tell me all about it

I've started this three times and keep erasing it trying to figure out how to put this. Every time I start, I kind of descend into really dry psychobabble I learned during intense study after my very first Psych class, when I found out there was a word--there was a concept--that covered what I'd been doing when I was nineteen. I was shocked and horrified and went along with vague class discussion, freaked out that everyone else knew about this--knew about this--and half of them were making fun of it. So I read. I read and read and read and I still don't know more than I started, just like I didn't know then that there wasn't something seriously wrong with me that I couldn't talk about to anyone, ever, not my best friend, not my boyfriend, not the people who were around me when it happened, not anyone after.

The first person I ever told about it was svmadelyn. The second was chopchica. Then I could talk about it. Sort of.



I used to cut myself when I was nineteen, when I found out by accident it helped. I mean, I won't lie about this, it's better than antidepressants, better than drugs, better than anything I've tried but writing--and possibly morphine, but whatever. When I say it helped, I mean--

This may not be obvious, but I'm just now getting into a lighter shade of severe depression after eight months talking to myself about brain chemistry and vitamin supplements and being careful about because it drowned out the reminder of the fact I own a boxcutter and can get a scalpel and I know, I know this like I know my name, that it would have helped. I haven't even considered it viably in years, but I caught myself thinking that it wouldn't be that bad. You can't even see the other scars. Because you know, I get we all are jaded and shit and people who really are cutters are like, not going to be on the internet talking about it, those are just attention-deprived teenagers and fuck them, that shit's funny, the attention whores. If you're a real cutter, you wouldn't talk about it, you wouldn't tell people about it in a last ditch effort not to go through with it, and you sure as fuck aren't triggered by anything happening, because the internet isn't real and if it's real you don't talk about it.

Fuck this shit; it's not like anyone is going to sit down after reading this and think, Gosh, maybe taunting someone threatening to cut themselves is like, bad or something, obviously it's attention whoring because if it was real, real real, they'd be ashamed of it. Yeah, no, shame my friends has nothing to do with it; I liked it. I loved it. It was the best thing, the only thing that worked when nothing did. It set an endorphin and adrenaline rush, it set off seratonin transmitters, it set off euphoria, I have no idea, everything I've read lies because when they talk about it, they miss the entire point.

In general, if you're a cutter, welcome, yes, there's something wrong going on there. In a shocking turn of events, depression isn't unique and for some reason, it's much more preferable to sit around in a fugue state unable to even want to get out of bed than let a little blood and feel like you can face civilization again. Take medication, meditate, think cheery thoughts, go out and get active, sleep more, eat right, and if that doesn't work, don't suicide, it gets better. And don't even fucking think of picking up that razor; the zombie look works for you. Better that than scarring. Better that than parade around with scars like the attention whore you really are because how can that feel good so it's not real. If it were real, real, real, real, real, you wouldn't talk about it.

It gets better. I know. And then it gets worse and the cycle starts again and its' not like I know right now isn't forever, that if I'm right about how this cycles, and I know myself, I have at least six months before I'm back to something resembling baseline, and that's until the next time. I'll backslide again in a few weeks--I know this shit cold, it's hilarious how self-awareness just does shit, but I'm not suicidal. I haven't been. Self-destruction can take so many forms, and if you're really fucked up, there are many better ways to hurt yourself so you have to live with it. I'm not scared, I've never been scared of killing myself; I'm scared of that, of the moment not-caring becomes finding a way, any way, to care about something. Being mildly OCD--diagnosed by a trufax doctor, so fuck off the sneer--has one use only for me when it gets like this and I've used it ruthlessly from spending hours and hours creating spreadsheets no one will ever see of stupid shit to hours reading linux to days and days of doing nothing but uninstalling and reinstalling and crashing my server so I could do it again and again until I could sleep, or what passes for sleep, because you can't call this shit insomnia when your life is where sleep, real sleep, is the fucking exception.

Just so we have that down, let's count the ways I find all cutting discussions fucked up.

It's more socially acceptable to drink for depression than cut yourself. It's more socially acceptable to become a drug addict for depression than cut yourself. It's more socially acceptable to commit suicide than cut yourself. Those three get you nice people who want to help. Cutting gets you internet diagnosis of attentionitis and mockery and reacting to it gets you more. Shock me.

