3024 Words.

It started when I was twelve. My grandmother died and shit hit the fan with my mom’s side of the family. Watching them be vicious to each other scared me so much because I thought the family was happy. I never once thought that things would get bad enough where family members wouldn’t speak to each other. It scared me because I had been fighting with my sisters my entire life. That made me think it was only a matter of time before us three weren’t on speaking terms. I started worrying about that. I started missing my cousins who I couldn’t speak to because my mom wasn’t speaking to their parents. Everything surrounding me was sad. I started feeling numb.

I’m pretty sure its common knowledge that I wasn’t the best student in school. When you feel numb, you lose any desire to anything. I had no effort or desire or energy to do homework. I also had a lot of fights constantly going on in my head to remember homework assignments. It sounds like bullshit so I’ll explain it a little further. Every second of every day I had to remind myself to look happy; I had to tell myself to smile, to make sure my clothes wouldn’t draw attention or dirty looks to me, make sure I talked to anyone I considered a friend to make sure they were still my friend, scream at myself to not get the answer wrong when I was called on in class, not to totally freak out if I was called on in class, and pretty much worry about every single thing possible in the world. The whole not doing homework thing also got to be a big issue that would further stress me out. Then when I would tell my parents that I'm stressed out and not happy, they would say something along the lines of you're too young to be that stressed out, etc.

The next year, I got into some “drama” with a girl I was friends with. Things got out of control quickly with this girl. It started with me realizing that she was more of a dictator than friend, and I tried to get out of the friendship. I stood up for myself and told her she wasn’t a good friend but she spun it around to me saying she couldn’t have friends besides me and all this other bullshit. This sparked a war between us because I tried as hard as I could to stand up for myself but everyone sided with her because in middle school its easier to go along with the bully instead of saying no. It got to the point where she got her parents involved by lying and saying we were going to fight one day after school. I remember this day clearly. I was walking out of school and starting my walk home when my dad called my cell phone. I answered and heard how pissed he was in the tone of his voice. I asked what was wrong and he asked where I was and I said outside of the school about to head home. He started ripping me a new asshole saying the girl’s dad called him and asked why we were going to be fighting after school that day and I honestly laughed a little because I thought he was joking. He obviously got more mad. I must have said I don’t know anything about this a million times within the three or four minute phone call. I promised him I was going right to the house and nowhere else. He said we would talk when he got home about this, which started stressing me out. I was getting frustrated because whenever I actually talked to my parents about anything related to this issue, they would automatically assume I was lying and I was the one causing all the drama. So I knew that was what I was heading towards when I was walking home. On my way, I started noticing that the girl I was allegedly going to fight was following me home. I went to the other side of the street to avoid having any sort of issue with her. She followed me across the street so I went back to the other side of the street and she followed me back and started yelling stuff at me about how I was a “pansy” for not fighting her and a ton of other stuff that I tried blocking out. I then texted my older sister to come pick me up because I wanted to get away from this girl and waited for her to pick me up at a library on the way home. Since I was a little bit ahead of this girl, I had to sit there and wait for her to walk by. She continued to yell stuff at me which I just took until I saw my sister pull up. I got into the car thinking she would help me out and ask what happened but instead she decided to be the first one to start giving me shit about getting into more drama and how my parents were pissed and all that fun stuff. When my parents got home later that night, they yelled at me for giving into the drama and how I shouldn’t pay attention to her. I tried explaining to them that I have been ignoring her but she doesn’t go away and that I never once said I would fight her. They then said I was lying and they couldn’t trust me, even though I was telling the truth.

