The Boy Named Self-Destruct.

Eric Bäckman. Cat Casino. Narcissist, extraordinary whore. An obsessive, a tease, a right fucking bitch, a slut, a wannabe, a groupie at times. Abuser of hair products, of makeup, of electricity. Totally engrossed with only mirrors and sex (preferably both at the same time, please).

Me.

To the world, I am Cat Casino. To part of said world, I am Cat Casino, born Eric Bäckman – or Eric Bäckman, alias Cat Casino. But nobody, nobody, calls me Eric anymore. Nobody. Not without my permission, and they all know that well if they have made that particular mistake, or heard the rumors of my reaction.

I am Cat. I am not Eric. I am the epitome of a fangirl's loveliest dream and worst nightmare (depending on their predilection). I am the girl that the boys want until they discover that I'm one of their kind, and then their girlfriends come sidling up instead. I am the pin-up, the pretty face, the raw and androgynous sexuality. In the beginning, I was the pretty little seventeen-year-old who invited all those who wished into bed, however jokingly it sounded. I am still the youngest, the prettiest, the most girlish and effeminate and still the one who bends over for everyone else (in the literal sense, never the figurative). I am not Eric.

But I am Eric too. When nobody else is around to see, I am Eric. I am self-destructive. I am identical to Cat, I speak as he speaks, walks as he walks, does as he does. But I am purely self-destructive. I have an amazingly, despicably self-destructive personality. And I don't give a fuck. I want it. I'm used to it by now. It feels good to self-destruct, to tear apart my own reality every single time. It's the only way I can deal with anything anymore. Every single time I cut, or place myself in undesirable situations, or have another cigarette, or take double-triple-quadruple doses of paracetamol (or cough medicine if I so happen to have a cold, or those herbal sleeping pills which are the only ones I can legally get my hands on) it is because I want it. I want to self-destruct in some way without totally destroying myself. I want to come to the edge, have that potential risk looming over my head of not waking up one fine morning without a definitive yes I will or no I won't. I want to keep putting myself through these situations, where no hurt is ever quite enough to push it to that point where I will do something definitive. I want the excuse. I want the excuse that those situations give me, the excuse to be that self-destructive boy and tear apart that reality if only for moments.

I am nothing but self-destructive.

Cat is my mask. He is my alter ego, my superheroic persona that faces the world while I, Eric, hide in dark rooms with sharp objects or men with questionable intentions (or both). Cat is the brave face, the perfection. Cat was never hurt and can never be, for he is bulletproof. Eric is the one beaten, raped and bruised, mutilated beyond recognition, totally vulnerable.

I know who did that and so does he. He never touched me, not physically. Maybe that was part of what did it.

Instead, he tore me to pieces. He still does. A total sadist, hell-bent on torturing me within inches of sanity. He comes when he wants me, when he needs an outlet, when he just wants to hurt somebody. I, Eric, am the vulnerable one. I am the defenseless one. And so he picks me, he seeks me out, and he does what he does. He threatens to leave if I don't obey his wishes, if I pick up a blade or refuse to eat food or don't hug him back if that's what he wants. He threatens to leave, and mindlessly, I obey these wishes in the hope that he'll stay... but he never, ever does. I am not worthy of having the power to make him stay. He takes out his anger, his sadness, his sexual frustration (though never, ever do we actually have sex. Not even a kiss. It's all just talk, but his voice is just so made of irresistible velvet...) on me and leaves again, leaves me alone to deal with the aftermath of his latest outburst, whether it be the reciprocated fury or the tears or the overwhelming yet unsolvable state of horniness. Sometimes his departure is wordless. Others, it's a more violent aftershock.

He is everywhere even when he is nowhere. He is in my head as permanently as his name is on the skin of my thigh. I remember distinctly the night I made the cuts that made those scars. I remember the tears dripping from my cheeks and hiw they stung when they hit the fresh wounds. I remember how I carved the S more like a bolt of lightning because razors can't curve and cut. I remember pressing tissues to my thigh when it was done, wrapping around it with a bandage meant for sprained ankles and strapping wrists, how all night long I tossed and turned because every tiny movement nudged the giant makeshift bandaid, sliding the tissues against them and pulling them open again. I remember it all, down to the tiniest detail. The stinging every time the blade hit skin and parted it like seas, the wetness and redness of my face, the uncalmed storm racing through my head all night, the pain from the flesh serving as nothing but a distraction from the rest of it that had avoided the bloody attempt at emotional anesthesia.
I am Eric Bäckman. I am self-destructive in every way and in everything I do. My alter ego is Cat Casino and he serves as but a mask, an untouchable twin of my real self.

I am Eric Bäckman. I am vulnerable. I am mutilated inside and out. I wish for death but never have the guts to bring myself to it's doorstep. Instead I try to numb the pain of a broken, raped, tortured, manipulated heart that I so readily gave to the one who made it this way. I am still in love with him, no matter how much he has broken me, no matter what he's turned me into. I am now nothing but a self-destructive boy with no courage to break the endless cycle the one I love has created nor to go through with ending my own life.

I am Eric Bäckman, known to the whole world as Cat Casino. Nobody calls me Eric anymore. The last person I allowed to call me by that name was the one I love and he abused it.

He will never love me and he has said that many times, but no matter what he says or does I keep coming back for more. Because to him I am powerless. I am at his feet. I am a crime scene laid on his table. I am the victim waiting for a place to become a police investigation.

I am Eric Bäckman. I am amazingly and despicably self-destructive in every way imaginable. And I do not care. I don't give a fuck. I want to be this self-destrucive being I have become. I'm now used to all the pain. I thrive off it. It is an escape. It feels good to self-destruct, to tear apart my own skin and reality and leave it for a while until I can be bothered to lace it back together with a barbed wire thread. I am broken. I am tortured. I am vulnerable. This is the only way I can deal with the car crash that has become my life anymore.

I am Eric Bäckman. The boy so self-destructive that he cannot live, though he cannot bring himself to end his life either.