******TRIGGER WARNING******
When I was a
child and I heard the other kids in my class talk about people they knew that
would ‘cut’ themselves; I never understood. I don’t think that I really knew
what they meant. I saw how you could cut bread, meat, fish and even chocolate
if you so wished but to cut yourself; that never made any sense to me. How do
you go about doing that? Why would you do that? I had been hurt by somebody
else every day for years; why would someone turn on themselves like that? For
the longest time, I didn’t understand.
The day I wrote my teacher’s
name on my left hand with my compass in maths was a day when I came close to
understanding. Nothing seemed to make any sense to me right then. I had been
told repeatedly to see my Head of Year every Tuesday at lunchtime so that she
could make sure I was alright. I’m still not sure she really did anything
beyond satisfying some small doubt within her. I’d already told her things were
happening at home and nothing was done. I think this was my cry for help. I
needed somebody to notice me; to see what was happening that I couldn’t voice.
Telling the family secrets was and is forbidden; I’m sure they’ll come after me
soon. I turned on myself in my time of need to show something concrete that the
teachers could see. If they saw me doing this to myself, then maybe they’d
believe what I was saying and I would get some help; somebody would take me
away from that hellhole. But nobody did.
Now, I can see the beauty of
cutting yourself. I have always loved colouring in. Cutting yourself is like
colouring in your own body. There is a satisfaction in it that cannot
adequately be explained. It was difficult for me the first few times that I cut
myself. I didn’t know how to; how do you just go ahead and cut yourself? It’s
not something that comes naturally when your every instinct is to protect your
body from harm. I tried with scissors more than once but that doesn’t do a lot.
It helped a little. I had some brief respite from the emotional pain ripping me
apart.
It’s fascinating to me that a
kitchen knife can so easily cut through an onion, with so many layers and a
potato with such a solid interior but human skin? Human skin is tough;
unyielding to the touch of the cool, steel blade. I cut at my arm like I would
cut some bread but after an hour, I am still only just beneath the surface and
it looks more like a burn than anything else. I did not realise than an hour
had passed until the programme that I was watching finished. I had been
methodically carving at my flesh, backwards and forwards; backwards and
forwards. When the hour had passed, I put the knife away and I cleaned my cuts,
bandaged my arm like anybody would. The black ball of pain inside of my heart
had become a little smaller. It is harder to feel emotional pain when you have
a pain that is physical; a pain that can be seen and understood by all and yet
I had felt nothing when I cut into my arm so violently for so long. There was
no pain. The physical pain had cancelled out the emotional pain and I was left
hollow, like the tree hit by lightning with no hope of growth. I was there and
I existed but I was not me. There was no feeling. There was no light and there
was no dark. I existed but I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I was numb to the
pain and numb to the world. I can only hope I passed out after that.
The real danger for me right
now is that I am not frantic and I am not fidgety. I am calmly contemplating
the next brutal act I will perform on myself at the bequest of My Monster. He
has left me alone during the days and haunted my dreams with his face and his
soul-destroying voice. He knows how to get to me. He knows that the intense
fear will be greater inside me if I am calm when he speaks to me. I am better
able to protect myself against him when I fidget because there is a part of me
that is still in control; a part of me that knows cutting myself is stupid and
wrong. When I am calm, I have already rationalised the act. I can see the
relief from the pain that eats me alive; from the unheard cries caught in my
throat. I can feel the horror swell within in me because I know what must be
done and I know that it is well deserved for being such a failure; for being a
disgrace to my family; for being born at all.
When I am calm, I welcome the
sweet release of the blade against my flesh. I welcome the sight of the blood
as it trickles down my arm and into the sink. As the blood mixes with the water,
it swirls and the patterns that appear are pretty; worthy of being remembered,
somebody should capture that moment. It does not scare me that I will lose
blood and it does not scare me that I could go too far. Whatever happens will
be whatever is deserved. There must always be blood loss in a war and while I
cannot reach him to bleed him to the death he so surely deserves; the blood
loss must be mine.
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