**may be triggering**
I just got back from my mom's house. On the drive home (which is over an hour), I thought about my life, past and present. A little bit of the future.
You see, my life has been a large ball of bad memories, bad experiences, with a few good things thrown in. I never knew how to deal with it. Sometimes, writing was an outlet. That wasn't enough. Sometime after I graduated high school, I started cutting.
I've blogged about cutting before, but this is just part of what was on my mind driving home.
I cut on my thighs. Places people wouldn't see. At first, I was scared to do it. I would sit for a long time, twirling the blade in my fingers. When I would finally get the courage to do it, I dragged it across my skin fast, and never very deep. I would watch the blood bubble up with a sick but excited feeling in my stomach. Injuries and blood normally make me almost throw up, but not when I do it to myself. I don't know if I can describe the feelings that came to me.
It was like everything bad fell away, and so did the world. In that moment, it was just me, a blade, and my blood. Nothing else mattered and no harm could come to me in these private times. My skin would feel tingly all over my body and I felt alive, with no hurt. It didn't hurt because I didn't want it to.
It hurt afterwards, the next day. When I took a shower, the raw skin screamed at me. The jeans I wore rubbed against those cuts, and I loved that feeling. I loved the way it hurt. I guess those who have been hurt so much learn to love it, because we know nothing else. We don't know what being loved feels like.
As time went on, I began to feel numb about everything that had happened to me, instead of being hurt all the time. I felt nothing, like I was in a void of blackness and every feeling I had ever had was stripped from my being.
At this time, I started cutting deeper, because now I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to be able to feel something, because the numbness scared me in a way that nothing else had before. It hurt because I wanted it to. Sometimes I would wake from the walking coma and I was afraid. I was afraid that I was crazy, and that I should be locked up.
I wouldn't wait for the new cuts to heal before I made new ones. The cutting was what I needed it to be that day. If I wanted to numb my emotional pain, it would do that. If I wanted to feel something, it would do that too.
For awhile, I cut my wrist and wore bracelets, the black and pink rubber ones you can buy at Hot Topic. I cut there because it bled more. One time, I cut too deep and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I panicked and didn't know what to do. I know now that I wouldn't have died from that one cut, but at the time that's exactly what I thought. I did not want to die.
That's the thing that's most misunderstood about cutting. Most of us are not suicidal. If we were, we know how to do it and we would. This is self-medication. It's the only way we can think of to help us survive.
I would like to say that I learned my lesson and didn't cut anymore, at least not my wrist. But I would be lying. After a time though, I stopped cutting my wrist and went back to my thigh. And after a time, I did stop cutting. I think it's because I'm better emotionally. But the thing is, I fear that it's all pretend. It's all fake. I'm not better, and I'm only fooling myself.
Every once in a while, I get in such a state that I do cut. I have reserve blades for those times. The other night when I made that post, I cut a lot. I counted 31 fresh cuts on my leg. We aren't all perfect.
There is a new lady that works for the dining service in the cafeteria at work. A coworker told me the next time I see her that I should look at her arms. Her scars are really bad. There's one I saw that was about 3 inches long or so and very raised, so she must have cut very deep and possibly had to get stitches. I guess I'm thankful that mine on my wrist aren't that noticeable unless you're staring.
All 3 of my sisters have cut at some point. My youngest sister still does. I look at the healing scars on her arm and wonder. I want to ask her how she feels when she does it, what she thinks about. I know it's because of my mother and how she treats her. I never ask. I think I've closed myself off too much that it's too hard to talk about with her.
It's something that's not talked about at all. My sister's scars and healing skin are seen, but not mentioned. When I wear sleeping shorts and my scars and newly healing skin are seen, it's not mentioned. My mother says nothing. My step dad says nothing. I say nothing. My sister says nothing.
We are the ones that wear our pain on our skin.
