Confessions

Warning: This post will contain triggers for former cutters, and people with mental illness, and likely people who have suffered abuse. Read at your own  risk. You have been warned.




Thinking about writing this post made me feel better. I had everything planned out, what I would say, what I would talk about, the words I would use. Then I started to feel embarrassed about how I feel, and putting it out there. I don't expect anyone to ever read this, but it is out in the digital world, so there is that chance. But, the excesses of emotion I want to spew and vomit embarrassed me. I don't do well with emotion. I often want to just shut it down. I work hard at trying to feel what other people feel, and trying to act like other people do. It's exhausting. I tend to want to push all that negative emotion down, because it just makes my life more difficult. I don't like dealing with it, so I stuff it down until it just explodes and I can't deal with it. It's my borderline personality disorder. This is the criteria I have to meet. According to the highly unscientific test I just took, I rate as severe. Look at the criteria, and apply it to the rest of this post, and see how well it applies to me. They may as well put my picture in the DSM-V.

Anyway, enough of that. Here's what I was planning on originally

I am a recovering cutter. I think of it as being the same as a recovering alcoholic. All it will take is just one blade put to skin, one little slice, one just bit of pain, and it will all come back. I will carve on myself, and hope no one notices. One cut is too many, and 100 isn't enough. But there isn't a 12 step program for cutters. Cutters don't talk about it. Hearing someone else's story can be a trigger. Try to imagine a room full of cutters hearing other people talk about it. It would be a great school. And I guarantee after every meeting, someone would fall back into habits.

But I digress, maybe. You, dear reader, if you exist, can decide that.

Hi, my name is Me, and I am a cutter.

I used to cut. It got rid of the pain. It got rid of the anxiety. It got rid of the anger. It filled the horrible empty hole that exists inside of me. One glorious bit of pain. That sharp draw of pain, bright and silvery and sharp. Then behind it came the wonderful warm and gooeyness. I felt fabulous after it. Stressed out at school? Cut myself. Can't deal with what's going on with my house? Burn my arm. Can't get the adults to do anything about the abuse in my house? Slice open my fingers. Bored? Carve a name into my arm.

Now, I am still a cutter, no matter what. I'm just a recovering cutter. And when I saw cutter, I really mean that I had self-injurious behavior. I have a burn mark on my arm where I had repeatedly burned my arm with a curling iron. It was the time of big hair, so I used the curling iron often. The first burn was an accident. But there was a period of time where I had a constant burn there. As soon as it started healing, I would "accidentally" burn myself. No one would notice. No one ever notices. You know, that's part of what cutters count on. That's part of the pain they are trying to deal with. No one noticing. See, for me, the thing was that sometimes I cut to feel something. I was so empty inside, I couldn't feel anything. That bright shiny pain made me feel something. I could be there and be real. But sometimes, I cut myself because I hurt too much. I would cut myself, and let the pain inside flow out with the blood. Even now, sometimes I want to just cut myself so that people can see how much I actually hurt.

Now, it's been over 2 decades since I purposely hurt myself. Unless you count pulling out my hair or eyebrows. I don't. But, probably it does count. There was a time when I had very short hair because I was ripping it out. I do still pull my eyebrows. I don't count that. Again, someone probably does, but fuck them.

See, here's the thing. I don't feel things like other people feel things. I'm empty inside. I try really hard to feel the same way normal people do. I try to act the way normal people do. Sometimes I even succeed. I can actually look normal to people for a long time. Hell, I've fooled my husband for months, I think. I amy be wrong there, but I don't think so. I work really hard to try to feel the good emotions. I try to stuff the bad emotions down so that I don't feel them. I hide them in a little box in the closet in my soul. I imagine it and visualize it even. I see a teeny tiny box and I feel myself stuffing that anger and rage and hate and pain into that little box, and shove it into the overflowing closet. It's like one of those cartoon closets, where stuff comes spilling out when you open it. I try not to deal with any of that until the door can no longer hold, and everything explodes out.

But still, I often feel empty. It's a coping technique. I learned it when I was being abused. If you can't feel anything because you are empty inside, then it can't hurt. Eventually all that' was left was anger and rage and a big gaping empty spot in my soul. Or maybe a big gaping spot where my soul used to be. I don't know if I have one or not.   I'm not sure that I care most of the time.

And I often think of hurting myself. Not a week goes by when I don't think of it. Sometimes it's all day long, every day. Other times it's just a passing glimpse. I know that if start again, I won't start. But the thought of boiling a big pan of water and sticking my arm into it, or turning the oven on, and sticking my arm on the heating element. It gets hotter than the stove. Or taking a knife and cutting myself. The idea sings in my head. It's like the Siren's song. It just sounds so good. I want to do it so much. That bright silver shivery sliver of pain, and then the warm gushy stuff that comes after and fills me up. It makes me think that it would fill me up and make me feel not empty.

I want to feel not empty. I don't want to live in my head anymore. I hate being in my head. I want to think that other people are real. They aren't always real to me. My family is mostly real, but other people just doesn't really exist for me. Apparently I'm a little sociopathic on top of the bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Just because I don't have enough of a shit sandwich with that. I've reached the point where I can't control it anymore. I can pretend to be a normal person for a while, but it's exhausting to do. At some point I have to stop. It's amazing how many people think I am a normal person, and not one who thinks about what it would be like to fall down the stairs, or run a knife across my stomach. That's not what normal people think about. That's not what they do.

While writing this post, and it took hours, I decided that it was time to call and get a therapist again. I hate doing it. I don't want to talk about any of this. It's hard, and people want me to feel stuff. I don't like feeling stuff. But, that's the problem. I need to feel things. Fuck it. I hate doing te work they want me to do. I know how to do it. I don't like it. It's going to be hard and painful and terrible. Maybe, at some point, I won't feel empty any more. I'm so tired of feeling so fucking empty. I want for those happy feelings that I feel occasionally to stay more often, and not just be there for a little bit. I want to not be this. Living in my head right now isn't good.

I hope I didn't trigger anyone. I doubt that anyone is there, I'm just talking out into the open aether of the Internet. This is just a small taste of my head. This is part of what my life is like. It's not edited. so forgive my errors, which I am sure there are some of. I feel better for getting it out. I've never told anyone in my life what it's like in my head. I think if I were to say everything, it would scare people.

Two things I try to remember: mental illness lies, and one fucking day at a time. I didn't cut myself today. Hopefully I won't do it tomorrow. One fucking day, hour, minute at a time.