“Go on. Hit me. Show me what a man you are,” she goaded him.
Well, he did hit her and pushed her into her room, slamming the door after her. Natasha packed
a bag and went straight to live with her dad. Her mom didn’t even try to encourage her to stay.
As the months and years went by, things turned from bad to worse. Natasha fell out with her
dad. She hated the way he constantly put down her mother. He blamed her mother for the break-up
of the family—even though he was now living with her best friend’s mother! Tensions became so
great that her father told her he couldn’t put up with her anymore and that she would have to go.
Fortunately, her grandparents welcomed her. At first she enjoyed living with them, but Natasha,
herself, admitted she wasn’t an easy teenager to get along with. She felt bitter and angry about the
way her parents—and life—were treating her. She felt she needed to dump her shit on someone, and
her grandparents were the closest.
Now, her grandfather had heart troubles. His physician had told him to avoid stress or he could
have a heart attack and die. Natasha was told she was the stress. She had to settle down or they would
put her in a home for difficult teenagers. Nobody in the family wanted her. She must have felt as re-
jected as anyone could feel.
Before she was due to leave for the home she found a razor blade in the bathroom and cut her
wrists. Strangely, she thought, the pain as she cut through her own skin was nothing compared to the
pain in her heart.
At first her grandparents were concerned and caring. Her parents even came to visit her—
together. But nothing changed. They weren’t going to leave their new partners or take her back. Her
grandparents didn’t want her and she was still scheduled to go into the home.
Natasha found some tablets in the medicine cabinet, punched them out of their plastic sheets,
and took a handful before she went to bed, but woke up the next morning, late and with a rotten
hangover. No one seemed to take much notice.
When she was old enough, her father bought her a car—just trying to appease his guilty con-
science, she thought. It was an old heap but she accepted it. One weekend in the hills, she lined up
a steep cliff at the edge of the road and was ready to push her foot to the floor. She didn’t.
At that point, I interrupted her story. I was curious. “What had made the difference that you
didn’t drive over the cliff ?” I asked.
“Two things,” she replied without hesitation, as though she had given it a lot of thought. “First,
despite the shit of a time my parents have given me, I still love them—Mom in particular. I couldn’t
bear the thought of doing that to her. The second was a thought that the way my luck was going even
killing myself wouldn’t work out. What if I ended up a paraplegic or something? They might feel
sorry for me. They might have to look after me, but I would be in a worse state—and for the rest of
my life.
“Now, life is good,” continued Natasha. “I think I realized that if I wanted to be happy, it was
up to me. I went to college. I’ve got a good job, a lovely boyfriend, and we’re planning on getting
married. Yet it’s more than those things. What my parents and grandparents did, what my thoughts
of self-harming have taught me is that I have to look after myself. If I’m doing that, it doesn’t matter
so much what others think. At the time it was hard to see any hope, but as I look back I’m glad I’m
here to tell you my story. I’m glad I didn’t take a permanent course of action based on a temporary
feeling.”
MANAGING CHALLENGESManaging Life’s Challenging Times 207