Death Around Every Corner

I feel like I always knew what death was. My parents never had to have a scary, sad conversation with me as to what exactly happens when you die. I think this was partially because my parents knew so many dead people. I would point to a picture and ask who it was. They would tell me who and they they were dead. They were gone forever and I would never see them. That was fine. I was far to young to wish I had met them. I was also too young to feel sad about it, so that didn't really matter. I knew what death was. That's all. Except, that wasn't all. Now I knew I would die, and I have never had a day go by where I don't think about it.

See now the trouble came with my parents not knowing what you should and should not say to a child. I suppose I don't blame them. I just wish them and everyone else's parents would consider fixing their own issues before projecting them on a child that never asked to be born. For as long as I knew what death was, my parents used it as something to scare me from doing things. One of my earliest memories of this took place while I was helping my mom and brother decorate the outside of the house for Halloween. I couldn't have been older than 3 or 4. I was standing on the second step to my front door and my dad opened his window and began yelling at me. I'm not sure why. Maybe he just had a bad day. He told me to get down or I was going to fall and crack my skull open and bleed to death. Of course when he said it it had been angrier and there was cursing.

My mom didn't help either. When my brother and I would get too loud in the car she would tell us that because of us, she was going to lose control and drive us off a cliff. She didn't stop at that though. She had to add the last part that always shut me up. "And kill us all." I can still hear her saying that. She also liked to remind me how everyday things could kill me. Like if I get a cut I'll get tetanus and die. If I touch a mushroom growing in the backyard then accidentally put my fingers in my mouth I'll get poisoned and die. Everything around me could kill me and because I was so afraid of dying, my parents thought they could use it against me to keep me safe.

My parents telling me all the ways I could die became a part of my everyday life and it still is. Just last week before going to the beach with my friends my dad had a talk with me about how if I go into the ocean I could get caught in the undertow and drown, and how I had to stay with someone at all times because I'll get kidnapped and murdered. He didn't have to tell me that though, I already know. Everyday when I leave the house I know I might not come back. When I drive down the road I can vividly picture a car swerving into me and throwing my car into the lake. Then I picture myself unable to escape as the car fills with water and I drown.

It's so frustrating to think like this. To have my entire life revolve around death. I'm just sitting around waiting for my parents to be right about some far fetched way that I could end up killing myself. I see death in absolutely everything and none of it was thought up in my own mind. Everything was put there without my consent. One day my dad even felt the need to tell me about how a friend he works with had a daughter who slipped in the shower and died and how easily that could be me. Yeah, I can't even shower without fear that it'll kill me.

The worst part is that I'm too far gone. Sure, maybe I could talk to someone about it but do I really need to? This has been so normal to me for so long. I only recently realized that others weren't raised to think like this. It feels like the anxiety I got from always anticipating my death for my entire childhood and adult life is just part of me now. I don't remember a time where I was completely at ease and able to feel safe. And just like with all those dead relatives I had heard about, I cannot miss something that I have never known.