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Do you remember where you were November 14th 2016? I do. It’s okay if you don’t, why would you? It’s not a holiday, historical event or significant otherwise. It was a Monday, six days past the election that landed Cheeto-von-Tweetoin the White House, Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them came out that Friday. I had midnight tickets and due to a doctor’s appointment that same day I wasn’t going to work, but this post isn’t about that Friday I survived to see, it’s about the day I woke up trembling, bleeding, staining my sheets a color I’ve never stained them before.
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I’m a cutter. I don’t know what image that displays in your head, the stereotypical young girl with low self-esteem or some emo teenager who Rawr! xD one too many times, either way it doesn’t matter. Let me explain my cutting and how it came to be. For the first twenty-four years of my life I never once cut, or consciously thought about self-harming, in fact when confronted with others who did I had a difficult time comprehending why they would even think that way. Fast-forward to April 2016, which is when I started hormone replacement therapy, (big cheer! much happiness!) I didn’t know what I was getting into or how extremely unprepared I was. Hormones makes us all a little crazy from time to time, and those are the ones our bodies are naturally producing, there’s no doubt that switching your hormones from male to female or vice versa makes you completely insane for a time. For me that time hit late October 2016, six months of hormones, my body was beginning to really change and my mind, identity, and overall self was changing just as much. Going through that with my combination of past traumas, self-esteem issues, and no support system in place put me in an incredibly daunting and dark place. I still remember the first time I cut, Friday October 29th 2016, I was going through the motions of severe depression at this time. I remember it was Halloween weekend and I wanted to go out bar hopping, or to at least be around people, but I couldn’t, I was miserable. Angry at my Mother for rejecting me, but more angry at myself for even being like this. I thought about a lot of things that night, but for the first time I was having genuine suicidal thoughts. That night I took my grandfather’s knife and ran it over my wrist a couple times, it was too dull to cut and I wasn’t even sure what I was doing or thinking, but it suddenly overwhelmed me, I was disgusted with myself and so so so ashamed that I had become this depressed, blubbering, pathetic mass. The thought that everyone would be happier if I was gone, including myself wouldn’t leave my head. Then an epiphany of sorts hit, I’m not sure what made me think of my box knife or the razor blade it held, but I did and that’s how I ended up on my bathroom floor with the idea that if I hurt myself, punished myself I’d feel better. Three cuts, none of them that long or deep. It wasn’t much, but it was enough, those three small cuts calmed me down, even made me feel like I was in control of the body I hated so much. And that’s all it took I was addicted.
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Cutting, ironically and temporarily made me feel good about a body I hadn’t felt good or confident in since before puberty. I was in control and I finally had a mechanism to make my outsides match the chaos and despair inside, plus I was an abomination. I couldn’t be my Mother’s son and I deserved to suffer greatly for this. Very quickly the number of cuts became very important, it had to be more than last time, my pain had to be more and more intense, I wanted more and more blood. After those first three cuts things escalated rapidly, next time it was ten, then eleven, then thirteen, eighteen, and so forth. And those aren’t made up numbers I remember exactly how many cuts I made each time, on November 13th I cut myself twenty-eight times, and these weren’t the shallow, short cuts I started with, they were long, deep, and jagged. Looking back I don’t know how I did it, I really don’t. I study the scars on my left thigh in fascination sometimes, almost all of them are from that night, when I look at them there’s this surreal mixture of pride and shame. I think to myself “Look at what you endured! Just look at how much pain you inflicted on yourself.” I ask myself if I should hold more pride or shame over my scars. Aren’t they testament to something? Didn’t those cuts once remind me that I’m alive? Shouldn’t I be grateful for those scars? I don’t know.
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Here’s the hardest part to talk about, it’s what happened after. I took a roll of toilet paper and wrapped my left thigh in a messy makeshift bandage. I fell onto my bed and fell asleep almost instantly. I’m not sure how long I slept but it wasn’t long. All this I did Sunday evening, Monday November 14th 2016 I woke up trembling, cold, feeling like my entire chest had caved in. I’ve done several drugs, downers, uppers, psychedelics, I know what it feels like to be intoxicated. That night I was intoxicated, like I was coming down off a really really bad trip. I shook almost constantly, I rocked myself back and forth without even thinking about it, but most of all I thought about picking that razor blade back up, not to kill myself, but to continue my newfound relationship with this bloody drug. In the back of my head I knew there was something profoundly wrong, but how come this was the best I’d felt in years? Of course it really wasn’t, but I finally had a real release, and I had twenty-four years of things to release. This doesn’t end in an exciting fashion, I’m here writing this now, I didn’t kill myself even managed not to cut again that night. At 5am I got ready for work, went in on no sleep, ran my route life went on. The rest of that week I didn’t do anything differently, didn’t tell or talk to anyone about what was going on. I look back now and wonder how the hell I survived those last few months of 2016, in that time I would cut several times more, none as bad as that night. For about a year I was ashamed if anyone saw my scars, and my parents still haven’t, but that feeling of shame is fading.