Entries From a Cutter Who Never Really Was One

1. I don't remember where I got the idea to use scissors. But I feel no relief as I drag them across my hips. They are barely scratches, but if I press hard enough I can get a few droplets of blood. I still feel the same intense sadness and hurt that I felt before and now I have these cuts to go on top of all of that. I do know not to do it on my wrists though, too obvious. Maybe someday I'll feel the relief wash over me.

2. Came home from school today and did it. I still don't feel anything. Am I hoping I will? Am I just doing it so that I won't feel so alone? Am I doing it for attention? I don't know. The pink mark rises over my flesh, maybe an inch and a half long. Its hard to break the skin when you have no real desire and only a dull pair of scissors.

3. At his house. With her. We're all watching a movie. I don't know why I'm here. I need to do it. I need to feel something other than this aching, blinding sadness. I use the tab off of a soda can. I go into his bathroom and I run it across my skin several times. So I can feel it. So I can see the marks so clearly. And still, there is no escape. Still I have all this sadness. I still don't know why I'm doing it.

4. Got into a fight with her. I told her I was doing it. Told her I was cutting. I told her over AIM. I wanted her to know she was hurting me. That she was forcing me to do this to myself. I go hang out with her and him later, stop at home quick to get something. Run upstairs to find all the scissors gone in the bathroom. Damn, I'll just have to do it later. Go to the bowling ally where the misery increases. I have to do it again. I have to. I use a soda can tab. I feel some relief, but not enough. Not enough to justify it. I go home and find myself in big trouble.

5. I have just gotten out of the shower. My mother comes in the bathroom, demands to see the marks. I show her. She's so angry. I want to tell her I'm sorry I did it. I want to tell her I didn't get anything out of it. But all I do is let her get angry at me, let her get sad and frustrated that she can't help me and this is what I have turned to.

6. I'm talking to my therapist. I can't even be honest with her about my reasons for doing it. She asks me about my cuts. I snottily shoot back that they are scrapes, not cuts. She doesn't react to my attitude. I don't tell her that I only did it because I thought it would help. Not because I wanted to, or really even had the urge to before I started. I don't tell her I'm ashamed and it's stupid. I own it, like I feel I should. I try to take pride in my actions and hope that it validates how much pain I'm in.

7. I don't do it anymore. I try not to think about it. I talk about it sometimes, but never in a glorious way. It was dumb. I never got the sweet relief I felt I had been promised. Instead I screwed things up at home and made everyone at school think I was crazy. I guess that's what I get for being a cutter that never really was one.

Scars

In the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katiniss has all of her scars erased after winning the games. The scars that marked her hands from years of hunting, and even the scar she acquired in the games, were just wiped away.

I was bothered by this. I love scars. I love looking at my knees and seeing all of the marks, all of the bumps and discolored skin that tells the story of scrapes and bumps. I love looking at my hands and the various nicks that were once there, and remembering what happened. I love looking at my ankles and seeing the various scars, some small and some large.

I have a scar on my knee that is shaped like Africa. Its from when I was first learning to ride a bike without training wheels. I think it was my 7th birthday. Maybe right after. Anyways, I was unsteadily riding around the parking lot of the school across the street from my house. My cousin, who is two years younger than me, was still riding his bike with training wheels and was zipping around. He cut in front of me I fell of my bike. The scrape/cut was terrible. It got infected and I had to keep it covered. Every day for a week a girl in my class asked me what happened and everyday I told her, until I snapped and told her she had already asked me too many times. It did finally heal, and it wasn't until years later that I realised it looked like Africa, but there it sits on my right knee, barely visible.

My hands don't have as many noticeable scars. One of them is from Thanksgiving one year. It was the first time I had used a really nice, sharp knife. In any event I ended up cutting my finger, not a lot, but enough to leave a scar on my left index finger. When I see it I remember years of Thanksgivings at my Uncle's, hanging out with my cousin and hiding from family members. It makes me think of how much I loved Thanksgiving as a kid. It makes me miss the way things were.

