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The Search for Khadijah

Let us talk about mental illness.

By KC TaylorPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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CHAPTER 1

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold

story inside you."

― Maya Angelou

At times a hidden story needs to be revealed. The story could have different characters and it could be told in different ways. Always revealing the outcry that can be heard over the sad music of one lost soul, but the results are always the same, we all seek love, acceptance, and peace.

So let's search for Khadijah and learn how she began the road of acceptance, peace, and love.

Learning how to let go.

“If you don’t forgive the child, the adult will never heal.” Said, my psychiatrist.

“How can I do that, when I can’t forgive myself as an adult,”

I asked her while reaching for her pen and writing on a piece of paper “the child within, this is my story.”

This session triggered a ray of questions; why can’t I forgive myself? Why is relevant, why is not, how could I let go and why should I let go?

I remembered the psychiatrist mentioning a particular patient who started writing a journal about his feelings. The patient became extremely overwhelmed and had to be admitted in a psychiatric ward. Could that be me?

I will figure it out meanwhile traveling into this journey of acceptance and ultimately peace.

"It has to be from here,

right, this instance,

my cry into the world.

My cry that is no more mine,

but hers and his forever,

he comrades of my silence,

The phantoms of my grave."

-Julia de Burgos

I am at Rutgers Starbucks, watching everybody drink coffee, talking to each other and here I am sitting at an angle, making sure I can watch everything that is going on. My headphones keep the noise contained it helps me avoid eye contact with anyone that I might know. I am listening to Marc Anthony while writing. I am trying to visualize what I want to write, but at the same time, I was afraid of these words that will either make me or break me.

Do I stand alone? I am not alone, but who will follow me on my quest for peace and acceptance. My purpose is not to rant about therapy, how medication keeps me from killing myself or how in the twenty-first century mental illness remains a taboo in many cultures. The unspoken word, the stigma that is carried silently and usually ends someone's life without a warning.

II

I don’t know how to describe my relationship with my parents. I guess it was somehow shattered, but as a child, they were my heroes.

I remembered my mother’s fury every time she saw me reading a book. As a child just like my father, I read books just to find the opportunity of a quiet space away from everybody. I learned to read and write before I went to kindergarten. I remember the love my father had for reading, he always kept a book or a newspaper with him. I grew older my love for Puerto Rican writers like Julia de Burgos, a poet and alcoholic and the play writer Rene Marquez and Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet who wrote the most beautiful love poems ever.

“You are your father’s daughter, put the book down and do something else.” She will scream at me, usually reaching for me or the book.

I never understood until I was older what she meant by such hurtful words. Every time a book was opened it reminded my mother of the alcoholic spouse who will drink whiskey, chain smoke and read as a preamble to a beating.

I remembered my sister grabbing me and taking me to our uncle’s house, nearby. My mother’s uncle will come to the house to help my mother and wait for the next call.

Eventually, my parents divorced when I was very young, but not so young as to not understand the reasons for the separation. I was lucky that we moved far away.

My father left the Island forever, dying alone and from a broken heart. As for my mother, she died in the company of her demons.

A new beginning starts with change, but not always change welcome us with open hands.

Mother and I moved near her father and his wife. They own a small grocery store, land, and money. The house sat on a hill, right next door was the grocery store. From the road, you could see wooden doors opened like to welcome everybody who passed by. Once you got closer to the store you will see that right between the two wooden doors sat an old bench. We sat on the bench until grandma sent us home because the noise bothered the drunks at the store. She stood at times behind the counter and served everyone.

Their farm was enormous, chickens, dogs, wild turkeys and pigs. Everything ran wild, they all made noise at the same time and I found them kind annoying. Regardless of the noise or how it smelled always looked forward to running in the back of the old house and sat on the top branch of this particular mango tree.

A storm, some twenty years back, uprooted the tree and as the years passed by the tree remained in a horizontal position. The tree gave the illusion of a giant bench that came out of the earth. It looked majestic and kind of ironic because the roots gave a sensation of many arms coming out of the soil. I spend hours just thinking, writing and looking at a distance to the nearby road.

III

My name is Catherine Costello and I am a Muslim, a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a friend. I am a recovering alcoholic and addict born into a Puerto Rican family, with issues of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and mental illness, I can’t remember one day in which my life was normal, not even as a child.

This was the most difficult part of my life never to understand the reason, but later on, accepting that everything happens for a reason and that I should never question Allah.

As a teenager, these were the years I was supposed to go to school, have friends and maybe fall in love, got to prom and lose my virginity. Not trying to avoid the bully who beat me up every day for a whole month. Before anyone took notice of the bloody white shirts in the bottom of the laundry basket.

At this time I started to hate people, love aloneness and seek other means to fit into a world that it was so cold and cruel to me. I wanted peace and the only thing I kept having was a hard time relating reality and fiction into my daily life.

“This is my journey but is kind of complicated. Is more than finding the best route, the cheapest ticket or the best location. My journey is one of self-discovery that has taken me to a mountain top, where I stand looking at the possibilities that may or may not become a part of my journey.

That might become a certainty, but I can’t let go even until death is the signature written with blood and tears that will wash away all that remained untouched.

I do not know, I am not sure, I think that perhaps I need to sit a the mountain top a bit longer and take a closer look at all the maybes, could be’s and all the wants to be and pray that is not too late to make that journey again. The reality is that I’ll be freed from the shackles that hold me, not back, but in place.”

CHAPTER 2 SOON

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About the Creator

KC Taylor

Mrs. Taylor is the author of The Search for Khadijah, a memoir of peace and acceptance. Her memoir is based on personal experiences with her battle with mental illness and the long-lasting effects on relationships with family and friends.

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