Missing Person

Written 4 June 2022, 1.24pm.

Trigger warning: su*c*de

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I used to be. That passionate, fiery, justice-loving, people-loving, fiercely kind, deeply-trusting person.

I keep thinking about when I was eighteen. The friends I had, the joy and the time and the clarity and the passion I had. I'm still in contact with some of the important people in my life from that time; the rest have all died. I was genuinely content to sit in my pink bedroom and choreograph Petra and White Heart songs. That was the time in my life when I felt the most complete and the most spiritually satisfied. I had a thirst for God that I didn't appreciate at the time, and in retrospect it showed. I fell into a couple of traditionalist traps, but by and large I was a fighter for true justice and love even then. A lot of my views at least mildly clashed with the religious establishment, but I was skilled enough in writing to persuade several key figures to at least properly consider what I was saying.

I keep thinking what could have been. What if I had ended up with that guy from youth group? What if my cousin had never died? What if I had never gone to college -- or at least that college?

That's a big one. The day I arrived, my faith started dying. It was slow at first, but accelerated tenfold when Brittney died and none of my college friends cared. And instead of getting out after my second year when I had the chance, I fought to return -- to return to the place that pushed me to such dire depths, spiritually. I was severely depressed, deeply wounded, and grieving, and I ran out of province back to a place that was also abusing me, but in new and different ways.

By the time I left college, I was no longer the happy, joyful, passionate person I had been when I had started. The stress of the insane performing arts course load and the abuse from the director who tricked me into believing he had my best interests at heart had taken a heavy physical toll. I was probably a couple of months away from death, based on my physical health alone (I'm not even thinking about the severe depression I was in when I graduated). Instead of being a launchpad for what could have been a beautiful, God-honouring life, college was the death knell for me. I have so many still-bleeding emotional wounds that can be traced directly to that school, that director. Almost every single one of my dreams have died because of him and his words to me. He would say 'performers have to have thick skin,' but the fact is he is abusive and uses that phrase to justify his atrocities. I had thicker skin before I went to college than I do now. I had courage. I had spunk. I had joy. I had passion. I had LIFE, and now every single speck of all of that is gone.

I miss who I used to be.

In my pain and abandonment from God's people, I pushed away God Himself. And now I'm trapped in a tiny desert town with an absurdly high cost of living, absolutely no emotional support, and 'well-meaning' in-laws who are trying their best to take the place of that abusive man. It used to be nothing for me to jump in the van and drive several hours to do a show, or hang out with friends, or try something new. And now I never leave the house -- partly gas prices, and partly fear. I can feel my soul shriveling up and dying a little with every second I live, every breath I take.

I attempted suicide on 8 March 2017, and now, over five years later, I wish more than ever that I had done it then. I wish my life would have ended that day. But I trusted that things would get better, and five years later, they've gotten worse. My soul is dead, and that's a fate worse that still lungs. Every morning I wake up is the same and that's the one thing I never wanted to happen. I wanted to live with passion and joy and verve and courage and life, and I am doing none of that.

I want to busk. I want to make dance films. I want to make shows. I want to learn new styles of dance. I want to write publicly again. I want to be able to have an opinion and not be literally abused for it. I want to be free again. I'm not free. I am in a prison of 'if you do this, I will withhold the love I promised you and stab swords of stinging words into your heart.' I am in a prison of working eight hours a day at something that's fast-paced, but not intellectually stimulating. I am in a prison of hearing over and over the words 'you're not even trying and you have no business doing this.' I am in a prison of being years behind my peers in terms of experience because I stubbornly stuck to a college that had absolutely no intention of actually training me within the field that I went there for, and I had not even begun to heal those wounds before rushing off into marriage and bringing all of that anger and pain into a relationship that did not deserve such a burden and now is so broken by my issues it may never recover.

I miss who I used to be. I would kill to get her back.