HiKobi here. If you read "Meeting Kobi" in the Nov. 10, edition of Windy City Times then you know that I'm writing to you from Chester Mental Health Center, the only maximum security hospital in Illinois, and that I am here because of my violent past. I can remember standing there in my family home in the horrific aftermath of the "incident." That's what the "professionals" call the murders. I plainly remember the deafening ringing in my ears, the only noise following the numerous gunshots that ended the lives of my parents and sister. In an age where our teenage generation has begun ending their own lives due to pain with which I'm all too familiar, I want to scream out of a window ( impossible to do here ) "Stop!"
I have been where you are. Don't you see the similarities? Please allow me to help enlighten you. Hope is the mainstay of the living, in my opinion. Without hope I feel that we become either hopeless, and by that I mean finding no reason to continue, which may take one down the sad path to suicide or another side effect of losing hope is desperation, another sad path that almost always leads to catastrophe. It did for me, anyway.
Part of the issue as I see it now, after years of therapy, is that when I was suffering in my youth, I knew in my mind that my tiny pain-filled world was the only world that existed. It was a world with the father who would strip-search and cavity-search me ( including personal exams ) , and a world with the sadistic boyfriend who would leave me tied up, naked, beaten and bloody. I really knew that was the only world that existed.
I want every person brave enough to read this to continue to be brave and take notice that our community has grown. Our numbers are larger, and we have a voice. What may shock you, if you are anything like I was, is that you always have had the power to free yourself from the bondage of pain and sadness. I really felt that my actions were the only way to move past my sadness and frustration. How wrong I was.
The first step, as I now see it, is to stand up ( Really! If you're sitting, stand up! ) and leave. No possessions you have are worth the life of someone else or your own life. Nowhere to go? I politely refer you back to the whole "we are larger in numbers" thing. People are far more understanding than we give them credit for. If I had just gone to someone and said "Help me!" where might I be right now? More importantly, where might my loved ones be? How might we have changed things by realizing that the real world is bigger than my issues? Well, you know what they say: Hindsight is 20/20. Garbage! We all have powerpower to survive, but not just this but to thrive.
I'm sitting on a cot in a cold, cell-like room. Every day I watch my back and fear unbridled abuse from either staff or patients. ( Truly, this place is not known for its comfort or kind treatment of consumers. ) But do you know what? I am thriving. I realize that I am what I'm doing, not what I've done.
I really hope to hear from you as I pray that somewhere I can make a difference in somebody's life. Write to me at Kobi Burks, P.O. Box 31, Chester, Ill., 62233. I hope to hear from you soon.
Kobi