The Victim

"It takes a master enabler to become a sensational victim." Juditta Salem (The Victim, feature film, 2017/2018)

I had my first cigarette when I was 9, and became officially a smoker at age 15. Alcohol came soon after, which became my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would do anything to numb the pain, and many were more than willing to help.

They’d smile and wear friendly faces. They’d speak gently, with sincerity. They’d project a love I was famished for and so I rushed to believe them. But then after some time, they’d take a knife directly to my open wounds. They never had a chance to heal. At some point I started thinking that this is just the way people say goodbye.

Maybe that was my way to push for a goodbye.

Sometimes I wondered whether it was the wound that bothered me, or that it was kept open for more infections to come in... that it would eventually spread to the rest of my body and straight into my heart. My biggest fear was to die of a broken heart. The more I tried to protect it, the more I became vulnerable to its attacks. I was damaged beyond repair or recognition. I remember one day, my mother came to pick me up from Kindergarten, and took my friend instead. To her excuse, she did look a lot like me. I believe that was my first blatant abandonment that would precede many more.

So I withdrew. I had nothing more to say to anyone around me. I had to die again. After all, very few try to kill the dead girl. But they were not as few as I had hoped.

But I couldn't find a way to connect with those, who seemed healthy, with a healthy past and mind. Somehow being around the disordered was the closest thing to make me feel "normal". Danger intensified with every bar raised and every murderer attracted. Since this is all I believed I deserved, I mastered the art of enabling. I may still be alive, but they killed most of my parts... My journey is now to walk the pilgrimage of recollecting the pieces of my soul.

And just like the phoenix rose from its own ashes, I too, keep on rising from my own mistakes.