Skip to freshman year of high school, which is obviously tough for anyone. My friends had dwindled down because of that girl and all the rumors she spread about me. I also couldn’t shake this feeling of not being happy and being really down for no reason. My completed homework percentage hadn’t increased at all either so my parents were constantly pressuring me for that while assuming I was getting involved with more drama. There was one night when they were yelling at me when things got really bad. They were mad because my room wasn’t clean, my homework wasn’t done, the evil girl tried causing more drama that I did not give into, and a bunch of things just added up. If you ask my mom, she denies this happened but I really don’t understand why I would make this up. When things were really heated, she said she hated me. She said I was a disappointment compared to my sisters and she wished she didn’t have me. Our fight ended right there because I was outrageously hurt as expected. I closed my door and sat on the floor because I didn’t feel like I was worthy of sitting on my bed because my mom pretty much told me how worthless I was. I’m not even sure how long I sat there just staring at my wall. I just let the words sink in. Once I finally started crying and sobbing, I did something I had been considering for a few weeks. I grabbed the closest sharpest thing to me and that happened to be a pair of tweezers.

I held my breath and dragged the tweezers across my left wrist until I drew blood. It hurt like hell. You know when you scratch your arm or something and it just like burns but isn’t deep enough to bleed? It just opens the skin? That’s the pain I went through before I actually bled. As soon as I saw the blood, I was kinda shocked that I had actually done it. I had cut my wrist. All of a sudden I got super scared and freaked out that I had gotten so down on myself that I had hit the point of self-harm. I ran to the bathroom and put a big band aid over my wrist. When I sat back down on the ground, I turned on some music and just hit shuffle. Imagine by John Lennon started playing and I started crying again. I listened to that song probably 25 times that night. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.”

I did this in September so it was still somewhat nice out where I live but for about a week after I cut, I made sure to wear long sleeves so no one would see what I did. I was super paranoid about it and honestly to this day you can still see it. When I get nervous or anxious, I pull my sleeves down to cover my wrists and hands. Anyways, after about a week, I took the Band-Aid off and saw how raw my wrist looked and it grossed me out honestly. I figured it was healed enough and decided to wear a short-sleeved shirt in gym class. I still wore a bad aid over it just in case. Throughout the entire class, not a single person noticed the band aid on my wrist. I was partially happy about it but also kind of upset that some of my closest friends didn’t even notice. When I got home I considered cutting again, but I looked at the damage already done and knew I wouldn’t be able to handle cutting again.

So another little time jump to a few months before my 18th birthday. I was still struggling to deal with my depression and increasing anxiety and even cut a few more times. I had finally decided that I wasn’t going to cut my wrist or body ever again. Every time I had considered cutting again, Imagine would come on the radio or on my ipod and I would instantly feel better. I took a sharpie and wrote the word “imagine” on my wrist over where I had usually cut. I kept it there to get used to it being there.

The day after my 18th birthday, I told my parents my friends were taking me out for my birthday and I wouldn’t know when I would be back. We drove to a tattoo place in Mansfield, MA and I walked in and started getting nervous. I wrote the word “imagine” on a post it note and handed it to the tattoo artist and asked for it to be on my wrist. I was with a group of friends and one of my friends was also getting a tattoo but the guy said mine would be quicker so I had to go first. I cannot take pain at all (sounds weird after I just said that I cut myself but I mean I guess that shows how numb I was) and mix that with anxiety and I was slowly becoming a mess. The guy put on some music to calm me down and it was a pop punk which is one of my favorite genres. After he showed me where the tattoo would be, he started working on the I and felt super nauseous and asked him to stop for a second because I was lightheaded. He gave me some sort of sugar tablet because he thought my blood sugar might be low but honestly that was what sent me over the edge. As soon as it dissolved in my mouth, I grabbed the trash can and threw up. I composed myself and looked at the permanent “I” on my wrist and knew I had to finish it. I put my wrist back on the table and let him finish it. I started singing along with Blink 182, although it could be debated that I was yelling along. I didn’t cry, I didn’t swear, I didn’t scream. He wrapped it up and told me how to take care of it. Once I could take the gauze off, I just stared at the last cut ever to be on my wrist.

