Natalie's Mind

When Harry and Annette found eachother, neither could be more happy.
They had both just come from bad marriages, and Harry even had two
children. They saw their relationship as a new beginning... a new lease
on life. When Annette became pregnant, the couple rejoiced at the life
that was newly formed from their love.
Natalie Joy was born on December 4th, 1984. She was a healthy baby and
was greeted by her older step-brother and sister, Gene and Nicki. Her
family loved her dearly.
As a young child, Natalie was constantly surrounded by family and
friends. She always had a dark tan, and had long, straight blond hair.
Though she wore glasses, her eyes were a dazzling blue. All throughout
her grade school years she had many girlfriends with whom she was
constantly having sleepovers and birthday parties and trips to the
beach. Natalie remained slim and became very attractive as she became
older. She was rarely ever teased for her appearance, and seemed to be
a generally well-adjusted child. As she transitioned into early
adolescance, she and her group of friends became closer and were
thought of as a unit at school.
It was around this time, however, than Natalie's friends began noticing
something different about her.
At home, life was a little rocky because of Gene, who had become a
rebellious teenager. Natalie watched as her once-heroic big brother
turned into a ravenous, party-going, beer-drinking rebel. Because of
the conflicts he caused, Harry and Annette decided to have family
counceling when Natalie was 12 years old.
The therapist that the family saw noticed quickly what Natalie's
friends had also recently identified. Soon, Natalie was diagnosed as
being depressed. This marked the beginning of a downward spiral.
In middle school, Natalie's friends began to find it difficult to keep
up with all of her problems. She became a high-mantainance friend, and
was often moody and irritable about seemingly miniscule things. Slowly,
she and her friends drifted apart. She "dated" a few boys and ran
track, but everyone knew that Natalie was different.
In high school, her emotions became much worse. She had several
episodes of suicidal thought. When she became involved with D.J.,
everything snapped.
Her hospitalizations began around age fifteen. She was taken out of
school many times, and moved to different institutions where she was
closely supervised and received residential care. She was diagnosed as
severely bipolar and started taking medication. For the next two years,
she became known as one of the ghosts of Susquehannock High School; one
day she'd be there, and the next she had vanished. Everyone knew she
was seriously troubled. Her remaining friends discontinued talking to
her because when they would, she'd cry and scream and talk about
frightening things.
Natalie and D.J. dated on and off throughout this period, and during
one segment of time when she was home, they had sex. She reached the
very deepest point, both in her love for him, and in her mental
illness. When they broke up for good, she threatened to kill herself
and was taken to an institution called Hoffman.
It is important to note that, as many young girls do experience
thoughts of suicide, and some even threaten to act upon them, Natalie's
case was far different. Because of her eccentric personality, and
because of the demanding way of delivering these threats, she was
usually taken seriously. There was no telling what Natalie might do,
and, as was gradually becoming clear, she did not think very logically
most of the time.
While at Hoffman, she began to take out her hatred of life by being
premiscuous. She had encounters with male and female residents, and
near the middle of her sixteenth year, she decided she was
bisexual.
Natalie had a deep need to be fulfilled in every way. She craved
affection and love, even though she got it plentifully at home.
Sometimes parents can try their very hardest and still fail miserably.
This may have been one of those times, but, whatever the reason,
Natalie was engaging in sexual relationships with whomever she
could.
One particular girl who is important to Natalie's story is Sharde. The
two were roomates at Hoffman for a short time, and began having sex. As
Natalie's pattern would have predicted, she fell in love with the girl.
When the staff members found out what was happening between the two
girls, they were very angry and seperated them. They were no longer
allowed to room together, or even see eachother. This was Natalie's
last straw.
Many people wonder what goes through the mind of someone who
legitimately attempts suicide. Do they weigh the pros and cons? Do they
plan it all out? Do they even shed a tear, or feel any remorse? These
questions are understandable, but they are build upon a bad foundation.
It is assumed that a person who decides to end their life is actually
thinking, and somewhat logically at that. In most situations, however,
this is a foolish conceit. As Susanna Kaysen states in her
autobiographical novel, Girl, Interrupted, having good organization and
a cool head are necessary to pulling off a successful suicide, and more
often than not, these traits are incompatible with the suicidal state
of mind.
On July 12th, 2001, Natalie awoke with a cloud of gloom over her mind.
The first thing she saw upon waking was the window of her third story
room, and noticed the fire escape outside it. She did not consider what
would happen after she jumped-- she just did it. She had every
intention of dying as soon as she hit the concrete so many feet below
her.
However, things do not always work out as planned.
Roughly fifteen minutes after the jump, someone found a bleeding,
broken, unconcious girl lying flat on her back on the concrete parking
lot. Her leg bones had tore right through her heels, Everything about
her was contorted and covered in blood. Everything, that is, but her
head, which lie perfectly unharmed and serene, as if it were caught by
God's own hand seconds before her body made impact and was gently set
down on the ground.
Natalie was rushed to the hospital-- comatized, but alive. She was
inspected and was found to have shattered almost every major bone in
her body. Her heels were completely gone, and bits of her lower
vertebrae had broken off and tore into her urinary tract. She lay in a
hospital bed in critical condition for weeks.
