A Scar and A Story

***MAY BE TRIGGERING***

***SELF-INJURY DISCUSSED***

"You had a suicide attempt?!"

After two hours of going into great detail about our mental illnesses and joking about the crazy episodes we have each had, hearing that I had a pretty decent scar on my wrist was what made him abandon the easy-going attitude.

"Umm, not really. I mean, kinda? It could have been. I don't really remember."

As we talked about the stigma that comes along with the labels and media hype, I casually mentioned that it is my wrist that makes me feel the most vulnerable. It's the one piece of my illness that it is tangible. And I'm fuzzy on how it got there. I spent this morning staring at, as though it's going to suddenly take a dignified pose and voice to ask for a glass of wine before beginning our chat. Oh, Silly Scar, you know we can't have alcohol anymore.

It happened sometime after my ER visit and before I was diagnosed with bipolar. They threw some Zoloft at me, like they do to everyone who walks through those doors, and told Boyfriend not to let me kill myself. Thanks, Doc. Hadn't thought of trying that. Lucky for us, the next month was pretty boring. I had nauseating side effects. I felt like a zombie. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

*****

Hell yeah, the depression had lifted! I didn't cry at all anymore. I had an abundance of energy that I hadn't felt in months. Years. EVER! This was amazing for my freelance writing work. I could write one article while mentally planning the next and planning what was for dinner and creating a cleaning schedule so nothing was out of place to distract me from the work that needed to be done.

One day was particularly bad though. I was a squirrel on crack with nothing to put my energy into. Since I didn't have the focus to write, I got frustrated. "Frustrated" doesn't do it justice. I was filled with more raw, uncontrolled emotion than the day I got taken into the ER for my safety.

The pacing began. I thought maybe I could cry it out, exhaust myself so my mind had to follow. I tried, but I started to lose my other senses before I even got winded. I couldn't hear myself crying, and the whole world was blurry. I could only see my hands. I couldn't even feel the ground beneath me.

The next part is what really scares me. Since I am not allowed to have razors for obvious reasons, I decided to drive to get some. Granted, I only had to drive for a total of maybe three minutes, but I couldn't see, feel, or hear what was happening around me. And why would anyone sell razors to someone who was shaking, crying, and confused?!

Next thing I know, I'm home and frantically pulling the blade out of the knock off Bic. I'm slicing the tips of my fingers in the process, but I don't feel it or even see the blood. When it finally pulled free, I didn't hesitate to drag it across my skin. I see a fuzzy haze of red beginning to fill my vision, but my arm is just a tingling, numb thing that I deemed useful for only one purpose. And it was failing. I tried again. Over and over but nothing.

Minutes or an hour later, I am finally exhausted. I clean up the blood, throw away my tank top, and take a nap.

The End.

*****

But not really the end at all. Here I am, months later, trying to figure out what happened that day. I don't think my goal was to kill myself, which is why I couldn't really say that it was a suicide attempt. But I do think that I was willing to do anything to get the crazy fast thoughts to shut up for a goddamn minute. Even if that meant risking death.

Because my whole world was blurry and I couldn't hear well, I felt incredibly disconnected from anything physical and time wasn't really a thing anymore. I couldn't be certain that my material possessions were how I left them. I couldn't see past my arms. I felt like I was losing all control and literally slipping out of existence in a way that allowed me to be with the people and things that kept me safe.

When I couldn't feel the pain that I was inflicting on myself, I got nervous. Like maybe I had gone bat shit insane and I was going to get taken away. I think for a while I was doing it because I thought I needed to check to see if I was capable of killing myself. That's not something you should just check from time to time.

As awful as it is to say, my plan did kind of work in the end. After cutting myself, I was able to finally get the thoughts to calm down enough so I could sleep. It was definitely not worth it. It was incredibly dangerous, and I get sick to my stomach when I picture it even though I didn't flinch when I did it. Cutting myself was a desperate measure that I took during a desperate time before being diagnosed, before understanding that this "crazy" I felt was a chemical imbalance in my brain.

