How the death of a close friend affected my life.
My name is Mallory, and even though I am only 16 years old, I believe my story could help someone.
When I was 13, I started going to a Christian camp in the summer, and it was an amazing experience. I had never felt God like that before, and there I accepted Jesus into my heart.
I got home, I turned 14, and I started my 8th grade year. There was this girl who had gone to school for a couple years, but I never really knew her on a personal level. I had a lot of classes with her, and we started to get to know each other. Her name was Kayla and she was one of the sweetest people I had ever met. It seemed like the puzzle that was my life was finally fitting all together. But, as we all know, life doesn’t work like that.
In October, 3 months after I began my friendship with Kayla, she died. I was blindsided. The greatest influence on my life so far had been ripped away from me. Kayla, along with her mother, were killed by her soon to be stepfather.
It turns out that the whole 3 months we had been getting to know each other, Kayla was being raped and was actually 4 months pregnant with her soon to be stepfather’s baby. As all of the details started to come out about what had happened, my brain started working overtime. It formed its own idea of what went down that night and has played it back to me every night for the past two and a half years in the form of a nightmare.
This was all too much for me to handle. I started pushing everyone away, I only wanted to be alone. I started being reckless, not caring what happened to me. I blamed myself, so I started punishing myself. I would cut myself, punch myself, anything I felt necessary.
I started thinking about what would happen if I died, if anyone would care. I didn’t care, so I just started taking random prescriptions out of our medicine cabinet and taking them. Lucky for me, none of the mixtures I ever concocted were ever potent enough to kill me.
After a few months, when the initial shock of pain wore off, I stopped blaming myself. I blamed it on God. I wondered how he could’ve let this happen to me when I had just professed my love to him. How he could just abandon me like this. Finally, one night I hit my lowest of lows. I was laying on my bathroom floor crying, asking God why he hated me, praying for him to kill me and get it over with.
And finally, I let my brain stop for just a second so I could hear his voice. And I finally knew that eventually, everything would be ok. I stopped harming myself, stopped blaming myself and God and finally put the blame on the person who actually committed the crime. I finally started letting people back in, didn’t push everyone away anymore. It was an uphill battle, but my life finally got back to normal.
I went back to that same camp I had been at just a year before, but I felt 10 years older. I had been tested, pushed to the breaking point, but I knew that He was there for me the whole time. I talked with people who prayed with and for me, which changed my life forever.
I still have these nightmares, these flashbacks, but no matter how much those scare me, they can’t shake me of what the Lord has blessed me with. I finally have peace. I know that I will see all of my loved ones that have passed away again someday, and that day is the day I will be waiting for the rest of my life.
Mallory, your story is very moving and I believe it will certainly help people. I’m glad you posted. Keep growing in your faith.