Troubled Thoughts- Part Tres

2:54 P.M. January 4, 2009
“Hardships Turned to Hardcore Crazies”
You know, little journal, I never explained why I’m stuck here. Aren’t you just dying to know? I know you’re totally wondering why my life has been so hard and why my useless parents ditched me here. It all started when I was born seventeen long and torment filled years ago. Just kidding, I won’t take you back that far. But really, I guess it all started when I was about 14. My parents were in the midst of a divorce, my best friend had just moved all the way across the country to Sacramento and I was positive I had some sort of depression related disorder, not that my parents cared. As if freshman year isn’t hard enough I had to get hit with this all at once. The depression didn’t exactly help either. It’s probably what made everything escalade to the extremes, but nevertheless these were pretty tough situations. Arguments were abundant in my household. Mom was always screaming or crying; Dad drank a lot and got angry pretty easily. He was constantly punching things, never people, just walls and doors and stuff. He had to get his anger out somehow. “Better the wall than me,” I always used to say. I tried to talk to my mom about getting me help with my depression, but she was always too busy to care. She worked two jobs and had to take care of my baby sister, so there wasn’t much time left for me. I didn’t much care, I liked my alone time. I still do.
I had heard about people cutting themselves in order to ease their emotional pain. At first I thought it was a load of bull, but between you and me, little journal, the more I read about it, the more I wanted to try. So I did the normal, stupid teenage thing… I tried it. Surprisingly, it worked. It really and truly did. It was crazy, it felt like an out of body experience. I seriously felt like I was watching myself from above. Wow, that sounds a lot like a drug, but to me it was kind of like one. It was addicting and it gave me a high. Cutting myself was a rush, it made me feel alive. I knew it was wrong, but my life was wrong. What was one more problem going to do? It made me feel better, less dead, less numb. It sounds kind of sick to most people, but I’m sure you won’t judge me, little journal. Every single time I cut, I laughed. I could smile as the blood trickled down my arm. I could sit with the cool razor in my hand and just barely press it to my skin and feel joy flowing to my brain. It was crazy. It was amazing. It was pure and it was simple. It was my own little ritual to make life manageable.
I wasn’t open about it; I hated the weird stares I got from the other kids. I always wore long sleeves to cover up the scars. I wasn’t ashamed by any means, it was just hard to walk around without someone saying, “What happened to you?!” It was annoying so I covered up. Eventually, I got to the point where cutting one thin line wasn’t enough for me. I needed to cut three times, four times, maybe even five before the rush came. It really was like a drug. As life at home became harder to handle, cutting became more and more important. There were days where I would sit in my room for hours, the longest time being 3 hours and 16 minutes, cutting and then watching myself bleed. The out of body experience came less and less often. Parents screaming weren’t the problem anymore. Now, I just simply needed the cut to make it through the day. When I couldn’t get the high, I’d be miserable and snappish. My depression was worse than ever. I was haunted with nightmares, during the day and the night, of murders and suicides, maniacs screaming and laughing as I dangled from a rope necklace. It was terrible. My whole life was a circle of sorrow, cutting and scream educing nightmares.
I gave drugs a try, nothing too hardcore, at first. I’m sorry you have to know this journal. I was a bad kid. I smoked pot day in and day out. Once I had too much of that in my system, I couldn’t get a high. I couldn’t find anything to fix me. I did anything I could think of to bring back the good high, that out of body experience. I needed it to rid myself of those dreams. By the time I was 16, I had tried cocaine a total of eight times, it helped at first but eventually, it made the depression worse. I couldn’t get good high, only the high that makes scary things worse. I couldn’t get that out of body freedom. I only knew of one more way to really get that out of body experience. I had read on some stupid internet blog that this one guy stuck a fork into the toaster and electrocuted himself. He was excruciatingly close to death but amazingly survived. He said he felt as though his spirit was separating from his body and seconds before it totally left, he came back to life. It was crazy, but I needed that high. I didn’t exactly want to die… I just needed to almost die. I wasn’t sure how to do it, and I didn’t really want to try the toaster thing. It’d land me in a hospital and I didn’t want everyone to think I was crazy. I’m not crazy, you know that, right journal? I’m not crazy. I wasn’t crazy! On my 17th birthday, I decided to swallow a whole bottle of pain killers. I wasn’t sure if it’d work, but anything was better than the depression and nightmares that went on at home. I don’t remember anything from there on in, but obviously, I woke up. I never got that out of body experience. I needed it. When I say, “I needed it,” I seriously mean it. It was so stuck in my head that I would be fine once I could get it. I was willing to risk it all, little journal, I would do anything. What landed me in the hospital? Simple- a toaster, a fork and a finally concerned mother.