My entire life I have been the epitome of the girl next door. I was a Girl Scout, went to Church on Sundays with my family, played every sport, babysat for every kid in my neighborhood and participated in a ton of different community service opportunities. To everyone in my community and family, I was the most "normal," suburban, Catholic sweetheart that ever walked the earth. I dressed in the most trendy, preppy clothes, I drove the new, trendy, preppy car, and I lived the most trendy, preppy life. Or so it seemed.
At A Glance Author anonymous When Two years ago About my eighth grade year, I started becoming very depressed. I guess I felt stifled by the monotony of my life. My friends had been the same since preschool, I had lived in the same house my entire life, and I had never experienced a change bigger than getting my first period. I had always been the kid who came home from school and excitedly shared every little detail of my day with my mom over a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk (sick, I know). Well, all that changed when I began to feel depressed. I came home, suck in the house quietly hoping my mom wouldn't notice, crept up the stairs, and locked myself in my bedroom for hours. Not much went on once I was in my "hole," just a lot of thinking, listening to loud angry rock, and a ton of crying. It was crazy how much I cried. I'm seriously surprised I didn't suffer from dehydration. I would cry so hard that all the capillaries in my face would burst and I would shake uncontrollably even up to several hours after I had run out of tears.
I can't really say what made me so unhappy. Most people would probably kill for a life as good as mine. Yet, for me, I seemed like the worst person on the planet to be. I felt all alone in the world. All I wanted, my only wish was to find solace and a way to get rid of my pain.
That wish came true a few weeks later when I was riding home on the bus and this girl Megan came and sat down next to me. Megan was relatively new to our school and she definitely stuck out like a sore thumb. She didn't fit the mold of the trendy, preppy girl that permeated our community. She was different. Although I had seen Megan before and knew who she was, I had never really noticed her, never really LOOKED at her. For some odd reason, that day on the bus, I just couldn't stop. There was something about her mere presence that intrigued me. I just stared at her the entire bus ride. Finally, we reached my stop and out of nowhere, I turned to Megan, whom I had never in my life spoken a word to, and asked her if she would like to come over to my house and hang out for a while. Oddly enough, she obliged, and off we went.
Megan and I ended up having SO much in common. She came over to my house every day after that bus ride and we would sit up in my room talking for hours. It turned out that we both were going through a lot of the same things with depression and having someone to talk to about it was just such an amazing thing.
A lot of time passed, the seasons changed, and Megan and I had developed an amazing friendship. However, there was something that had bothering me for some time. It was the middle of the summer and Megan ALWAYS wore a long sleeved shirt and pants. Even if she was dripping with sweat, she would always still wear fall clothes. It was so bewildering to me. Finally, one day while she was over, I decided to ask her about it. She completely stopped and didn't say a word. She just sat there, with this glazed look on her face. Finally, after about a minute, she rolled up the sleeve of her shirt and revealed cuts, scrapes, scabs and scars all over her arms. I know I let a little gasp out. I was just so shocked. I had always lived a very sheltered life, so, my first thought was that she had been beaten by someone. I kept telling her she had to tell someone about whoever was doing that to her. Finally, she grabbed my shoulders and told me it was her. I was so confused. Her what? She did that to herself? Why on earth would someone cut themselves?
She proceeded to tell me about how cutting herself made her feel so much better. She felt in control when she was cutting, she said she didn't even notice the pain of the cutting because the pain on the inside was so deep. She explained that cutting was her therapy. I asked her if she cut because she wanted to die, but on the contrary, she said she cut to live. After that day in my bedroom with Megan, I became curious. If it made her pain go away, then maybe it would help me too.
That night, while I lay in bed, I grabbed my crucifix necklace off my nightstand and held it in my hand, examining its sharp edge. Finally, I put the cross to my skin and scraped it across my arm. I didn't bleed, but, it definitely left a mark. It didn't hurt, so, I tried it again. Still, no blood. I almost became obsessed with trying to make myself bleed that night. In frenzy I began going through my drawers looking for anything sharp I could possibly find. Finally, I found the Swiss Army knife I had gotten from my dad a couple months prior. I opened up the smallest knife, held my breath, and cut myself. At last, I looked down and saw blood. It didn't hurt at all. I was shocked. I felt oddly in control.
I continued to cut myself every night before bed for months. However, I started making shapes and carving words into my skin. I cut on fresh skin, I'd go over scars, and I'd pull of scabs and reopen wounds I already had. Pretty soon, I began to look at my arms as my masterpiece, my art. For the next four years I continued my cutting obsession, adding to my art, sharing my art with Megan. I finally felt I had found my solace and someone to share it with.
I no longer cut; however, I do have two arms full of beautiful scarred art that I absolutely love. It's a self expression like no other. It's the most freeing feeling in the world.