Cutting In To Get Out

The first time I cut myself with intent to bleed and cause my body pain, I was in a depression that hung like a pea soup in my brain. I was about 15 years old,in 9th grade. Although I had friends from many different grades and groups,I felt alone. Still,I could have been in a group of many all the time and would never shake the feeling of sadness and hurt. When I put the kitchen knife to my left arm I was wanting to finally feel a pain that was controllable as well as understandable. To explain the despair inside and give a voice to my depression was like calling out from a great,deep hole miles and miles from civilization.  No one would hear. No matter how I tried to express myself through my poetry the only way to anyone's immediate attention was sadly.through my skin.

Not that it was all about attention. Often I would hide my hands and the many cuts unconsciously with my arm sleeve. I would be in class or home and look down to see that at some point I had pulled down my sleeve and hooked my thumb through a hole I created. It wasn't that I wanted someone to see my secret and put me away in a hospital-that was the worse case scenario-It was that I wanted to feel a pain not owned by my heart then have the scar there to get someone to care. I was looking to the wrong people for care though. As usual I was looking outside into a world where people didn't need or want to get involved simply because if my parents knew what I had been doing the hurt they would feel would make everything so much worse.

I would go to my bedroom with a borrowed knife that soon later I would keep, sit down and start digging into the back of my hand. Once the courage came and I was able to push through my skin,the blood that would pop up on the surface and run down the side of my fingers was the relief. The rich,red proof that I was more than just a mess of painful feelings and anger for myself. The pain that quickly followed was a bonus. That pain was sharp though shallow. It was real and my body,as if angered by the intrusion of the knife and my need, would cry out in pain. I was  my own body's enemy. To spite what my body and you probably think though,I was not trying to die. I didn't want to commit suicide. Although I was aware that a cut too deep could release my breath forever it wasn't death I was cutting into find. It would be later that I would find that cutting myself no longer relieved my pain and that the anguish I caused my family would cause me to believe that my death was better than my life. I would try later to release my life.

.....To be continued