Lessons in Fragility

At age seventeen, a bright-eyed girl would have professed she was falling in love; at age twenty, those same haunted eyes look back and conclude that she was merely falling. I first met Jamie on a sunny August day, the kind that nourished the already blossoming flowers of naïveté. Despite the oppressive heat, I knew that it would encourage growth and like the tide, the chill of winter would soon take hold anyhow.

I gazed nervously across the classroom at the black-haired boy in the faded, old school Marilyn Manson and the Spooky-kids tee shirt. I flashed him a flirtatious smile as I tucked my own jet-black strand coyly behind my ear. His mouth twisted mischievously beneath a septum ring as if to smile, but instead he greeted me with idle chitchat. My new-kid status at the school was quite blatant, indeed; aside from J., I was the only student with an overtly Gothic style and therefore was of immediate interest to him. Past the common ground of feeling ostracized in the white bread, bible-belt territory and some obscure (yet shared between us) musical references, I remember little else of what was spoken. My heart raced with excitement as I strained to appear blasé and disaffected; after all, to appear overzealous is a mortal sin in the dogma of woe-be-gone adolescents. We walked together to our next classes, truly two of a kind amidst a sea of bodies who epitomized everything we opposed. Infatuation sunk its talons into my fresh, fragile flesh and I was truly within its grasp.

Despite the darkness of depression, the social demise I felt after moving five states, the dysphoric demons dancing throughout my dreams – despite myself, I was no longer lost in loneliness. With someone to hold onto, I began to see the infamous glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. In hindsight, the flash of what seemed like salvation was really the light of an oncoming locomotive of emotional destruction and not the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel; however, at that point, my vision was blurred by lust and perhaps a little lunacy as well. In our block scheduling, we had four hours of class in a row together – both acting and technical theater – and became much like Siamese twins on campus. Our drama teacher cast us opposite each other in the school play due to our immutable chemistry and resultantly we’d spend almost all day together between class and rehearsal. Naturally, we also took part in the stereotypically teenage telephone conversations that seemed both endless in time and excitement. In spite of my dark, disaffected nature, even my mother noticed my oddly common girlish grin.

I am, alas, the ingénue in a tragedy and not the heroine of a happy romantic adventure. While I was busy gleaming in my ignorant glee and writing letters home to old friends about my dashing dark prince, J. was quite busy as well. At sixteen he said he was, "comfortably between rehabs" and spent a great deal of time saturating his brain with everything from acid to coke and even heroin. Between my barrage of prescription psychotropics – ranging from Temazepam to Haldol – I had little need or desire for street drugs. Although I was essentially in a state of (a generally sedated) intoxication, I was still fairly alert. However, J. excused his harsh strings of stinging insults, degradation, humiliation, and general psychological warfare by attributing them to the chemicals he and I both imbibed. Sadly, I had decided that his company alone was more than I deserved and his emotional torments were just something I deserved as well. A Freudian analyst might equate such rationale to the chronic sexual and psychological abuse I had been subjected to throughout my so-called formative years lying in latent form. One also might theorize that the guilt, shame, and self-deprecation emphasized by my Catholic upbringing had molded me into this mess of a masochist. Regardless of why, I took as much as he could throw and never considered myself anything but lucky to have found him and unworthy of his presence, if anything.

Winter fell and so had my mood. J. and I had been together almost half a year and the fervor of a new relationship had reached a plateau of complacency. The aforementioned school play was nearing its performance week and as a multi-talented theater student whose help was much needed, I acquiesced. The day before opening night, J. and I walked from school to my house for the purpose of running lines and sewing costumes. Somewhere in the thick cover of the woods behind the townhouse my mother and I shared, my heart froze with fear in the cruel December wind. J. was authoritatively rambling on about his latest theory for an unstoppable crime; apparently, he said he felt entirely capable of easily raping and killing me within half a mile of my allegedly wholesome suburban home without a soul to stop him in the thick vegetation. He laughed at the thought, but I grew upset as I failed to appreciate his so-called humor. I was consoled with a "take a joke, you dumb bitch" and then came my epiphany. All of his torments and cruelties flashed like poor-grade home videos on the backdrop screen of my mind, much like they say one’s life will before they die. Although I was not dying, I knew that the little girl so happily in love with J. was in grave danger.

