Book Review and Author Interview: Comes the Darkness, Comes the Light

"A memoir of cutting, healing and hope"

by Chad Jones

Vanessa Vega, an English teacher at Irving High School and long-time Texan, has written Comes the Darkness, Comes the Light, a frightening and empowering book about her struggle with self-abuse.

At the age of nine, she would take her favorite hairbrush and bash it repeatedly against her head. She would climb atop her bed and bang her head against her headboard until she became unconscious.

These were regular things, she says, which happened “almost on a nightly basis.”

Eventually, Vanessa stopped the banging for fear of brain damage. Instead, she began yanking out her hair by the roots. She learned how to rip off her toenails with her fingers.

In adolescence, Vanessa starved herself. She took bowel and bladder stimulants to facilitate her weight loss. She took so many, for so long, that when she stopped taking them, her body forgot how to expel its waste on its own, landing Vanessa in the E.R. and resulting in a compacted intestinal blockage roughly twenty pounds in size.

Later on into adulthood, Vanessa cut her legs and wrists with scissors, razor blades, and would beat her body repeatedly, with any blunt object, a meat cleaver, in the same blackened spots, until her bones bruised and cracked.

These are only a few of the vivid details that Vega recounts in her memoir. The book begins as a married, adult Vanessa Vega begrudgingly seeks help from a therapist for the first time. Overall, she doesn’t truly want “help” or feel she has a “problem,” but some part of her urges her to go, as she says:

“. . . because I was cutting four times a day. I had tried, unsuccessfully, to break my own arms and femurs, although I had succeeded in breaking fingers and toes, and most recently, in rupturing the protective casing around my ulna and radius bones in my right arm.”

Obviously the book is not for the squeamish. Vega writes lucidly, and luridly, about her self-mutilation. Vega does a masterful job capturing the multiple faces of her disorder. For her, hurting herself is “orgasmic” and cathartic, a way to feel human and real. It is a ritual that is precise, “very clean and very careful.” It is nothing short of an addiction, an over-powering urge that preys upon her insecurities and descends upon her like a “darkness.” And it is unconscious.

“When I’m cutting I feel out of my body," Vega writes.

"It’s like I am watching myself from afar. And then there are other times when I am not consciously aware of how many times I cut or how deeply I cut. Those are the most dangerous times for me.”

But mostly, it is a defense mechanism and a way to cope. “It’s a last attempt, by you, to exhibit some control over events . . . that you find totally out of control."

Comes the Darkness, reads as a linear progression of the author’s therapy. In-between lengthy and emotionally-wrought discussions with her counselor, Vega carefully places concise memories of her childhood. She recalls her father, an abusive authoritarian who never really let her be a child or express her emotions. She remembers the crack of his belt against her bare skin. She remembers her mother, a loving and caring woman, yet criticizes her for never speaking up to her father.

Each of the author’s recollections—that one time in middle school P.E. when she caught a softball pitch that broke her thumb; the time she went to a slumber party and slept alone, cuddling the fireplace; the time she watched her mother succumb to a diabetic seizure—are captivating, gritty but not gratuitous, melancholy but not hopeless.

The author’s overarching tone throughout the two-hundred page work is a tone of sincerity and brutal honesty. Vega divulges the most horrific acts with due caution but renders them onto the page with frankness and restrained judgment. Her writing is cool, not cold, and not fluffy. She recounts the death of her high school friend, a girl named Laura:

“As we left for Thanksgiving holidays, we told each other good-bye. . . It was the last time I would ever see her, for on her way east, she would meet a man on the bus who would follow her home and then chop her up into pieces, stuff her in a closet, and leave her there, unnoticed . . .”

But don’t let this review fool you. While Vega’s macabre subject matter and hauntingly honest, dark writing deserve discussion, reading Comes the Darkness, Comes the Light is truly a cathartic experience. The reader, like the author, must endure pain and loss and agony (which they, in fact, inflict upon themselves by continuing to read along) in order to reach a resolution and in order to reach a firmer grip on themselves.

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PEGASUSNEWS: Writing was an important part of your therapy, but at what point did you decide to write and publish Comes the Darkness?

VANESSA VEGA: I have searched, in vain, for many years, for a book that would in some way reassure me that I wasn't alone. I have never met another self-injurer and hoped to find something that would help me to understand why I am the way I am.

I never thought I would ever write about my greatest secret, but as I concluded my therapy process, I realized that the knowledge I had gained was so important, that it might help other people if I were courageous enough to share it. I

In the beginning, there wasn't a book. There was a series of writings that I had done for myself and my therapist only. As the writings increased, this idea of writing a book to help others slowly took shape.

