Opening The Can

******TRIGGER WARNING****** 

 

I have come to realise that to have nobody is not the worst thing that could happen to me because I’ll always have myself. The worst thing is having people. But those people do not listen to me, they do not believe what I tell them; their every movement of the mouth is tainted with betrayal. I am left wondering, why, all of the time. I am left hating them. I am left with nothing to do but hurt myself, maim myself because that, at least, they could see. Nobody can deny that cuts exist although for the longest time I don’t believe that anybody saw all of the bruises or that my mum registered the bite marks on my bottom; the ones that were impossible for me to cause myself. I have no choice but to walk away from them because others tell me that I am important. I must look after me because nobody else will and I must not let The Monster consume me. I must walk away from them but that is not sad for me. What is sad is that they won’t notice that I am gone. Whether I have walked or jumped. But that’s okay. My life would be easier and so would theirs.

I put the phone down and my anger flares. I need to somewhere. Do something. Escape! Run! Get out! An endless stream of shouts in my head that cannot be tamed and like the lioness hunting her prey, I am helpless to the oncoming wreckage. I do not think I have a plan, at least not a plan to end my life; not today. I buy chips and consume them hungrily though I am far from hungry; it is not yet feeding time. I wander aimlessly through the park. I find myself walking to the spot in the woods where I so often make myself sick but I am walking the wrong way. I am taking the path towards it that I would normally take away from it. It is unfamiliar to me though I walk it so often; the destination is the same and the goal, to feel empty, is unchanged. I stumble through the wilderness feeling lost and inadequate.

Thoughts race through my mind. My anger gets bigger and blacker with every step that I take. Would it have hurt for the first question to have been, “how are you?” It does not take me long to be sick and I don’t have to force myself in the usual way because I am ready for this; I am ready to be emptied of anger, frustration, pain; all of the emotions that I cannot handle and that threaten to rip me apart. I want to feel nothing. The act is complete but now I feel stupid. Guilt and anger bubble inside of me, like Mount Etna, I am ready to erupt. I squash my coke can but that is not enough to take the anger away. My mind is consumed by it. I tear the can apart. The sharp edge looks inviting to me and before I realise what I am doing or have the power to stop it, I am repeatedly cutting myself using the razor sharp sides of the can. Once more it is my left hand that takes the blow. The blood seeps out and I am powerless to stop it. It is not pretty. There is nothing pretty about what I have done this evening. I deserve the needling pain in my hand for my stupidity. Letting them get to me and letting them win because I am hurting again is inexcusable and tantamount to letting My Monster win.

This is not how today was meant to go. I had come so far over the week since my willingness to end my life. I had come so far and as quickly as my mood shifted the night I was sent to A&E, I snapped today. I will not let them control me now when they did not save me from the pain, the trauma and the unbearable neglect. It was no war. There were no Nazis and Hitler did not invade. Nobody was killed. Comparatively my hell was nothing but it was My Hell, My War. My “brother” was My Hitler. My parents, the Nazis. I was expendable. I could be beaten and would not complain. I could be abused and would not put up a fight. It was My War. I was a victim of many forms of abuse as a child and I survived. What does that even mean? What is surviving? Still being alive? Spending my days wanting to end my life is not surviving. I don’t know what is but this cruel form of existence with constant flashbacks is no life to happily live.

I sit here and I wonder who held the most blame, Hitler for creating the hysteria or the Germans who went along with it? My “brother” for abusing me or me for never having the courage to speak up until it was too late? We were both children after all. Everything is justifiable when you’re a child.