still trying to live with myself. Still trying to believe that this is what I survived, and not a movie I watched on Netflix. It’s been four years and this is what happened after that incident.

Days felt like nights and nights felt like days. I could not differentiate between the two; everything from that point on was complete darkness. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I emotionally and mentally shut myself off and, as such, the days became one big blur. I was lonelier than ever. I was trapped inside my own head. All the “what if’s” and “could’ve been’s” I tortured myself with when I was sure that it wasn’t my fault. There was a constant battle between whether I should tell someone or deal with it alone. My head was screaming for help but I didn’t want people to look at me in disgust. I did not want to be anyone’s charity case. So I chose the latter. A month goes by and I cannot recall where time went or what I did in those thirty days- I guess I just simply didn’t care. It’s been a month and I am still trapped inside my own thoughts. I remember looking down at a bottle of pills and having the urge to live inside the euphoric state of meticulously engineered chemicals. This was my first suicidal thought. I turned on the bath, and filled it to the top with warm water and lush bath bombs. I swallowed the remaining pills and slid into the bathtub, watching the water overflow onto the bathroom floor. I woke up the next morning, still in the bathtub, my head ringing. I ran to the toilet to throw up what felt like my insides. I felt completely empty. I felt like there was nothing left of me but my thoughts- and of that, only one distinct thought that kept repeating over and over again: why was I still alive? There were a million ways I could have died, ranging from the obvious over-dosing to drowning. But I didn’t I was still alive. Why?

A year goes by and I moved to an entirely different country in hopes of escaping this tragic event that should never happen to anyone, but I still had the same nightmares. Nightmares of how he punned me against the wall, took my virginity away, and left me sitting there, crying with shame, anger and fear. They robbed my mental sanity but most importantly, my happiness. I would wake up crying and screaming. I hated going to bed. Those sleepless nights where I would think of what It’d feel like to jump in front of a moving car. This was my second suicidal thought. How many bones I’d break and all the different approaches I could go about doing it, ranking them starting with the ones ha would cause maximum injury. Things do, as they say, get better. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and slowly learned to let go. I learned to wake up and forget the fact, that my own father and brothers was the reason behind all the misery that I've experienced. Sometimes we have to let go of the things, that cause us pain. Made us feel horrified. Every obstacle is breakable. We just have to be strong and trust ourselves.