Written on October 1, 2023, Marilou Chanrasmi

Today  I celebrate 35 years of sobriety. On October 1, 1988 I walked into an AA 12-step meeting after checking out of Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. The same hospital my Papa had died on December 20, 1968 when I was 4 years old. 35 years ago I had reached a low in life that was unbearable … on the outside everything was perfect. Yup, a functioning alcoholic and one who found other addictions like striving for perfection through work or sports to numb the pain that was buried deep in my heart and in the cells of my body. A survivor of sexual abuse when I was 9 years old and a secret I kept till I was almost 20 years old. I survived by numbing, by disassociating … at the young age of 22 I felt like I could no longer breathe, I no longer wanted to live. I was in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship and I did not know how to get out. The only way out I could see was to take my own life. Maybe then I would be with my Papa, I thought. In 2008 I wrote a piece called, The Rope. I share it here on my 35 year anniversary of choosing life. I share in hopes that if my story provides hope for one person that yes, we can move through the darkest moments, we can heal, and we can emerge even stronger .. then sharing my story has served her purpose. I share because keeping secrets nearly killed me. I share for the many who have suffered from sexual abuse, partner violence, mental health and thoughts and attempts of suicide … 

At 22, I fell straight into the arms of my Papa who told me, it’s not my time. It has been a long road of healing and recovery …. and my life today is brighter than it has ever been and surrounded by the most beautiful people. Every morning I begin my day with meditation, qigong and walking to the water, with one  of my pups, to welcome the sun as she emerges above the horizon. I journal. I intersperse moments throughout the day to notice my body, the sensations in my body, where my breathing is coming from and noticing and appreciating the awe and miracles of life all around me … from my pups to the cardinals that visit me every day .. to the squirrels, the trees, the water. 

The Rope (written in 2008)

I

I remember the darkness and stillness of the room.  I was sitting on the edge of the queen size bed, alone, in a Hampton Inn motel in Hazelwood, Missouri, a small suburb north of St. Louis, right off of highway 270, the outer belt of St. Louis.  At 22, I had reached the end of the rope.   The slow descent began at 4 with the death of my father, and the emotional evaporation of my mother, as her physical body remained on earth while her soul took flight the day my father died.  The gradual descent dropped into a downward spiral the year we left Bangkok.  It was 1979.  I was 15. My father’s death at age 4 was the first ingredient poured into an old-fashioned pressure cooker, where emotions of grief and pain were sealed tight by my mother who had lost the love of her life, and her heart frozen in time. The years passed, and more ingredients were added to the pressure cooker:  sexual abuse by a trusted family friend and Catholic deacon, alcohol, peer pressure, struggles with sexual identity, not fitting in – desperately wanting to fit in and to deny everything about my roots, my past, my culture; my language; sudden loss of my “second mother” to a drunk driver.  Without a safety valve, an explosion was imminent. 

I clasped a bottle of sleeping pills in one hand.  In the other hand, a Bud light.  I hear the water filling up the bathtub.  I have reached the end of the rope.  The palms of my hands, once blistered from hanging on, had callused.  My exit plan – pop the sleeping pills, fall asleep, drown in the bath tub and never wake up.  Let go of the rope.  Finally, let go.

Images of my father flash before me.  Images of him catching me.  The four year old in me smiles, remembering moments in his arms.  How fun it was to play with his glasses.  How safe it felt in his arms.  The 22 year old is tired.  There’s no more fight left.  The threads holding the rope are coming apart.

And so, that night, I execute on my plan – pop the pills, and fall asleep; my body submerged in the bathtub.  Alone, in a hotel room with stale air.  The lights go out.  I am, finally, letting go.

II

My eyes open.  I awaken to the same hotel room.  It’s the middle of the night now.  My eyes fixate on the ceiling for a moment – a dirty white with specks of grey.  Surreal, stale air inhabits the hotel room like cigarette smoke hovering around lost souls in a bar, in search of that “something”.  There’s a heaviness in my heart.  I remember falling asleep in the bathtub filled with warm water, inhaling toxic fumes of bleach combined with other chemical agents.   Over the years, I have been asked, by the brave few wanting to make sense of how anyone could attempt to take their own life, “how could you?”, “what was going through your head?”

“Nothing.” I respond to them, as sadness fills my heart remembering the young adult whose palms, scorched from blisters and tired from the fight, decided that letting go was the only exit.  “Nothing,” I say, as I remember the protective layer that encased by battered heart.  I just wanted the pain to end.  I just wanted to rest.  I just wanted to emerge from the darkness.

Somehow, someway my submerged body was air lifted out of the bathtub onto the queen size bed.   Remnants of all I had ingested the past 24 hours had created a drunken pathway, from the bathtub to the bed.   A deathly stench consumed the room.  Somehow, someway, I took those steps – I don’t remember.   I have imagined angels lifting me out of the water.  I have imagined my father, gently carrying me to the bed, whispering to me “not yet baby [that’s what he used to call me], not yet.” As I realize I am alive and my plan has failed, the stale air is replaced with a stench of defiance.

I’m many years older now.  What happened that night remains a mystery to me. The unfolding of the “why” has been my life’s journey. Mistakes and questions are regular guests in my home. Not knowing and uncertainty have burrowed in the foundations of my home. I am learning. I am unlearning. I am breaking down. I am breaking open. I am discovering. I am re-discovering. My life, who I am, my place in community, this planet, this universe. The more I learn about me, the more I learn there is no me, just we.

I am learning there are millions of threads, that make up strands, which in turn make a rope.  I am learning that every thread connects me to something, someone, or some purpose; as we find common threads and re-build strands from worn out threads, we strengthen the rope of life.  At 22, my tired, callused hands let go of the one remaining tattered strand, as I danced at the doorsteps of death, only to fall straight into a hammock, handcrafted from a mesh of rope.   At 22, I fell straight into the arms of my father, and into the hammock of life.  

Today, I celebrate 35 years from the day I chose life. Granted, I needed a little nudge from Papa and from my first dog Splat, a puppy who came into my life at a time I needed the most. And then Papa continued to send me many angels in the bodies of 4 legged furry beings to help me heal. In 2008, he led me to Red Lake nation up in northern Minnesota and to my now spirit dog, Ahnung. And Papa and Ahnung continue to be my north stars in anything and everything I do in this lifetime … they will call me to join then when it is my time. Until then, my hope is to sprinkle love and healing in this beautiful world …..