My ankles are covered with scars. Most of them from shaving. But one of them is a thin line on the inside of my right foot, by the ankle. Its barely noticeable. Its from the first time I gave my cat a bath. I was sitting in the bathtub in shorts and a t-shirt and I was holding onto him. He was thrashing about, as I should have expected him too. His back claws cut a clean line across my ankle. It hurt so bad at the time. But it was such a clean wound. I wouldn't have expected it to scar, but there it sits.

Not all scars are physical though. Katniss also had mental scars. She lost her father, had to care for her family, lost Rue and now has to deal with nightmares of the games. These scars, unlike the ones on her body, will never go away. I too have mental scars. These are not as easy to see, but if you talk to me for any amount of time, or try to get to know me in any capacity, you will see them. Eventually they become glaringly obvious.

The first one, the one that might be the most hidden because it happened years ago, is the loss of my best friend. This event, this scenario, has shaped many of my feelings and perspectives on the world. I spent a long time trying to forget about everything that happened my freshman year of high school. I lost myself. I was changed for good. I grew up in a strange way, in a way I wasn't actually able to handle. Its so hard for me to access these feelings. I let someone drive a wedge between my sister and I, I promised myself to never let that happen again. Its something I actively work on, I actively make sure no one goes there. I try not to let anyone have any control over my life, because I was so out of control freshman year. I don't want anyone to have that power over me. This is something I try to do and fail miserably at every time. Several people have control over me in some way. But perhaps I feel that if I am the one to give it up, then I deserve whats coming to me. I am slightly more closed off. I am detached. These scars show themselves, if you dig hard enough, but to the naked eye they are not always visible.

My other mental scars include death. The deepest one is the death of my grandmother. I am not sure why I am so deeply affected by her death. She was the first person I really lost, but her death was not dramatic or violent. She died of congestive heart failure. She died in her home, in my grandfathers arms. I am very bitter about her death. And very bitter about what caused it - years of smoking cigarettes. This scar is not hard to see. A person, if they play their cards right, can ignite my feelings about this topic within a matter of minutes.

I have lots of physical scars and a few mental scars. These scars, these marks, they all have stories that go with them. I don't always like these scars, like I said, I can't be a stripper, and I might be a little damaged in terms of my interactions with others and my personal demons. But I wouldn't trade these things for anything. These scars, these stories, have helped compile me and make me into who I am. To erase them, to forget, would be throwing away the pieces of the puzzle and that is something I would never want to do, no matter what.

Shaving

I started shaving my legs when I was 12 years old. All my friends had started shaving prior to this, but I was holding out. I didn't want to start, as I knew it would mean that I'd have to do it forever. It was the end of sixth grade. I had a dance recital in June and everyone was pressuring me to shave. So I did. I don't remember much about those early years except lots of blood, cuts and band aids. I was an adamant leg shaver. I hated stubble. I would shave everyday to every other day during high school. I eventually got better at shaving, not perfect though. I got scared once in the shower and took a 3 inch strip of skin off. The bathtub was full of blood and I had to pick the skin out of the drain. And I then had a conversation with my grandfather about how I could never been a stripper. It happens. For the most part though, I have kept my legs smooth. I never let the hair get too long, I always shaved if I was going to be wearing shorts, a typical girl I suppose.

This summer, when I got home from school I decided to stop shaving my legs. I was too lazy, too enraged with "the man" and just not in the mood to conform to what society wanted me to be. At first it wasn't a big deal. At first no one noticed. The hair got long enough not to bother me. It wasn't rough or scratchy. It was noticeable. I tried to wear less shorts so as to be less offensive. Then my mothers birthday rolled around and we went to get pedicures. I was informed before we went that I had to shave my legs, I was not raised this way, and that I could do whatever I wanted when I was in New York City, but when I was home I would be shaving. So I shaved my legs from the knee down. I did this because I didn't want to rock the boat, so to speak, and I also didn't seem to have much of a choice. I then started to let it grow again. For the same reasons as before, but this time also to prove that I could. So I let it grow. It went through the stages and got long again. Was soft and basically no bother. I started swimming and people started to notice. My mother was horrified. My family friends were horrified. Some of my friends didn't comment, others raised their eyebrows, others only briefly mentioned it and then moved on.

