Pouring Out the Truth

“And remember all the black clothes, well, I liked black because it reminded me of death.” (Pg. 126) One has to be pretty messed up and depressed if the only meaning of life you have is to die as fast as possible. If you wake up thinking about how badly you want to die and then go back to sleep while thinking what you are going to write on your will, it means that you should immediately go talk to someone. Before reading The Burn Journals I only new about a few ways in which you could kill your self, and as I was continuing reading I was surprised of all the ways that you could kill yourself. What I was more shocked about is that Brent was only in 8^th grade when he started trying all of this new stuff. In my opinion it takes a lot of skills and creativity to plan and achieve suicide. Apparently Brent had it all pretty well planned, but as we seen he hasn’t been able to get through them completely. Imagine all the things Brent could achieve if he used his creativity for useful stuff instead of wasting it on suicidal techniques!

What I found really interesting about Brent form of writing is that he slowly starts getting into his emotional part, like when he starts telling his mom that he has tried to commit suicide more than once, but he then comes out of it really fast. From my point of view, this moment was really important because he finally let his mom into his life. She can finally see and accept him for what he is and she can now always help him in the future. “Yes, honey, I’m sorry I didn’t know you were so sad. She’s crying hard now, and I’m crying too. I didn’t know, honey, I didn’t know you were so sad.” (Pg.127) With just this quote we can see how important this moment was. It’s like the moment when they finally pour at all the truth. They both seemed to be very emotional, and then boom he switches off topic and starts talking about his last surgery. I can see a change in tone immediately at this moment. This drastic change in tone was made maybe for us to see the most import memories he had from this experiment. He wants to separate the ones that most made an impact of him from the rest. But at the same time it could also mean that he doesn’t like to talk about it and he prefers to give a brief, but emotional, description and move on with the rest as fast as possible. What ever his reason was a point was made with the change of tone.

Even though he opened up to his mother, he didn't say completely the truth. He missed out that it had been more than five times that he had attempted suicide. Why doesn't he want to tell all the story? He repeats his story over and over again on his head, but he still admits that his fine and that it wouldn't happen again. How are his parents going to be sure about this? The lies keep building up and the longer he keeps them, the harder it is to say them out loud in the future. Brent believes that he is going to get better without having to talk about the past. But from my own experience, I've learned that you will feel much better and relieved once you let all of your thoughts out.