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Have you ever reached the point where your life is so fucked up that your friends ask about the continuous stream of bruises and you just shrug and say you fell over because they’re such a common occurrence? Or when they ask about the scars and cuts on your thighs and arms for what seems like the billionth time and you say that your cat did them, even though you know that they know you don’t have a cat and that they know something’s up.
Have you ever felt like such shit that you sat there, counting the scars, memoirs of how many times you’ve chickened out, and held the knife on your wrist, pressing down on the vein, thinking about the pros and cons, and of who would miss you? You even make a list that goes something like this…
Pro:
-no more pain
-escape
-maybe parents will regret it
-people will see just how fucked up you were
-FUCKING SICK OF LIVING
-too much effort to breathe
-not having to be exhausted and guilty and fucking ANGRY everyday
-can’t hear what new names and shit dad has come up with to yell at me
Con:
-people will be upse- who the fuck am I kidding?
You write a note every time, laying it next to you as you steel yourself to do it and you press down a little, just enough to make a moderately deep cut, but for some reason you can’t bring yourself to do it all the way, so it just stays like that, another harsh, red line on your already marred and bruised skin. You burn the note afterwards, sometimes setting a stick on fire and pressing it into your skin, just to see the circular burns that have been branded into your skin?
Have you ever been hurt so badly by someone that you love and trust that you go to the beach and just scream and scream and then you stand on a cliff, shuffling closer to the edge, sticking your toes over the edge and seeing how far over you can go without topping over like a domino? You even jump up into the air a little, higher every time that you go up there, and every time you jump you get a little closer to the edge and you feel braver. Last time you landed right on the edge.
Have you reached the point when you’re all cried out and you’re so fucking numb and exhausted that you don’t feel the cuts that appear routinely on your skin every day, and you just want it all to end, you just want to go to sleep and never fucking wake up. But you can never fall asleep anyway.
You’ve reached the point many, many times over the last few months, where there is no medication that can help you, but no matter how much like shit you feel, you are always slightly scared of what will happen when something actually pushes you over the edge and you do it.
Have you ever just wanted to get so fucking wrecked that you can’t remember who you are? So smashed that maybe with all your new found courage you’ll be able to just run over the edge of the cliff, or step into oncoming traffic? Or just lay in the ocean and float away. And then you wake up with a huge hangover, blinded by the thundering ache in your head, on a strange floor and you can’t remember what you did last night, all you know is that you were such a fucking chicken.
Have you ever been yelled at so much that you just don’t fight back, let it hit you. You eventually start believing it all and for some reason, it hurts you so much that you just cry and cry and cry until you can’t be bothered to cry anymore so you say ‘ I can’t deal with this shit right now’ and you turn your phone off and walk out of the house. You don’t walk to anywhere, just keep walking, the rhythmic tapping of your feet calming you down for reasons unknown to you. You occasionally hitch-hike, the danger you put yourself not really something that you think about until well after. You still aren’t really in control, all you know is that you can’t go back there tonight, that when you turn your phone on you’re going to have so many angry texts and voice mails it won’t be funny, that you have no clue where the hell you are and you will be getting your ass kicked worse than usual when you get home. You fall asleep on a park bench once you’re too tired to travel anymore and your legs feel like collapsing, and you can actually relax into the dreamless sleep that overcomes you until you open your eyes to blinding sunlight and a shaking pressure on your shoulder which turns out to be some of the park gardeners asking you if you are ok. You say yes, of course, but honestly, when are you ever? Then you ask where you are, and they look at you funny and name a city which they later tell you, after you ask, is 3 hours from your house. They offer to give you a lift home, but with the knowledge of what could’ve happened yesterday fresh in your mind, you refuse and instead they point you in the direction that your 3 hr long hike will take you in. When you get home, you wish you were still on that park bench.
Have you ever reached the point where there's too many expectations? Where the public just expects that you're going to be happy non-stop and that you're just going to tour and make song after song, which you end up doing without a break because there's so much demand, and no one seems to think that you feel like you are literally being squashed by the increasing weight upon your shoulders and you're slowly being ground down to nothing and you know you won't live long if things keep up like this.
And have you ever reached the point where you just aren’t capable of caring enough to act on your emotions, and instead just sit down at your computer and pour out your feelings into something that you post online and hope everyone will think it is just a story, with no truth behind it, because you don’t like the attention? Or perhaps, maybe secretly, you hope that they will realise that you mean every word you type and maybe just talk to you like you’re human, and they actually talk, they don’t yell, don’t abuse you and they let you just be honest for once, because chances are you’re never going to meet them and they will never know who you really are…
I have.