Hey again

Hey there again, it’s been a minute.  Pour yourself a cup of nasty coffee, grab a stale donut, and pull up a chair.  Good to see you.  Every meeting is a good one.  I have some news since last we spoke.  I went to go see my psychiatrist, and was disappointed to hear that maybe, perhaps, that they had gotten my original diagnosis wrong.  Perhaps I wasn’t bipolar after all, but that I was depressed and suffered it recurrently.  I spent ten plus years of living under that specter.  Man I was pissed.  I still kind of am.  I get where they’re coming from.  I don’t exhibit the traditional manic episodes.  So good old garden-variety depression it is.  Now I really get to dig into why I am so afraid of feeling good and success, because it’s clearly not being afraid of the highs.

What else is new?

So good old garden-variety depression it is.

Well this realization gave me hope, but nowhere for my anger to go, nowhere but me.  So I started something I hadn’t done since I was in 10th grade, cutting.  I needed a way to release the pressure, to find a way to give myself pain I could handle.  Sound familiar?  My story isn’t that much different than a significant portion of cutters out there.  And don’t get it mistaken either it’s not an affliction that targets only “goth/emo teenage women.” Studies are showing that a growing number of men are self-harming as well.  A quick Google search will provide you with the corroboration.

So further depression set in.  I’m better than this aren’t I?  Apparently not, I am my worst demon.  I started cutting again where I had before, under the top of my t-shirts, so no one could see.  Then I decided I didn’t really give a fuck, so I started cutting my wrist.  Then I wanted something more painful so I started cutting my legs.  I was wracked with sadness and shame.  I placated myself with the notion that at least my thoughts of suicide were replaced with urges of self-harm.  So I have 11 new scars on me, to go with the ink I have, plus the uncounted ones I gave myself earlier.

I don’t feel manly or tough with the pink ribbon scars on my arm, I feel ashamed.  It’s like I shouldn’t have let myself fall so far into this hole.  Like I deluded myself into thinking that cutting was any better than suicide.  Depression is crazy like that.  It will sell you such a bill of goods regarding whatever messed up thing it wants from you.  People look up to me.  I’m not supposed to be this vulnerable, or this weak.

It’s quite the feeling when the blade cuts your skin, and the red river flows.  It stings and feels good at the same time.  It’s like I can feel the endorphins rushing to the wound.  It’s so tempting to release it more than once in a session, but usually just making the current opening longer is sufficient.  I feel good in the moment, and then it’s all taken away when I look at myself, and what I have done to my body.  It’s my body, and no one else’s.  I wouldn’t let anyone else cut me up, why am I doing it to myself?  Do I value myself so little?  I must.  So I must be worthless.

It’s like I shouldn’t have let myself fall so far into this hole.

If I have no worth I must unlovable no matter what I do.  So…cut again.  Doesn’t matter right?  Bleed some more.  Wash some soap in it so it stings some more.  Whatever makes it hurt, and whatever takes my mind away?  I’ve also discovered some other more “socially acceptable” methods of causing myself pain.  I train until it hurts.  I scratch mosquito bites until they bleed.  I pick fights; I test the people who are supposed to get my back no matter what.  I test my team.  I cut them out, like I don’t want them around so it will hurt them less, and they will be less ashamed of me.

I’m currently going on 7 days without cutting, and I don’t know if I’ll make it tonight.  What’s one more right?  Relieve the pain, or find a way to let it wash over me?  Here’s hoping I find it in me to live with the metaphorical scars, and not create a new one.  Thanks again for hanging out, and take another donut on the way out.  Pay no attention to the man eyeing the plastic knife over there in the corner.