So after one particularly irritating day at the pool I shaved my legs. I hacked all of the hair off. I have yet to let it grow back in such a way, though its quite easy and maybe even a little tempting sometimes. So I never knew it would be such an issue to have hairy legs. I never thought I would be criticized so much for it. Men don't shave their body hair. Why do women have to? Is it some fixation on women being pure and virginal, perhaps child like and pre-pubescent? Am I make wild assumptions about this. Maybe. But I don't understand why I received so much flack for a decision that affects no one but myself. My legs, as I shaved them today, are nice and hair free. They probably will remain hair free. I will continue to shave even though it would be so easy to slip back into not shaving, into having hairy legs. I myself like when my legs are smooth. But that's probably only because that is what I have been conditioned to like. As have most other people in society. Since I am now a clean and civil, and hair free member of society, come and get me! I'm all you've ever wanted, minus the hairy arm pits.

I Don't Do Drugs

I don't do drugs, but I have. And by this I mean I have smoked pot before. I always told myself I would never smoke anything. Through high school I did not smoke. I was involved in sports and was caught up watching my grandmother die from smoking herself to death. That in itself was enough incentive for me to never light up. Needless to say, things changed when I went to college. It's amazing what will happen to your strong convictions when you're desperate to make friends and start hanging out with people who have a completely different lifestyle. Anyways, these are the 5 time I smoked weed.

Sometime in October (2010) - One night, I was sitting in my room doing nothing in particular, when a friend came in and asked us to go with her to the sea port to smoke with some boys. My close friends wanted to be the ones to smoke with us for the first time. But I had heard that you didn't always get high the first time. My thoughts were that if I was smoking with my closest friends at school, I wanted to actually be high. My sister and I looked at each other and decided we had nothing to lose. So we went. Down at the sea port everyone was passing around a blunt. I took one hit off of it. I was not high, my hand stunk, and it tasted terrible.

Late October/Early November (2010) - I was at my very first apartment party. I was drinking a Four Loko out of a cup because I was too ashamed to just drink it out of the can. Almost everyone went to SVA and they were pretentious hipsters who were older than me. I was in way over my head, as were all of my friends that I was with. The party kind of sucked. Then the group of us started talking to Brock. A self-proclaimed wanna be hipster. He was a photography major at SVA and claimed to have a personality disorder. He was also our age. He had a one hitter that he was more than willing to share with us. I took quite a few hits, I wasn't high. I guess I also couldn't tell because I was drunk.

Sometime in November (2010) - So the moment finally came that I was going to smoke with my close friends. One of them had made a bong out of a water bottle. I was and still am impressed by this. Anyways, her name was Betsy. We were in the dorms, in my friends' room on the 11th floor. It was just the four of us. My sister and I had no clue how to smoke out of a bong. She did it wrong the first time, she blew out instead of sucking in. Luckily it wasn't ruined. I remember being slightly panicked and worrying about the smell. We kept spraying Hawaiian Breeze, a scent I will always associate with smoking with these two friends. Anyways, so we got high. This was the first time I was actually high, and probably my most enjoyable experience with pot. We ate granola bars, which was a terrible idea. And then watched porn. Not to get off or anything, strictly as entertainment. And then my sister and one friend went to bed. My other friend and I then started watching drug PSA's. I don't know why we did it, but nothing can make you feel like crap quite like watching a drug PSA while not being sober. We watched a lot of meth ones, they were the scariest. Then I went to bed. The next morning my parents arrived with a bunch of family friends for a surprise visit.

Sometime in December (2010) - My childhood best friend came to the city with her mother for a visit. She's a little crazy. She had smoked and drank before despite being younger than me. She wanted to get drunk with us in the city. So naturally we had a brilliant plan to get cross faded. Using Betsy again and some orange flavored Four Loko, we embarked on the adventure. Evidently, after smoking I am not a fan of Four Loko. The whole event was nothing special or overly memorable. I think I went to bed before my friend did. The next morning I told her mother we drank a little. 

