I am a strong person.
Damn it, I am. I am the baddest bitch that ever graced Sunnydale with her presence. I am the queen. I take shit from no one. I am Cordelia Chase, dammit.
I am a strong person.
I can handle this. I can deal with it. It’s just a little discomfort. Discomfort that feels like someone is taking a butcher knife and stabbing it right between my eyes repeatedly, but it’s only a little pain. I can handle pain. It’s nothing that a few prescription painkillers and a nice hot bath can’t take care of. After that, everything is back to normal. I can smile and pretend that everything is completely okay. I can bounce back like the good Cordy everyone knows and loves. I can laugh and joke and tease. I can pretend that a few hours before I wasn’t contemplating something that I shouldn’t have been thinking about.
If they only knew. Angel, Wes, and Gunn wouldn’t know what to say if they only knew what was going on in my head. That, for the past few months, their sweet, innocent, and always-positive Cordy had been thinking about it. Had been thinking about ending the blinding pain for good. Had been thinking about taking my own life.
I am a strong person.
That’s been my mantra now for the past few months. “I am a strong person.” Everyday I find myself repeating it over and over again. It’s my connection to reality when I start to have those thoughts. Those thoughts that I shouldn’t have. Those thoughts that I have never had once before in my life.
I always seem to get better until that next vision hits. It seems that everything is moving along pretty well, that life really isn’t that shitty after all, and then it hits. And then I find myself curled up in the fetal position in my apartment, in the hotel, and those thoughts come back to plague my mind. It’s at those moments that I welcome death the most.
It’s those moments when that knife in the kitchen looks the most appealing, that I wonder how bad it would really be. Just a few cuts, and it would be over. Reality would just slowly drip away with each fading heartbeat. Then, I find myself repeating my mantra—“I am a strong person”—and realizing that I’m a big enough baby when I get a paper cut. That I don’t really have the guts.
It’s those moments when I’m curled up and crying that I wonder what would happen if I took just one or two more of my pain pills over the recommended dosage. I mean, that wouldn’t be too bad. I would just fade away. It would just be like going to sleep, right?
I am a strong person.
I mean, how bad would it be, really? Yeah, the guys would grieve, but they would move on eventually. They would have to. Yeah, the link to the PTB would be disconnected, but I’m sure they’d find some other way to communicate with Angel. They’d have no choice if they want him to succeed. It wouldn’t be that big of a disaster. The world would continue to spin. The sun would continue to rise. It’s not like everything would cease to be if I no longer existed.
I’d be just like Doyle. I mean, technically, he took his own life. Of course, he sacrificed himself to save others. I would just be sacrificing myself… which could be seen as a pretty selfish motive. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t be a hero like Doyle. I would just being taking the easy way out, the coward’s way out, but at times, I don’t care. I just want the pain to end.
If the guys could just understand my pain, they would know. They would understand. If they only knew how it feels to have your body shut down on you, to feel like every organ in your body is being squeezed in a vice. They would say, “Oh, well, of course. She had no other choice. That was the most logical thing for her to do.”
I am a strong person.
I want to do my job. I want to help the helpless. It gives me new meaning in life, but I don’t know how much more I can take. I don’t want to give up. That’s not my style. I’m Cordelia Chase, dammit! Cordelia Chase does not give up. Or at least I never did before…
Sooner or later, this battle is going to end. Either my body will finally give in, or my mind will. One day, I’m going to have a vision of myself, and I’ll know in my heart what I will have to do…
But I am a strong person….