PEGNEWS: How long ago did the events described in the book (the beginning of your sessions) take place?

VV: The group process part of my therapy took place almost ten years ago. I continued with my therapist one-on-one until May of 2006.

PEGNEWS: Have your brothers and family reacted to the book? And what kind of feedback have you gotten so far in general?

VV: My step-father, mother and brothers have read the book. Their responses have been incredibly positive. They learned a lot about me through reading the book and this understanding has strengthened elements of our relationship. They think I am very brave for taking such a personal risk in the hopes of encouraging others.

The book has done very well. (I still haven't seen it in a bookstore! Everytime I ask, I am told the bookstore can order one!) I have received e-mails from all over the world from individuals who heard about my book, read it and then felt compelled to share part of their struggles with me. These e-mails are very powerful and validating. It seems my candor has struck individuals in a way I hadn't anticipated.

PEGNEWS: Separately, how are your coworkers and especially students at Irving High School reacting to the book? How do you think writing the book has, or will, affect your relationship with your students?

VV: Prior to the book coming out, my department head was the only person on campus who knew about my self-injury. This year, my students knew I had a book coming out about self-injury and it was a memoir. The book was released the week before school ended., but many of them hard ordered a copy on-line before then.

Students that I had identified as "cutters" have written me some of the most touching notes. If anything, writing this book has increased the amount of respect I have received from my colleagues. They have been very, very supportive. If anything, writing this book has re-affirmed for my students the fact that I have "walked the walk".

Many of them know about my struggles with an eating disorder (which I wrote about in 2004) and recognize that it isn't the struggle that defines a person, but how they deal with it. By being so open about my struggles, my students have a "real" connection to me that they may not feel with some of their other teachers.

PEGNEWS: How much of the book had you already written during your therapy?

VV: A good part of the book stems from writings I did during therapy. I never intended to share them. Once the idea for the book came about, I knew I had to leave the writings in tact, as I felt they were the most powerful in their raw and unedited form. The publisher agreed. The book you read is as I wrote it. There was minimal editing before publication because of the nature of the work.

PEGNEWS: The book begins with you reluctant to the idea of therapy but participating in it nonetheless. What prompted you to finally go after dealing with these problems for so long?

VV: Self-injury is a disorder of progression. Over time, your body becomes tolerant of the pain you inflict. As a result, it becomes necessary to "up the ante" over time. I started to dabble in asphyxiation, and that event is what prompted me to get serious about therapy. I started to scare myself. I knew if I continued in the same vein, I could kill myself accidentally, and that was never my intention.

I was hesitant to go into therapy though because I was secretly afraid that I might be crazy and just not know it. I thought if people knew what I was doing, they would lock me up and throw away the key. It took me a long time to overcome this fear and risk telling the truth.

PEGNEWS: At what point did you begin conducting motivational speaking classes, and how is that going for you?

VV: In 2004, I shared my struggles with anorexia in a book for teens called Taste Berries for Teens #4.

I spoke all over the state for almost a year to a variety of groups about self-image and eating disorder issues. The momentum of the other tour has segwayed into this current tour. Last fall I started doing writing workshops for local libraries and school groups, and then this spring, I started speaking to college students about self-injury.

A month before the book was released, the PR campaign started and I have done radio interviews for stations all over the nation. I have been the subject of local print/media programs and have been asked to speak at several national conferences through 2008.

PEGNEWS: Do you feel your quality of life has improved since writing the book been? How is your professional life, how is your life in general? Do you wake up daily refreshed and excited about living? Is there still a struggle?

VV: It's weird. There are some days when I wake up and leap out of bed, anxious to start my day and excited about the tasks ahead. And then there are other days when my enthusiasm is lacking. If you've looked at my blog lately, you'll know what's been going on in my life to precipitate those feelings.

I am working on finding the balance between what I want to do and what I feel like I have to do. I'm still trying to find that level where I can sit back and say, this is good enough. I am a highly motivated individual and constantly seek out opportunities to "show the world what I can do".

Overall, I think my life is great. I am healthy and happy. Like all disorders, self-injury remains something I think about everyday, but I believe I now have the tools I need to work through the thoughts and choose alternative behaviors.

I've made it one year without injury and want to keep that momentum going!

PEGNEWS: How 'bout that Trinity River project?

VV: Lots of work to be done, but so worth it.

PEGNEWS: What new book are you currently working on? Spill the beans.

VV: Yes, there is a new book in the pipeline, but I'm not in a place where I can discuss it yet!

Visit vanessa-vega.com for more info.