Mid/Late January (2011) - This is the last time I smoked. It was also the first and last time I purchased weed. My sister, myself, and my two close friends each put in money for weed. They smoked all of theirs, and they knew that they had to smoke with us to smoke the rest of it. So one night we were hanging out and they came down to our room and asked us if we wanted to smoke. I did not want to. I was not in the mood to. When I got up to my one friends room and I see that there are going to be six of smoking out of a giant green bong named Bertha, all in a tiny dorm room. I was absolutely not feeling the situation, but went along with it anyways. At one point the room was filled with smoke and we were all frantically trying to push it out the windows with pillows. It was stressful. In hindsight I can say there were too many of us. Anyways, I had hardly smoked when I was handed Bertha. One of my friend's lit it for me and I sucked in. It burned my throat. I then coughed, hurling smoking from my lungs into the room, just short of the window. My throat was on fire. It was terrible. I then had a full blown panic attack and laid on my friends bed laughing and crying. I left soon after and went to bed. I haven't smoked since.

So it would be unfair for me to pretend I don't smoke things. I smoke hookah from time to time. But not pot. I don't like what it does to me, I don't like the taste or the smell. It took me five times to realize this, but now I know. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Storytelling

When I was a senior in high school I read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. This book is about the Vietnam War. The book is written in a way that makes it seem very real. And I believed that it was all true; that it was some sort of auto-biographical account of Tim O'Brien's time in Vietnam. As it turns out, it is all made up. But one of the points of the book is that you can keep people alive through storytelling. The guys in the book continued to live on and on because O'Brien wrote about them. He immortalized them.

When I think about this, two people come to mind. My childhood friend Clarissa, who died a little over a year ago in a house explosion and my Nanny, who died a little over two years ago from congestive heart failure, due to years of smoking. I talk about Claire all the time. My friends, her friends, her family, everyone is always talking about Claire. We all talk about what a great person she was, her plans for the future, how she had such an impact on everyone with her kind heart and beautiful smile. People are always talking about their memories with Claire. We are keeping her alive. It makes it less painful to talk about her, because when we do talk about her, it's as if she is not really dead. By talking about her, other people will hear her story. This is how Claire continues to live. Since the day she died, no one has stopped talking about her.

In contrast to that, no one ever speaks about my Nanny. Occasionally my Pa will say something like "I had a good girl all those years". But rarely. Sometimes my mother does, but not really. My aunt, my father, my uncles, they never do. They never mention her. And if they do, its only to point out that shes dead. Her best friend, and a family friend, always talks about her. This makes me so sad because it makes me think about her and makes me acknowledge that shes not here. But at the same time I love it. Finally, someone who wants to keep her alive. I don't talk about her enough. It makes me too sad. I guess it probably makes everyone else sad too. But not Carla, I think she is quite comforted when it comes to talking about her best friend, my grandmother. Carla talks about what she would be saying about certain things. She reassures me that she would be proud of me. I hope that someday we will all be ready to talk about her again. And tell the stories that we we have of her. This way, it will feel like she never left. She'll still be with us everywhere we go, we just have to choose to carry her.

