As I walk, I can feel the emotions, the panic and anxiety, emanate off my skin. I wonder briefly how everyone can walk by unnoticing. They are so oblivious to the havoc that is being wrought inside me. My mind arguing with itself. The daily grind running over in my head. What happened already, what I think will happen…it all replays. Every little mistake pulled out, and blown up. I can’t help it. There is no way to really stop, only to accept the world and everything that happens. Most of the time I was able to do this, and I think all this shit I’m doing and feeling now is the lack of this ability. I can no longer be so ignorant as to accept the world for all it is and assume that everything will turn out okay. Because that’s not the truth. Depressed people are the ones who know the truths of life and cannot shake them from their mind. Getting “better” is merely re-learning all that bullshit that adults pump into our heads as children. But I don’t WANT that! I don’t want to believe everything I used to believe. I like knowing the truth. I don’t want it taken away. But I’m not so sure I can live with all the knowledge I have…all these emotions and premonitions of pain and suffering. To know that I have to live for decades more like this…being alive…it’s just so overwhelming. So I take a step back, try to relax, and tell myself just to live until tomorrow. And this has worked so far…but I can feel myself slipping. I need to find something to keep me from sliding over the edge. The only thing I have found is to cut. When I get through that urge and come out with a fresh wound, I feel better. It’s very hard to explain. It’s like…sort of like that I know I have this strength. A physical one, it might seem, but also a mental one. I need to prove it to myself that I can handle this. That I can take the blows, and then nurture the lesions. Seeing it heal back to pretty flesh color makes me feel more alive. That I have the ability to regenerate and live on. That I’m SUPPOSED to. Now, many people at this point would say “Of course you’re alive, silly! You don’t need to cut yourself up to prove that!!” But to that, all I can say is that nobody truly understands unless they have gone through it. I guess “we” all say that, but it’s the only way we can put words to this. I try my best to express things as they come to me, but it’s a lot more difficult than one might think. It’s like asking a druggie to explain how they feel when they’re high. I just need to find those words…
And that makes me think of how everyone seems to be asking me to just stop cutting. I have managed to scrounge up enough self-motivation (mixed with the fear of disappointing) to go for days without intentionally hurting myself. Writing on my arm has helped, as well as snapping rubber bands when I start to “zone out.” It’s all I can do for now. But all this demanding of going cold turkey is like asking a chocoholic to go without eating chocolate…and having a chocolate bar sitting on the table near them. Try and tell them to just leave it there. Give them some carrot sticks and water. See what they do. I need something just as satisfying to replace these habitual actions and desires…some carob for this chocoholic. So I will try to exercise…but I bet there is at least one person besides me that can see an obsession with a treadmill as a bad thing…
Submission Name: "Essay" 1
