Jessica Ann Russell
JESSICA
I'm going to tell a story...about a girl..that became a woman, and her view, pain, love, and hate of this world and the people in it and her difficulties to cope with each.
I'm writing this as her mom, but some of the content of this will be her words that came from a few journals that we found after her passing. I battled for days and weeks, now months, whether to make her life/cause of death public, but knowing Jessica, if this could help just one person she would do it!
In an excerpt from one of her journals she wrote the following: "It must almost be over.
What am I going to do then? All my friends are gonna go to hell. I can't handle any of this....anymore....life....people....talking....breathing...being a part of this thing called living.
I absolutely can't deal. God please help me...
Nobody can understand, not anymore...everything seems so useless and hopeless...I'm so weak. I can see the future, but I don't know how to help my friends, the people that I love...they don't know God...just like everybody else I know...I'm so lost...far away...gone. I love them too much...I care about everybody too much. I wish I could stop...I want it all to go away...everything...to run away...thats what I want to do. Leave the world behind...the depression...sadness...loneliness...emptiness...the infinite sorrow of death and pain. The torture of living. I want it all...to stop. But I don't wanna die I just can't do that...I care too much about everybody else...to hurt me...that damn caring thing again. God help me.
I see so much beauty...but it all comes from the pain and sorrow - it hurts- but I can see the beauty- what is wrong w/me. God please help...help me please. I don't know what to do and I don't know what I'm doing anymore. There's no point. Give me someone to talk to.
Why can't I just be like everybody else...somewhat normal- but please-no one is normal, maybe I am - no I'm not. God please.. I'm tired of fighting with w/myself and with/life.
That was my daughter, pretty much, in a nutshell, and this was written in middle school so she carried these feelings of hopelessness for decades! She cared so much for other people and their ups and downs, their sadness, their losses, their hopes and dreams, and she absorbed all of their misery and carried it day to day, and if she couldn't fix their problems it ate a hole through her soul.
This is a girl who found it extremely difficult to help herself and couldn't fix her own problems but she would always be at your doorstep if you called. She had to fix people. She attracted the broken ones.
This was, I'm sure, why she chose to find ways to numb herself. First it was the doctors, anti-depressants, anxiety meds, etc. Nothing worked...I don't remember the first pain pill, but she soon realized the euphoric feeling was the answer to all her misery!
Now I do realize that she dabbled in many things off and on through high school and college. It wasn't something she did everyday or even every week but the different "highs" she experienced made her forget how she felt...for a little while at least!
Later on in life she actually started withdrawing a lot...she ignored phone calls, messages, etc. This was partly her disease and partly because she realized trying to be everything to everybody was killing her.
She did this off and on for the rest of her life.
She also struggled with her appearance. She was taunted in middle school and that left a very deep scar. So when she started losing weight it really didn't raise any red flags. Needless to say it wasn't done without a drug. Doesn't matter what drug but she went through methadone treatment and NA to get off of it. And she did...that was many years ago so we thought she was finally on the right path...then she started drinking. A lot.
Jessica always had a smile on her face and you would never know that she was going through anything of any magnitude. She worked 40 plus hours a week, she made good money, customers loved her. She was high functioning with her addiction.
She didn't look like your "typical addict".
This girl struggled with how people treated each other, how they treated animals and what the world was becoming and the pure evil that surrounded us! This also was her pill to swallow...she hated this life...she was not of this world...she was just playing a part until it was her time to go. She came to us to teach us... and left us...to teach us something else.
Jessica was an angel on Earth and now she's returned to heaven as a heavenly Angel💔
Mama loves you baby and I will never get over you leaving us😢
Jessica died in my bathroom floor all alone. This haunts me!
The ME's report says she accidentally overdosed on heroin. Yes, she had heroin in her system...but she also had an artery that was 90% blocked and for almost a week prior she was having trouble breathing, and of course, she thought it was her asthma, so we never thought much of it. Now I'll never know if she had gone to the ER?? What if?? I have a lot of what ifs....
Red flags...none except moodiness...but hell that was normal sometimes!
I never knew she had ever used a needle...let alone heroin....this was something we talked about and she said, "No way, I'm too chicken to do that!"
Pay close attention to the people in their lives. No matter how old your children are pay attention to their new friends or old friends that reappear in their lives.
This was our first red flag!! I wish like hell now that I would have been psycho mom!
There's always that one person that you just can't put your finger on...but something is off.
Another "what if"?
But the sad thing I have to come to terms with is that Jessica was a grown woman and I probably couldn't have done anything that I hadn't done already or tried to do.
Burying a child is unnatural...I will never be the same...that's all I know for sure right now
Love your kids, never take them for granted....This was something that happens to other people or in the movies. Well I'm not in the movies so I guess I'm one of the "other" people now.
I did not write this for sympathy or any kind of attention. I wasn't sure if I should put Jessica's deepest thoughts or demons she fought out there for everyone to see. I'm still struggling but addiction is killing more and more of our families and I never in my wildest dreams would've believed our family would become a statistic.
I hope the details of Jessica's life and death touches someone out there and give's them the strength to get up and reach out to somebody for help.
PLEASE PLEASE SHARE THE HELL OUT OF THIS!!!! I need it to go far and wide to reach those that need it--that person sitting on the side of their bed wondering if this is how life is supposed to be and if life is even worth this pain, relying on a drug to get through the day to day. Is that living? Even though my daughter didn't commit suicide it's the same results. She knew that every time she let the devil take over and pierce her skin with that needle it could be her last. She took that chance every time. It's not worth it! Get up off the bed and tell someone, anyone, you need help! Hell, if you don't have anyone else call 911. Call the suicide hotline, 1-800 Suicide, check yourself into a rehab, just DO SOMETHING! Your life IS worth it!!
I will always remember the morning of Nov. 5th as the day my heart broke in two.