They Blamed Me for Surviving

I stared at the razor blade in my hand and remembered what the doctor had told Mom and Dad.

"Jenny has severe depression. You need to keep anything sharp away from her."

My whole body was stiff as a board.

Maybe Mom and Dad had wanted me dead all along.

After everything I'd been through, I had become an embarrassment to them. They never knew when I might have another breakdown, so they were always on edge around me.

It was time to end it all.

I cut my wrist, then lay down in the storage room they'd hastily turned into a bedroom for me and waited to die. The silence terrified me. All I could hear was my own heartbeat.

Suddenly, I wanted to hear Mom and Dad's voices one last time.

When I was little, whenever they had to work late and I was home alone, they would call me. They would tell me stories, listen to me sing, and patiently keep me company.

My vision was growing blurry. I struggled to unlock the old phone my younger adopted sister, Nancy Bonner, had given me and dialed the number.

"Sorry, the person you're trying to reach is unavailable. Please try again later."

I tried again and again, but all I got was the same automated message.

Finally, I called Dad.

The moment he answered, I heard Mom soothing Nancy in the background. "It's okay, sweetheart. You'll feel better after your breathing treatment."

Nancy spoke to Mom in a sweet, clingy voice, and Mom answered her gently. Listening through the phone, it felt like their world and mine couldn't have been farther apart.

"Dad, I'm still scared of the dark. Can you tell me a sto—"

He cut me off, irritation already creeping into his voice. "The dark again? Isn't there a light in your room? Jenny, can you please be reasonable for once? Nancy is sick. She needs us right now.

"You're an adult. Do you really have to compete with her for our attention? Don't you have a light in your room? Do you have to keep putting your mom and me through this?"

A second later, the phone's disconnect tone filled the room.

Why was I so afraid of the dark?

For ten years after I was kidnapped, any time I talked back, they'd slap me around, throw me into the cellar, and lock me in. I cried and screamed. The cellar was pitch-black, and I couldn't see a thing.

They would deliberately let rats loose to gnaw at my toes. I tried to get away, but the space was so cramped I could barely turn around, let alone get away from them.

After that, whenever I was in the dark, my whole body would go numb, and I couldn't breathe.

When I finally came home, the doctor told me it was something called somatization.