I'm not advocating for finding a clean razor and practicing your art skills, anymore than I'm advocating for alcohol, drugs, or any of a thousand ways people with depression find something like relief. I'm saying, this is something people do to deal, and one that doesn't get you in the ER for an overdose, costs very little, and doesn't involve hurting other people because you ran out of ways to hurt yourself.

All of these things--all of them--are not the problem in the end. The problem is that you're fucked up from depression and there's no cure. There is no cure. It will never go away, and it will hit you from nowhere, or from a mile away you watch it coming and there's nothing you can do to get out of the way. You know, you know what life will be like, when it hits; you know you won't think right, you won't feel right, everything becomes impossible and ridiculous and boring and hateful and the most ordinary world imaginable becomes a nightmare you won't get to wake up from. You don't know when it will end and you take on faith it will end at all. It's kind of all you have, really, in the end; it's you and a brain that's betrayed you on the most fundamental level, that's stripped you down until the world you live in might as well be a different fucking universe than the one that everyone else seems to live and love and enjoy. And the worst part is, you do know it. You do. You know. And you still can't fix it. You just have to live with it.

Now, tell me about that girl--usually a girl, always a girl, you know girls, they do it for attention, that's what they want, attention--who totes faked it for attention again. She showed you her scars, she writes bad myspace poetry, she thinks she's a goth, it's not real. Because you know real people that have it and they're nothing like that. You do it and it's nothing like that. It's really all about you.

Come on, you know you want to. You know. You learned it on the internet.

Note: I reserve my right to make as many cutting jokes as I want. There's something comforting about them; sure, it's the internet joke, but it's a joke because other people did it and you know what? I need to know that.



I feel better. Ranting, I admit, isn't as good, but there's a lot less clean up.

Also, person who might not want to be named in my DW/LJ but had surgery for gall bladder, update me! I can't find the comment or the email, because I haven't read most of it. I should get caught up on that.

Comments

[apatheia_jane]

I agree with a lot of what you've said about cutting discussions, and you're right, there are worse ways to deal with depression.

I understand what it feels like to feel like you're living in a completely different world to the one other people enjoy, & I understand how much you can feel like you need to find a way to describe your universe to the people who don't live in it. But I can't help hating cutting discussions where cutters describe both the misery & the euphoria, because after about 3 years of misery & about 2 years of hearing other people, who seemed to feel exactly the same way I did, talk about finding something that worked, kinda horrible but it actually worked, I tried it myself. It was kinda my one last hope, the thing I didn't want to do but always knew was there to try if things got worse, and when they got worse and I gave in it didn't help and I felt nothing. I turned the lines into letters, because maybe it's not the blood but the expression? Then I made them deeper, because maybe I just wasn't doing it hard enough. Then I sandpapered the scabs off, and all of it had about as much effect on my mood as cutting my toenails, except that it came with a rising sense of despair because if this wasn't working, nothing would.

So, I pretty much opt out of all cutting discussions on the internet before I start screaming something along the lines of "Liar, you're all liars, you said it helps, you said it worked, and I was devastated when I found out it didn't." Which, yunno, is not how I want to behave on the internet, and is hardly fair on anyone.

I've been pretty good for years at this point, which is not something I ever believed would happen at the time, but I never quite got over that feeling of betrayal. Even though no one ever promised it would help me specifically, so many cutting discussions seems to come from trying to make people understand, and I understood and thought they were talking about how my body worked too.

[seperis]

I've been pretty good for years at this point, which is not something I ever believed would happen at the time, but I never quite got over that feeling of betrayal. Even though no one ever promised it would help me specifically, so many cutting discussions seems to come from trying to make people understand, and I understood and thought they were talking about how my body worked too.

Oh God, I know the feeling, and this is so stupid, but alcohol. I kept hearing about dealing with depression with alcohol or drugs or something and alcohol did shit; it acted as a intensifier, not a reversal. Pot? Same thing, but with lethargy. And all I could think, even though no, I have no desire to be an alcoholic or a druggie, that even that was pointless to help, even that.

So yeah, I get that. *hugs*

[apatheia_jane]

Bad options are good to have, if the alternative is no options.

Thanks.

[seperis]

Yeah, pretty much. Even if it's not one you would ever take, just knowing it's there is something. And right now, I keep reading what I wrote thinking, God, that's seriously not very sane. Holy shit.

[apatheia_jane]

which bits? Obviously, you don't have to talk about it, but I'm curious, because while depression is a long way from good mental health, nothing you wrote pinged for me as not making sense/not sane.