Hello, Stranger

Looking at your Facebook tonight I realize that I don't know you and I haven't in a long time. It makes me wonder why things changed. Why things are the way they are. I miss you, or rather what you were. You are distant now. People ask about you and I am forced to say "I don't know" or maybe I say something sarcastic and mean. Looking at your pictures makes me feel like I am looking at a stranger. I guess because I am. Then I look through your tagged photos. I see the ones you've recently been tagged in. And I'm surprised by how much you look the same. But at the same time, totally different. I continue to go through them until I finally reach high school. Graduation, Senior Dinner Dance, Track Sectionals, A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum, Volleyball and various other nights and days spent together. It seems so long ago. I feel like I used to know you, I guess because I did. I knew you in some way, as much as you would let me. Which at this point, is questionable. I don't know how well I knew you, but we were best friends. We spent entire seasons together on the volleyball court. Even to this day, the fall is a beautiful love affair for us. No matter what, we will still unite over the sport that first brought us together and made us friends. And then there were the winters spent together doing indoor track and then the springs for outdoor. Those were never the same as volleyball though. You were so good at track, you probably still are good. But I wouldn't know, as I haven't seen you and you don't compete anymore. This makes me sad. It makes me wonder what happened. You had so much promise, so much talent, but you couldn't make it. This makes me miss what we were. We were best friends. You were my rock. You were Switzerland. And now you're not. A lot of things have changed. Obviously, we've moved away, done different things with our lives, made new friends. But I never expected this would happen. I never expected you to become a stranger. We cried so much of senior year. We cried because we were running out of time together. We cried because we had just gotten close. We cried because we were all moving to different corners of the state. We cried because we were afraid of losing each other. We cried because we knew our friendship would never be the same again. When we cried about this, we promised to not let anything catastrophic happen to our friendship. We promised to stay in touch. We would stay friends, because we loved each other. We didn't want to lose each other and therefore, despite the vastly different lives we were about to embark on, were not going to ruin this friendship. Sadly, our different choices did ruin our friendship. Looking back, I guess this is the part that makes me the saddest. We were so afraid of losing each other. But that is exactly what happened. I drive by your house almost every day, and I wonder if you're home. What your doing. But not enough to text you. Not enough to hang out. It's been two years. Which is crazy for me to think of. I never thought you would be one of those people that I didn't see when I came back home. I saw you at the beginning of the summer and we made loose plans to hang out. You never called to confirm. That's okay, I see how this is going to be. And it's okay, as clearly I have not stepped up much and made an effort either. It just makes me sad that we are no longer even friends, but rather complete strangers.

Conversation

Me: Anytime you want to quit it, that'd be great.
Brain: What do you mean?
Me: You're really fucking things up for me. All you do is pound and pound. Do you know how hard it is for me to get anything done when this is what you do?
Brain: That is not fair. I am trying to think. Are you really going to sit there and talk badly about me? And yell at me? Well screw you. How would you like it if I just stopped working all together?
Me: You've already stopped working!
Brain: That is not true. You are still breathing. Technically I am sustaining your life.
Me: Yeah, well that's all you're doing! At least Heart is still working...
Brain: Do not drag her into this. She is at least half of the problem.
Heart: That's really unfair Brain!
Brain: All you have to do is feel and be warm and happy. You do not have to deal with anything.
Heart: That's not true, Brain! Whenever you get moody, it makes my job harder!
Brain: Oh it must be so hard to just thump thump, thump thump. And I tell you to do that. You do not even have to make sure it happens. You just get to depend on me.
Me: Alright you two, try to get along... Or we'll never get anything accomplished.
Brain: Shut up Melissa.
Heart: That's not nice Brain!
Brain: Anyways, I resent your comments about my moodiness. My job is hard. I have to file away all of Melissa's thoughts, which is not easy, especially now that you and her are apparently speaking again. What is that anyways? I thought we had a decent relationship Melissa. My life was easier and you were actually producing thoughts back then.
Me: I know Brain, but I wanted to start feeling again! I was missing out on things.
Heart: Maybe she got sick of how robotic and mean you are! You're so controlling. Sometimes you've got to feel, Brain!
Brain: I do not actually. My life is EASIER when I do not feel. And especially when I do not have to talk to you.
Heart: You are being so mean. It hurts my feelings when you say these things.
Brain: It is it hard for me to process things when I have to try and process the 'feelings' you send up to me. How am I supposed to function properly for Melissa, when my duties are constantly being interrupted?
Heart: I don't know Brain, but you're going to have to learn to deal with it.
Brain: No one even asked me if I wanted this. I am the mastermind; I think this should have been checked with me at some point. Perhaps before it happened.
Heart: I know, and I understand. But that didn't happen and this is how it is. So you'll have to get used to it. It's okay to be upset. I'm here for you, Brain.
Brain: Alright, I guess I can try. But it is going to take some time. These things do not happen over night. It might take me months to get used to you Heart.
Heart: That's okay Brain. It will be something for us to work on! Together! This is exciting! I feel like if you and I can learn to work together then Melissa will be happier, and that's what it's all about, right?
Brain: Let's not get too ambitious.
Me: Thanks guys, I appreciate that your willingness to put in the effort.