Ranty Rant with Lots of Profanity

I need to breathe. Just breathe. I just went through the cutting tag on Tumblr and now my heart is beating fast and I feel unstable. I'm biting my lip and the pain is grounding me. I have to tell myself that cutting won't help even though I think it will. I hate this I hate this I hate this. Why am I so fucking angry and unhinged all of a sudden??? Damn it damnit damnit.

I wrote my most recent DC Comp paper partially about cutting and my teacher didn't, like...do anything. I had my favorite teacher look over my draft and she warned me that my DC Comp teacher would probably be concerned and want me to talk to the counselor, but she just kind of breezed past it. I didn't write it for pity, but some sort of reaction or comment about it would have been nice.

Hacking into my skin feels like it would be so satisfying right now. So far, my cutting episodes have been timid, shallow scrapes. But I have the urge to grab a blade and swing it at my skin in big, violent strokes.

Wristbands are my new thing - I got three from LeakyCon. Earlier on Etsy I found some awareness bracelets, and I think I'm going to get an anxiety awareness bracelet.

My mind is still racing, but I feel a little better. I'm just going to type until I don't feel the immediate extreme need to cut.

School isn't too bad so far, but I hate having some of my classes every day. I love having a few of my classes - Bio, French IV - every day, but some of my classes drive me up the fucking wall. My Psychology teacher doesn't ever know what the hell he's talking about, and now that I've noticed that he just talks out of his ass I wanna scream the whole class. NOBODY CARES THAT YOU'VE HAD LUCID DREAMS. YOU ARE NOT A SPECIAL FUCKING SNOWFLAKE. College Algebra isn't all that hard so far, but I hate it because it's math. I thought Accounting was going to be a really easy class, but it's actually a brainteaser, and I don't like it.

Thank God I have Bio and French IV every day. I need the consistency of my French class, and I love most everybody in that class. In Bio today, I used HST's computer to print off my DC Comp paper (the one that talks about cutting) and he saw some of it. We talked a little bit and he confessed that he has anxiety and depression issues too. It totally fits in with what I know about him, and I love knowing that about him. Not just because I have a huge freaking crush on him, but because I enjoy knowing about him as a person. Tomorrow is late start, and I think I'm going to ask him to read my DC Comp paper since I know he knows what I'm going through, at least a little bit. I also kind of want to talk to Favorite Teacher, but I probably shouldn't do it right before school since it'll probably end with me in tears.

I have so many people who love me, and even people I'm passing acquaintances with have told me I can talk to them. So why do I feel like I can't talk to anybody and just rant and cry and scream and not give a fuck about appearances?

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

Morning-After Regrets - BEDA Day 1

Last night, I had a one night stand with cutting. Writing my last post triggered me, ironically enough. I just wanted to know what it would do.

At one point, I had a box of one hundred box cutter blades in my Amazon cart. $12.08 with shipping. It seemed so easy to get a lifetime supply of the stereotypical cutter's razors. But I texted Kelly and Laura and they told me not to. I had a hard time figuring out how to delete it from my cart, but I did. It scared me how close I came. I also went through the cutting tag on Tumblr. That was probably a really bad idea. It was kind of like thinspiration for somebody with an eating disorder. I did see a post where somebody said if you're thinking about cutting, don't. It's so hard to stop. But I ignored it.

I started out just scratching my right thigh with the pointy end of a nail file. I drew big grids of welts across my leg. The way the welts formed fascinated me. Rows of raised skin, slightly red. I was scratching, but not cutting.

Then the scratching wasn't enough. I needed to break skin. I wanted to draw a little bit of blood. Not gushing, just a drop or two. I remembered the cuticle remover I had in my manicure kit. It scrapes cuticles away with a thing that has like two prongs. It kind of digs it out. I looked, but some of the implements in my manicure kit were gone. I wondered if my sister had stolen them. She doesn't know that my medication changed because I considered hurting myself; she just knows that it wasn't working right anymore. But she's a smart girl. I wouldn't put it past her to have figured it out. Then I looked in the box of old nail stuff in my closet. I didn't find the other stuff, but I did find a pair of cuticle nippers. They have handles kind of like pliers. They look like small bone snips.

I opened them as wide as they'd go and dragged it across my leg. A satisfying welt appeared. It was more than a scratch, but not a full-fledged cut. I dug the tip in a little bit and pressed as I dragged. I drew some blood that time. I stopped to look at the thin line of red on my leg. I had finally gone past thoughts to actual action. I wasn't sure yet if that was a good thing or not.

All in all, I drew blood in a dozen places on my right thigh, made probably 25 scratches, and scratched my left thigh in three places.

