| WARNING: MAY BE TRIGGERING |
| Aftermath By Anastasia Leigh (Stace) |
| In the morning, when I woke up, I kept my eyes closed for a while. Maybe I was just dreaming… I kept trying to tell myself. But then I moved my arm, and it hurt like hell. I knew I wasn’t dreaming; it was real. The day before, I had gone to a class at another school, part of a program I was in at the time. My boyfriend, of a few weeks, wasn’t in it. Some of my best friends had an afternoon class with him, though… and they told me what he did. In front of them, in front of everyone, he was all over this other girl, who has a rep of sleeping with any guy that is taken. Add that to the stress I was going through because of school and my family, and that pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t take it anymore; I was hysterical and couldn’t control myself. In a daze, I sat crying on my bed. I just needed something -anything- to make the pain go away. Then I looked at my dresser, and it hit me in a flash. I’d heard of girls before, on the internet, who had ‘cut’ themselves with razors when they got stressed out. They said that it relieved them; it helped to take away from the emotional pain. What do I have to lose, I thought. Turns out, I had everything to lose. But, I didn’t see that that day, not until a few months later did I really see what I had to lose. All I saw was what I had to gain- there was the chance, small as it was, that it would help. I would’ve given anything to get help right then, but I couldn’t get a hold of any of my friends, and my parents were part of the reason I was stressing out, so they were not an option. I took this little pocketknife of mine, that my grandfather had given me years ago, and I broke open the razor that was in my dresser. (It was there because I had spent the weekend at a friend’s house not long before, and I had never taken care of it.) I took out one of the razors, and I pressed it against an old scar on my arm. (I put that there too, by scratching with the pocketknife when my self-hate got to be too much, but that’s another story.) I was scared, I was shaking, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I cut. Today, I still don’t know how many times I cut that night. I think it was only once, but I’m not sure. All I know is that I did it. I didn’t even really feel the pain… as odd as that sounds, it’s true. I hurt so much, emotionally, that I couldn’t even feel the physical pain I was causing myself. For about 10 days after that, I cut myself every night, after everyone in my house went to bed. I know I told someone, but I don’t know when or how. I don’t have any memory of telling her. She was my best friend at the time… she was the one who had known since the year before that I was getting really upset and depressed. She was the one I trusted with my life. She is today, too, but… that’s another story too. I kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it… I knew I was getting addicted, but I didn’t want to stop. For a while, I couldn’t, but even after I could I didn’t really want to. It was helping me, for a while. It calmed me down when I got stressed out. I don’t really know how, but it did. I broke up with my boyfriend. For a while, I tried telling myself that it was because of him that I first cut. But, deep down, I knew all along that it wasn’t because of him. The issue with him helped to push me over, but that wasn’t the only reason, and I know that I would’ve cut eventually even if it hadn’t been for him. Then… things got worse. Not really with me, but with one of my friends. She was going through a lot of shit at the time, and was having a hard time dealing with it. I told her, repeatedly, “Don’t ever hurt yourself; it’s not worth it.” I didn’t want her to have to live with the scars forever. I was going to, and I’m never going to be able to wear a swimsuit in public, but that doesn’t mean she has to go through that hell too. I begged her so much not to do it… in the end, she didn’t really listen to me though. She only cut herself twice on her hand though, and they won’t even scar, so she doesn’t have to worry, thankfully. When I was talking to two of my other friends about her though, I told them about my cutting. One of them had known since the summer before that I was having problems, but the other had no idea about anything, so it was a bit of a shock to her. At the time, I said that I was telling them to ‘make them see my point of view’ about our other friend, but I know that I was trying to get help. I couldn’t just come out and say that I needed help, I was too afraid of what would happen. So that was my way of asking for help… it helped me a little at the time, because I could confide in them too, but in the long run that only hurt me more. I thought that one of my friends could help me more than the one that had known the longest, so I pushed her away- big mistake. I know I screwed up, and we are friends again, but I can’t forget what I did to both of us when I did that. I can never forgive myself for it, either. To put it simply… the cutting has ruined my life. Today, I have 37 scars, although all of them aren’t from cutting. (I also scratched myself, with various things.) As far as self-injurers go, I got lucky. Not many can say that they cut for less than 6 months and have only 37 scars… there are many that have cut for years and have hundreds of scars. So yeah, I am pretty lucky. I can never wear a bathing suit in public, but I can wear shorts, and I stopped before I did too much damage- to myself or to my relationships. Today, I have a loving boyfriend, great friends, and the thing that matters the most to me- I am actually starting to like myself. I’m starting to be happy. And I know who to thank for that- God. |
| I wrote this one day, and decided to put it on here. Yes, it's sorta my story, but I wrote it as a magazine article type thing, so... |
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