The next ten minutes passed and essentially served as the eye of the emotional hurricane. We reached my house in silence, went upstairs, and I prepared the materials for the play. Our usual loquaciousness had been replaced by the dull, quiet lull before the true terror of the tempest. When he grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap, it became quite clear that he had never once harbored the intention of doing our theater work. Rather, he was setting the stage for sexual activity – whether I had accepted or declined the role. Caught like a deer in the headlights of his too-powerful gaze, I reluctantly kissed him back. Hands moved and clothing was forced off despite my resistance, but my cries and motions were clearly futile with him in total control. Before I could inhale sufficiently to replace the oxygen lost from crying and hyperventilation, I was on my knees, as one would grovel before a deity. This time, though, the boy I once saw as my savior was not the one on the cross. Before the afternoon was out, I truly felt as though I’d died for all the sins of my foolish optimism and childlike hope for a happy first love – or at least not a treacherous one.

For about a day, I went through the motions of life outside – play preparation, class, even brief yet seemingly normal conversations with my mother and friends – but even though no one knew it, I was dead inside. Biologically, of course, I was still continuing to exist; however, I felt psychologically incapable of allowing this to continue. One by one, I swallowed thirty-five ivory-pure prescription muscle relaxants to ease myself into nothingness I’d wet my toes with and would soon drown in entirely. On a bed of self-disgust, shattered dreams, and ravishing regret, I lay waiting for the pills to take hold. As my heart slowed and even Lou Reed’s voice from the Discman became incoherent with my pulse, I tried to get downstairs to see my mother’s sleeping, angelic face one last time. Suffice to say the night ended with the forcing of flesh on flesh as my stomach was pumped and purged of the poison. The nurse slapped my face and demanded, "don’t you want to live, you ungrateful brat?" as I was lectured on God and obedience of authority and all of the righteousness that I failed to acceptably demonstrate for them by committing such a heinous act of egocentrism and defiance. My answer may have been muffled by malaise and misery, but still sufficiently voiced, "of course not." The nurses, my mother, the psychiatry screener - they didn’t know what I’d endured and I envied them their ignorance – if I could forget, I sometimes wish I would, for they say that it’s quite blissful indeed.

Quite obviously, though, I have struggled but survived. For the year following the incident of sexual assault, I refrained from dating and abstained from sexual activity. I went through a series of sexual identity crises, from asexuality to lesbianism to bisexuality before finally coming to grips with my heterosexual preference. Despite the ills they’ve caused me, I simply adore some boys. However, I’m quite the anomaly in the world of heterosexual females. Because of J.’s overbearing sense of masculinity and male dominance, I now find myself in heterosexual relationships with very feminine boys; also, the standard gender roles are usually either made interchangeable, between muted gender characteristics and the occasional role reversal. (I still, however, contend that I simply have been blessed with better taste as opposed to some unresolved subconscious psychological conflict; while I may now be a survivor, I have always been an elitist.) Almost two years after my fragile form endured the blows J. dealt, I’m closer to being happy in a real, honest relationship than I’ve ever dreamed of sharing since everything snowed me in that fateful December. Naturally, my heart is blatantly bruised and my soul scorched; because of this, I wonder if I’ll ever be capable of falling in love. Despite my strong-woman status, just last night I was in tears apologizing to my boyfriend, telling him he was an innocent and I should never have subjected him to the mess of a girl that I am. In my heart, though, I know that I can endure almost anything and am willing to fight these battles with my undeniable strength. As Nietzche said, "what does not kill me, makes me stronger." After my lessons with J. in fragility, resilience and endurance, I am truly wise and strong in spirit in ways unfathomable without such experiences; it may have nearly killed me, but ‘nearly’ is the operative word in that thought – for I remain, despite his stains.