Then it started to sting. What I had done sunk into my thick skull, and I cried. I failed Laura, Kelly, and my best friend Faith. They had all been telling me that they loved me, that I shouldn't do it, and that I was stronger than this. I was selfish and stupid and reckless and did it anyway. I texted them all that I had done it. Kelly got upset, Laura told me to throw them away, and Faith was really sad. How could I do that to them? They love me as much as anyone in my family. I was stupid and so so SELFISH. I threw the cuticle nippers in the bathroom trash, where I'd be less likely to fish them out. Then I told myself never again.

All the consequences swirled through my head. I would have to be really careful around my sister. I would have to wear pants or long shorts, and it's warming up a lot here. I don't know how long it'll take for them to heal. I didn't think this through at all. I had no thoughts about what would happen after I cut. All of my thoughts were in the moment. Holy shit, I'm doing this. I've gone off the deep end. I know this is wrong but it feels a tiny bit right. Where is my sense?


I felt better after I cut. I don't think it was because of the actual act of cutting, I think it was the conclusion of the will-I-or-won't-I that I've been going through for a month or so. Guess what, Megan. You did it. And not a damn thing has changed. Now you've got this to worry about on top of everything else.

I don't think I'll cut again. I need to pay really close attention to my moods and keep busy. The biggest part f my problem last night was that I dwelled on it for two hours. It seemed like I had less and less to lose the more time went on. From now on, though, I'm going to divert my attention at the first sign of trouble. I'll color, read, write, watch TV, go on a walk, sing, play Wii, play Mancala by myself, make my sister play a game with me, clean my room, do laundry, SOMETHING. Anything but hurt myself.

Side note: Today I'm starting Blog Every Day April! Not every post will be about cutting, I promise. I'm just going through emotional turmoil right now.

Reasons Not To Cut

Trigger warning: cutting

• Physical pain will not make my emotional pain disappear for very long.
• Cuts will be hard to hide, especially since summer is coming up.
• Causing myself pain does not actually make me more in control of anything.
• I don't want to worry my mom.
• I don't want to scare my little sister, who's thirteen.
• It would cause more problems than it would appear to solve.
• I am loved.
• She does not control me. (She being my emotionally and verbally abusive stepmom.)
• I don't have immediately at hand the means to make sure cuts won't get infected.
• I am stronger than my pain.
• It is entirely possible to get addicted to the dopamine high. I have an addictive personality to begin with, and I might not be able to judge when enough is enough.
• My therapist said she was proud of me for not cutting when I told her I was considering it but didn't.

Reasons I want to cut.

• I feel like I need to do SOMETHING to help myself deal with my stepmom.
• I feel destructive.
• I have a tendency to see scars as badges of courage and honor, things with stories behind them.
• I find the idea of a physical manifestation of my emotions to be very powerful.
• I want to find out for myself if it helps.
• The sympathy I get when I express the urge to cut makes me feel better.
• I'm overly emotional to begin with. I wonder if Hufflepuffs have higher incidences of self-harm and suicide?
• I live in a really small, small-minded town and I feel hopeless, like I'm never going to get out and experience the world.
• Even though I consider myself to be eloquent, it would allow me to express my feelings without using words.
• I want to relieve the pressure and tension of my life.

For the past few months, we've been doing dissections in my Zoology and Anatomy classes. The next time I had anatomy after I had my first compulsion to cut, I didn't trust myself with the scalpel. It was too tempting. It's still too tempting. A fresh blade, with a handle...it seems so much easier and safer than the stereotypical cutter's razor. Sometimes I wonder if anybody would even notice if I took a scalpel. Luckily, there's pretty much no way I could get away with it. Still, I wonder.

The first time I had these thoughts, I told my mom my Prozac wasn't working anymore, so we went to my doctor. She put me on a higher dose of Prozac, and also on Effexor. Now I feel better overall, but the underlying emotions are still there. I've been to my therapist once since then, and it helped. But I have more emotions than can fit into an hour-long session.

I haven't cut. But every day I wonder what would happen if I did. How would I do it? What would I use? Where would I cut to make it the easiest to hide? And then sometimes I think that trying to hide my cuts would just cause me even more stress. 

So what would make me feel better? Cutting, or not cutting? Not cutting, obviously. But the struggle against the irrational, insistent thoughts that it would help are so hard to control. Logic is not my greatest talent. I deal with emotions, overwhelmingly good and bad. I have to have my big sisters (sisters of the soul, not of the blood) reason me out of it. Then I feel like I'm honoring them, but I've failed myself because I've failed to make myself feel better using those means. Then I feel guilty, because I feel like I've failed them by still wanting to cut.

Here's to hoping I can remain strong enough not to succumb to the irrational thoughts.