My Pain

Growing up, I had a pretty great childhood. All the neighborhood kids hung out at our house, playing football, catch, and jumping on the trampoline. A few choice friends would always come over and swim in my grandma's pool with my siblings and I, and we would have cookouts every weekend.

I am the oldest of three. My sister and I are thirteen months apart, and my brother is five years my junior. Four years my sister's. We argued, just as all siblings do, but we stuck together. We always told each other, and everyone else, no one can make my sibling cry, but me. And being the oldest, I made a lot of other kids cry for fucking with my brother and sister. I've always been very protective of them. Even at twenty and sixteen, I will always be protective of them.

The first five years of my life, my dad and I were best friends. He was my buddy. My hero. My Superman. Nobody was better than my dad. Not even mom. My sister was always a mommy's girl, a prissy crybaby that always got her way, but it never really bothered me because I had my dad. I was daddy's little girl, his tomboyish girl that liked to wrestle and play with matchbox cars and Tonka trucks.

I noticed though, after my brother came along, and I got older, that I was the odd one out. My mom had the perfect little girl in my sister and my dad had the son that he always wanted. I began to feel replaced. Like, I wasn't good enough any more. And that hurt me.

Once my parents got divorced, shit really hit the fan.

Denial didn't hit me like it did my siblings. Acceptance came first. And then, that gave way to depression. Then, anger. Anger at my parents for tearing our family apart. At myself because I felt that it was my fault. My dad, for cheating on my mom. My mom, for lying to all of us. And all that anger, needed an outlet.

By the time I was fifteen, I was the cause of every fight within my family. I'd yell, scream, and curse over the simplest things. I'd punch walls, break furniture, and even hit my siblings.

I couldn't control myself. I wasn't just feeling anger. I was sad and alone and in so much pain. So, I started to do the one thing that would help to control it all. I started cutting. And I won't lie to you; It felt fucking amazing. To feel something again, that was in my control. It was like a drug to me, and I didn't want to get clean. I wanted to stay an addict so bad, to feel that rush each time I slid the blade over an older, healing scar. To add more and more and more until, all my legs became, was a pattern of old or fresh, dripping or drying, patchwork quilt of scars. And I loved it.

I'm not going to tell you that I felt bad with each cut, because then I would be lying. I never, not once, felt bad. It was an incredible feeling. I had been feeling so much that was out of my control, that I felt that I needed to do something in order to get that control back. And, being able to control my physical pain, to stop and start when I wanted, and to know when I'd had enough, that was my control. That was my drug of choice.

I was seventeen when my parents found out about my cutting. And I didn't care that they cried. I mean, they had made me cry enough with their blatant stares of disapproval and disappointment. The way they ignored me when I tried to tell them how I felt. The way that they simply acted as if I didn't exist. So, when my mother started crying, seeing the myriad of scars that swallowed both of my legs, I didn't care. When my father had to turn away, couldn't bare to look at them, I shrugged it off. They didn't seem to give a fuck, so why should I?

It took my brother finding me to stop.

He was about eleven, maybe twelve at this point. I hadn't heard him come home from school, and so, I was sat in my room alone, door open. My shorts were pushed to the side, and the blade hovered above my flesh. When I heard my brother ask what I was doing, I jumped, dropping the blade. I then looked up to my brother, and I could feel my heart shatter as I saw the tears in his eyes.

He was crying. For me. Because he cared. And he said as much when he hugged me, and cried and begged me not to hurt myself anymore. My little brother held me, and I held him, as we cried.

Again, I won't lie. I did start cutting again after that. It actually took meeting the man that would become husband for me to never touch a blade again. I still bare the scars, faint, white lines that criss-cross over one another. A patchwork quilt. I'm not proud of it. Never have been.

For anyone out there that feels that self-mutilation is the answer, it's not. I swear to you, someone does care. And if you feel that they don't, then I do. I never want anyone to feel that they have to turn down that dark road the way I did. So, I'm telling you now; My inbox is always open. If anyone ever needs someone to listen, I will. If you need a friend, an unbiased opinion, or just someone to vent to, I will listen and help in any way that I can. Because I never want anyone, even a stranger or my own worst enemy, to ever feel the way I did.

I'm not sharing my story for attention or pity. I just want you to know that you're not alone.
October 11th, 2017 at 07:57am