I didn’t tell my parents about the tattoo. There was one day when my mom got home from work that her friend came over and they started talking about tattoos and how stupid they are and how they don’t understand them and I started freaking out thinking they found out somehow. I was constantly wearing long sleeves around my parents to hide it so again, I pulled my sleeves down just like after I cut. The next day, I stupidly went to my mom’s friends office to ask if she knew about my tattoo but ended up just telling her about it right then and there. She decided to call my mom at work and make me tell her I got a tattoo.

My parents didn’t talk to me for three days. When they finally did, they grounded me for like two and a half months, gave me shit and said I could’ve gotten diseases from it and that any reason I had to get the tattoo was stupid. They told me I would hate the tattoo and would regret getting it. I tried to explain that I planned it for months and put a lot of thought into it and that it was just a word, it wasn’t like I got an entire sleeve or something obscene on my arm. They still told me it was stupid and part of my punishment was that I threw up when I got it.

Sometime later, things were tense in my house. I couldn’t exactly remember why but my entire family was stressed. I got into a full out screaming match with my mom one day and she brought up my depression. She told me that since I hadn’t asked for help in so long, that I must be better. I explained to her that I just got sick of asking for help and having it just be swept under the rug. I told her I was constantly miserable, constantly having panic attacks, was insanely stressed out because of that, had a two month long headache from all the stress, and was getting close to cutting again. When I said that, she got a little confused. I know I had told her about the first time I cut, but it seemed like she decided to not believe it, and I'm hoping its because she maybe just didn’t want to. I then started telling her how much it hurt me when her and my dad told me my tattoo was stupid even though I promised myself it would be the last cut on my wrist and was a symbol of making myself get better and not feel numb again. Since then, neither of my parents has given me a hard time about my tattoo.

I also wish I could say that my tattoo was the last cut on my body. I was clean for about two years. Right now at this moment, I'm at eight months.

There was one night where all the stress and depression I had tried to just push away and ignore became too much and I had a massive panic attack. Around this time, I was very very depressed to the point that when I was driving, I had hoped someone would hit me and send me to the hospital. I had hoped that someone would hit me when I crossed the street. I half considered jumping into the pond near my house down the Cape and not letting myself come up. I had started wishing awful things for myself. I started sobbing and felt numb again. I don’t remember exactly what was pushing me over the edge but I felt such indescribable things. I believe I was home alone and I just laid in the middle of my bed in a ball and sobbed. I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. When I realized I couldn’t breathe, I started getting more anxious because I could not catch my breath. My whole body was shaking and I truly felt like my life was about to end. At this point, I kind of blacked out. I woke up the next moment exactly where I had been crying and felt pain on my thigh. I don’t know when or how but after I blacked out, I had cut my thigh.

There are millions of reasons why people cut and I have found that the main reasons I cut is to either feel something, or to somewhat punish myself. The first time I cut, it was to feel anything. It was also because everyone I knew at the time had done something to hurt me so I wanted to hurt myself too. Since then, I've cut to punish myself for things I’ve said, situations I’ve let myself get into, or things I've done. That night I blacked out, I'm guessing I cut just so I could feel literally anything because my chest hurting from not being able to breathe.

At this point, I just hope there will come a time that I won’t battle myself. I hope there’s a day I don’t have a voice in the back of my mind telling me how worthless and stupid I am. I hope at some point I can walk down the street and not freak out about what everyone walking by me is thinking about me or if they’re laughing at me. I want to have confidence in everything I do. I don’t want to think so much about what people think. I don’t want to feel everything so deeply. I want people to joke with me and be able to go to sleep that night not worrying if they actually meant it or not. I want to be able to fall right asleep as soon as I crawl into my bed and not think about everything I did wrong that day. I want to be comfortable in my own skin and have it be obvious that I'm okay and that I'm the happiest I've ever been.

I can’t stop dreaming of the day I’ll finally be okay. “Imagine all the people, living life in peace”. I want to live my life in peace.