The Devil Made Me Do It

Why do people do bad things? Is there some elusive outside force that makes us commit evil acts? I often wonder whom human kind can blame. More frequently I wonder if there is anyone I can blame for the things I’ve done.

If there is anyone to blame, they got me young. Looking back, I was a very angry child. I still use my anger to cover up my sadness, just as I did back then. I can recall several episodes of cruelty before the age of ten. One time my sister took something I had wanted, and when I told her so, she flippantly responded with an ‘I don’t care’. I went to sulk, but as she walked by me, I lashed out and stabbed her legs with a pen until she bled. I was seven, and I should have known then what I would become.

For a while, I turned my anger onto myself. Self-mutilation was the only way I knew that made me feel better. I can’t recall how it all began or even when, but suddenly it became the one constant in my life; a life that was full of surprises and twists and turns. Finally, there was something I could control, and I reveled in the feeling. I still remember so vividly the euphoria that came when my creamy alabaster forearm was met with the deep red of my own blood, it running down and falling into the curve of my elbow. The blood would dissipate the jumble of over emotions that rose up through my stomach and into my throat, suffocating me. That kind of pain is something too deep for tears that only more pain can solve. After about two years, I realized that my solution had become a problem, that which had been my sole solace in the world was now my nightmare. My self-injury had turned the tables and taken over me.

So I sought to fight my addiction for control of my own body, my own mind, and won. I’ve heard that damaged people are the most dangerous, because they know they can survive, but I’m not proud of what I’ve done to survive. Replacing one addiction with another, I still searched for the same things, I still had the same needs. Need isn’t nearly a strong enough word to describe my thirst for control over the events in my life. I’ve always felt that way and my experiences have only added fuel to the fire.

I began to need rather than prefer the power that I crave over everyday happenings when I was thirteen. Coming home from school one day, I found that nobody was home, but I wasn’t bothered. It happened occasionally and I figured something was going on after school or something. However, when it reached six o’ clock and absolutely no one had returned home and no one had called, I began freaking out, calling every cell and house phone I knew, but either nobody knew or nobody answered. Finally, when I got a hold of my grandfather, he informed me that they took my mother to the hospital. They said she couldn’t walk, she was in so much pain, the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her. Of course, no one had bothered to even leave me so much as a note. I learned then that I couldn’t rely on others and would soon learn the only person in the whole world is me.

Over the years, I’d tried to turn my pain into something constructive, creating a positive message for others and showing them that RESCUE IS POSSIBLE and LOVE IS THE MOVEMENT and it can save lives. Through the love and support of others, we can find salvation from our abysses. But I didn’t know very much then, I didn’t know there were things that no amount of love can ever fix.

In college, we all used to go to the closest big city to shop, party, and just get away. One night when I was nineteen my group of friends and I …I wish I could recall how it all happened, I wish I could tell you, but my mind is blank up until I was grabbed from behind and dragged into an alley. I didn’t want to believe what was happening -- you grow up thinking those sorts of things won’t happen to you, right? Well they do. Heavy breath on my neck, a distinctly male scent and being pushed up against a wall and suddenly knowing for sure it’s a guy because you can feel him and he’s pulling your hair, telling you that you want it, say he’s the best you’ve ever had, yes, yes, say it! Treating you like trash, never letting you even see his face, pumping into you like you’re some type of animal, you hate it because your body loves it, wants it, craves it and you’re such a fucking slut you deserve it.

It happens.

I believe in the saving grace of God but sometimes I have a hard time believing there’s a spot for me up in heaven because of what I’ve done. At nineteen I lost it. Did the devil make me do it? Did the devil make me a monster? Does the devil set off that trigger in my head that makes me explode into a fit of rage, that first time when I knew it was him and proved him right, that I‘m a filthy slut and a fucking animal? Did the devil make me put my hand boldly on his thigh and lead him back into the woods? Did the devil make me smash his head into that rock until I was covered with a mixture of his brains and blood?

More importantly, did the devil make me do the same thing to five different men when I knew what I was doing?

People like to pretend they understand, but they don’t. They tell me I’m a monster because I chose to be this way, that they understand what I was feeling and how I’d be angry and want revenge but I did the wrong thing but they’ll never ever know the fire that burns deeply within my soul, the fire you can’t deny, and never is a fucking promise.

Some people would call it the devil, but I just laugh. The devil isn’t some little red guy who hangs around corners and waits until we pass by to push us into the traffic that's evil acts. That fire is me, it’s the devil, the devil is me and each of you. He’s not even the devil, he’s just us and we’re just us. I don’t know if it was written in the stars, if I chose or not, but I do know the devil didn’t make me do anything. I did it all myself.