Talked to death

I love the quiet. I don’t like talking to people. I don’t like when people talk to me. I often wear head-phones just so people will think I am listening to my IPod when in reality it’s not on. I have caught myself pretending to be deaf just so people will stop talking to me. Crazy isn’t it. Well, it runs in the family.


I remember my mother’s incessant talking. How someone can be speaking at all times is beyond me, yet my mother seemed to always be talking, flooding my head with unending words and words and words. Often biter reviles of people she was upset with or erroneous accusations of having been wronged by someone or something. And when I would chime in to correct or disagree I would find myself the target of her diatribe. Hours on-end of non-stop talking, at times, in stretches of 5 hours or more and chained together throughout the day as long as there was someone within earshot.

What was amazing to me was the absence of any kind of a break in the unending stream. I recall the odious feeling I would have of listening as she would try to produce words while she was inhaling. Body language, hints of disinterest and even pleas of “Stop Talking!” would pass as white noise to her. I would leave the room only to be followed into the next, immediately turning around to try and leave again only to be followed once more. On and on, day after day, year after year; I remember feeling trapped, suffocated.


There seemed to be no escape. No escape from the mess, and the shame that came with it, no escape from the animals, the stench or the irrational hoarding, no escape from the incessant talking.
When I was around 14 I decided I would rather be dead and decided to kill myself. An overdose would do nicely and became my plan. Not to ruin the story but I didn’t kill myself. I did, however, end up in the mental health ward of our county hospital having attempted suicide by overdose. I was literally trying to kill myself to escape.


I didn’t know then what I know now… things change. (Just ask my beautiful, considerate with her words, wife).

Having written this; I think I will go home, clean my house and take a nice long quiet bubble bath.