Harry and Annette were dismayed. They felt as if the heartbreaks they
experienced with Natalie would never end.
The Doctors were unsure if she would ever come back to conciousness,
and if she did, they were certain she'd never walk again. The idea of
paralyzation was thrown back and forth, but it was hard to know since
she was in a coma.
She lay there for months. When she finally regained mental capacity,
she was not unlike an elderly person-- she became very bitter and
resentful, demanding and emotionally miserable at all times. She
underwent dozens of reconstructive surgeries as the Doctors attempted
to piece her bones back together. A cage was inserted into her spine,
and many rods and pins were put into her hands, arms and legs. She was
fed intraveinously and lost a great deal of weight. In her despondancy,
she wished she would have just died. She claimed, despite her anger,
that she had had a "near-death experience", and talked to God. She said
that he took her up from her body just before she made impact, and she
saw herself lying there on the ground... she said that God told her
that it was not yet her time to go.
For many months, she underwent intense treatment. She was on heavy
painkillers, anti-psychotic medicines, and even morphine. Because of
this, her memories of this period of time are still very blurry. In the
midst of her many surgeries, it was decided that her heels could not be
saved, and they were fully amputated. She was given one prosthetic heel
for the worst foot, which is much like a plastic cast that reaches her
knee.
After her lengthy stay in the hospital, she was put in a nursing home
for rehabilitation. She lived among dying, doting, senile elderly
people in her already hateful condition. She was able to walk only a
little when supported with a walker. Most of the time, she just lied in
bed or sat in a wheelchair. When she was finally allowed to come home,
her hospital bed was set up in the living room and Harry and Annette\'s
house became like a miniature hospital. Natalie had become fully
incontinent because of the ruptures of her urinary tract, and had to
wear Depends and use catheters. Her insanity remained as she had
conversations with her Uncle who had killed himself years prior. She
claimed his ghost was haunting her house, and hated everyone in the
family but her. She said he was helping her get better.
She hated being cared for all the time, but became dependant and took
for granted the care she did receive. She would often wake up livid
with her caregivers to find herself soaked in urine, or lying in her
feces. She had to set up a system of maneuvering herself around the
house. The carpeted rooms soon became creased with lines from the
wheels of her wheelchair. She fell several times and seemed to
constantly hurt herself. Occasionally, when walking would become
particularly painful, Natalie would discover that a pin was poking
through her foot. She had to go back for more surgery when this
happened.
One day, her ex-boyfriend D.J. showed up at her door. He had not heard
of Natalie's condition, as he had been in the military for the past
year. Annette blocked the doorway and refused to let him in, trying to
hide his presence on the doorstep from her daughter who lie in bed in
the living room. It was useless; Natalie heard his voice and screamed
the rest of the day. D.J. never came back.
For a year, she was under the constant supervision of medical
professionals. She was allowed to returned to high school-- but no one
recognized her. She was only allowed to have four hour days, and had a
T.S.S. with her at all times. Even in the support program, she found
the tensions of high school unbearable and had many outbursts of crying
and screaming at her teachers. The worst of all her maladies was her
incontinence problem: she now had the responsibility of
self-catheterizing herself every four hours. This was done by sticking
a plastic tube into her urethra. She still had to wear Depends, and was
teased relentlessly by those who found out.
It has been a year since this segment of Natalie's life. She is now
eighteen and is no longer required to be under supervision. She is
living with a drug-addicted, unemployed young man she met on the
internet. He abuses her and doesn't allow her to take her medicines (he
takes them himself). Her condition could, at any time, make a turn for
the worse, and no one would be able to help her without her consent
because of legalities. She still goes through periods of psychosis, and
has convinced herself that she needs to take birth control in case she
gets pregnant (it is very likely that this is not possible). She is a
generally insane individual. The strangest thing is... unlike her
parents, she does not view her new lease on life as a blessing. She
treats it uncautiously. Even though she met death face-to-face, she
remains unchanged. There was no 180 degree turn... no permutation...
Her scarred, crippled body serves as nothing but an "unfair curse"
which she must endure instead of a symbol of her survival. Her once
normal feet are now twisted, deformed things which are concave rather
than rounded in the heel. Her once shapely derriere is now flat from
lying in a hospital bed for so many months. Her once dark, healthy skin
is now white and mottled with purple and brown scars. She has metal
cages and rods and pins where she once had sturdy bones, and wears
diapers when she could once wear pretty and decorated thongs. Her
delicate hands are now disfigured and have inch-long scars shaped like
caterpillars from the IV\'s. Her once long, straight hair is now short
and frazzled from all of the chemical changes her body went through.
Natalie lost so much... yet her madness blinds her to this fact. She'll
never again run track or go to the beach with her friends. She most
likely wont be able to have children, though she has not come to terms
with this and is spending all of her disability money on birth control.
I fear that someday, just like Polly in Kaysen\'s story who hideously
burned her self, Natalie will look in the mirror and realize, all at
once, what she\'s done to herself, and this intense realization will
make her heart stop beating. No one knows what will happen. Natalie's
mind is a mystery-- and represents the collective mind of the mad.