Somehow, cutting myself apart was my effort to make me feel whole again. It was a last ditch effort to bring back all the senses, connect my body and mind, and remind my monsters that I'm still in control. When an initial cut didn't do the trick, I tried again and deeper. For whatever reason, be it defeat or glimpse of sanity, I stopped short of causing any real damage. I just got a scar and a story.

Racing Thoughts and Breaking Down

The hardest thing to explain is what happens in my head when I'm going crazy. When I'm crazy, communicating is nearly impossible, and when I'm sane again, I can't make sense of what happened. My best friend always tries to reassure me, saying that he doesn't think I'm crazy, no one else does, and no one will. Well, bullshit. I am. He's not there when I'm having my breakdowns, and my jumbled texts to him can't convey what's going on.

It starts with a single thought. Maybe it's remembering something awful someone said to me. Maybe it's thinking for a second too long about something I regret. Maybe it's even an idea for a book. I don't know. I can't pinpoint the beginning well enough to stop it from it continuing.

Over the next couple of weeks or days (or sometimes hours), more thoughts cling to that first one. This is great when it's fueling my creative or productive side. But I can't stay in that glory forever. The racing thoughts build an army. When there are just a few, I can try reasoning with them. I can ask them to get in a single file so I can sort them. They don't listen. I try to ignore their constant pressure, like that of a dozen elephants trying to fit out a window the size of a pinhead, but they grow in number. Eventually, I can't make sense of them. All I can do is beg them to not be so loud in my head. They still don't listen.

That one thought snowballs until it is big enough to run me down and crush me. To gain strength over me. To suck all the sense and life and ability to function out of my fragile head. Now there are hundreds of thoughts. Some of them good. Some of them bad. It doesn't matter what the thoughts are at this point because I can't understand them anyways.

I am stuck in my head. Fucking trapped. I pace my apartment. Sit down on the couch. Get up. Walk upstairs. Find myself in the closet. Why am I here? Back downstairs. Couch. I need to get out. Open the door. No. I can't see. Shit. Why can't I see? It's night. Oh. Lay down in bed. Fuck. Suffocating. Get up. Bathroom. Small and safe. I can hide here.

I am sitting on the toilet hugging my knees and staring at absolutely nothing. I am so in my head that the outside world doesn't exist. Everything looks blurry and my head is loud. I want to scream. I want to make lots of noise and shatter and kick and punch things and snap myself back to reality, but I can't move. I can't be that loud. I'm not sure I can even talk. They're winning.

I know what I need to do. I need to remind myself I have a body. There is more than just the tornado in my head. And I am in charge of it. I have the power to stop all of this. It's the right thing to do. I need something sharp.....

Knock Knock Knock

Boyfriend has come to make sure I'm alright. He knows I'm going crazy, but he won't understand. He can't possibly understand why I need to do this right fucking now. "Go away. I don't want you here." Good, I can still speak. He comes in the bathroom. Fuck. Didn't lock the door.

"I don't want you to be here. We shouldn't be together. It's over. Leave. Or let me leave. You don't have to put up with this. It's my problem. I want you to go away. Please, please, please. Leave." I ramble on and on through tears and shaky breathing. Boyfriend calmly explains that he cannot leave me alone right now. If I don't want to be around him, then he will have to take me to "the place." (The awful psychiatric crisis facility we went to last time I hurt myself.)

Of course, he's totally right. No one in their right mind would leave me alone in the condition I'm in. But logic is beyond my capability at this point. Hell, I think it's reasonable and right to slit my wrist to make my racing thoughts shut the hell up. It's not just that I can; I should. And now.

After hours of crying and yelling, with Boyfriend holding me and reasoning with me, I am exhausted. I give up. The racing thoughts are done screaming but now they're snickering. They will be back. They know they won this round.