I went over and had a Dexter Season 2 marathon with a friend who got it for me for my birthday. We love Dexter (for those of you who don’t know it’s a showtime show about a serial killer who kills serial killers).
We made a run up to the store for popcorn and candy at one point. My signature move was included: windows down and real loud music.
Our conversation was pretty much limited to this:
Me- “Sorry if you hate my music!”
Friend – “No. It’s alright, I kind of like it. And it’s nice to see you happy.”
Of course I brushed it off with a sarcastic comment/joke about how rare it is. Even if she never reads this, I want her to know how much that meant to me. It says that maybe I’m not crazy, that someone else is seeing a difference in me as well. And that gives me hope.
She’s one of those friends who is always there and has always been there, even if I don’t realize it sometimes. She’s just not fully in the spotlight. Maybe it’s because she’s very different from a lot of my other friends (because I have SO many, yeah). But I really want to make an effort to see her more, because I realized that she really HAS always been there for me even when I may have done stupid things and not deserved her.
Her comment really made me smile. She’s very supportive of me in all aspects, even if she doesn’t agree with some of them. She has never made me feel unhappy or disappointed or upset or angry. She has been a constant in my life for so long that I kind of forgot. I hate that I did, but it happened. And now I’m doing something about it. She deserves the world on a platter. And she will get it. She is one of the most talented artists I know, and that says a lot. I’m part of a pretty artsy crowd. She has always been there for me, and I hope like hell that I don’t fuck up and lose her.
I’m starting to see just how important she is. She’s not the friend I call crying on the phone when I fuck up. In fact, I think there was only one time she’s ever seen me cry. That was a time when I hadn’t talked to her in a long time. But she KNEW I was fucked up and going through a really rough time. She just KNEW. No one in my life has ever come up to me and told me they were worried without knowing anything. She just KNEW without me telling, and she came to ME saying she was worried. It was a huge shock and I opened up and just spilled because no one in my life had ever done that.
So lets end with this. She is an incredibly important friend to me, and I don’t think she knows it. I don’t really know how to let her know that. I will think of something eventually though. She needs to know.
She is my rock. I will be forever grateful to have her in my life.
Lyrics by The Academy Is… (Summer Hair = Forever Young)
It’s officially the end of the first week of school, my junior year. Two years before college. Two years before responsibility. Two years before everything changes completely. I’m in a really good kind of feely mood.
So I have this friend who I’ve kind of been unstable with for the past year. She got into the whole sex & drugs scene last fall and so we were still friends but not as close. This past summer she left it all behind and found her faith in religion again after she had something really bad happen to her. She was away most of the summer so when she got back I was completely shocked to hear all of this. The way I looked at her completely changed, and things got so much better. We have the same lunch period this semester so I’ve started to take her off. Anyways, to the point….
So I was sitting at home when I got back from school and I realized how many Fridays I have spent at home alone in the past year. Lets just stick with ‘a lot’. So I called said friend up, jumped in my car (Beckett is the official name now. Beckett & the Ghetto door. That’s the one that you have to lock and unlock by hand, it’s a bitch) and drove to her house in the neighborhood up the street.
We went up to the closest Goodberry’s and got some ice cream and just sat and chatted. It felt really, really great because I feel like we haven’t been that connected in a long time. I laughed harder than I have in a while which felt really nice too, and it’s something I’m going to need to remember as I head into the depths of hell (aka this school year). Then we decided to hit the highway and head to Target.
I totally broke a couple laws as we sped down the highway, all windows open including sunroof singing above the blasting stereo. The sun was just starting to set, we were laughing and singing horribly, and the wind was whipping our hair around. And I finally realized that THIS is what summer break should have felt like. During the summers I do nothing and all my friends go to camps and I am stuck at home alone in my head. Summer break is just not the best time for me. So being able to just live for an hour or so with someone who I feel has been missing from my life was just amazing.
“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobosky
I felt free, and open, and for the first time in a while I felt hopeful that maybe this is the beginning of change for me. Maybe I’m finally starting to reach out and put all my fucked up emotional issues behind me. Maybe. Hopefully.
And despite the fact that she did have other plans tonight so I’ll most likely spend it alone, that hour and a half was plenty. Because now I know that that feeling is out there for the taking. I know what it’s like to be able to forget everything and just go out and experience life with someone I care about. I will only be this young for so long. I feel like I need to start embracing that, start living my life not by fear of consequences (because my mother would KILL me if she knew I a) had someone in the car with me b) speeding and c) dancing while driving) but live by fear of not living enough.
I think I say this a lot, “Oh things will change” “It will be different now”. But I’m hoping with EVERYTHING in me that it’s for real this time. I’m just so sick of all those old feelings, I want these ones to last forever.
I think it’s a Season 3 Gilmore Girls marathon tonight alone. And I’m okay with that last part.
My advice to anyone who reads this (aka no one) is to find your own epiphany. Realize that life is short, and you’re only young once. Realize that it is possible to be completely and utterly carefree even if only for a while. Realize that you just can’t let things suck all the fucking time. You just have to let things go. And I am a big contradiction (I’m like oatmeal & wine). So next week sometime I’m sure I’ll be back here bitching about how much I hate things no matter how much I hope that this time will be the real change. But for now I am in a place of blissful ignorance, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Why are you still sitting here reading this? Go out and fucking LIVE, fat whore! (and I mean that endearingly)
So school just started back, it’s kind of been hell but whatever.
My AP English III teacher gave us an assignment to find a quote that we feel describes something essential about ourselves and then explain and put a visual with it.
“Music is the space between the notes.”
–Claude Debussy
For a visual I used a Self-Portrait by Van Gogh. My explanation has lots to do about how I try to live without restriction and stray from the norm of the masses and how I feel Van Gogh did that as well when he painted his portraits and how it all relates back to the quote and blah blah blah.
You get the point. I love that quote. The end.
It’s been a really shitty night on top of a really shitty week. And my birthday is in three days. I love being depressed around my birthday. It’s really REALLY great.
I don’t even know why I’m so upset tonight. I freaked out over nothing and then it just spiraled. I’ve been doing so well all summer. I think my number’s finally up. I was getting too stable, too normal. My brain (and life in general) likes to fuck me up the ass for feeling alright for too long. It’s like BITCH BE UNHAPPY and then slams in without any lube. Yeah, no appologies on the graphic metaphor. It’s the best way to describe it. Although that would make my brain (and life in general) a guy or a weird lesbian with a strap on. I don’t know. Now I’m just going off in a weird, uncharted tangent that I think I’ll steer away from now.
So yeah. I don’t know. I just really really don’t feel happy right now, and I feel like this is a preview for the upcoming school year because stress is another dryassfucker. It just proves that I have so much to look forward to. Not to mention my addiction to post-it-notes, aka the one thing I can ever actually count on, decided to fail tonight (that sounds stupid, but trust me, it’s a really big deal)
Yeah I’m bitching and moaning. This is my blog. Deal with it.
This blog is new and one I’m still introducing myself to, but I wanted to talk about something that’s a really big part of me. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to talk about, but it’s something that I feel I need to in order to sort it out better. Getting things out of my head is always one of the most helpful things to do because I can visualize my problems. So here goes. Sorry if it’s kind of all over the place and choppy, it’s not exactly something I know how to talk about it.
Underneath the crazy, sarcastic bitch that I usually am is someone completely and emotionally unstable. I can admit that. I have depression that flicks on and off at inopportune times and can range from a few days to a few months. Then on the other hand I have weeks where things are great.
I am a self-injurer. It is something I have admitted before but to very few people. I’m afraid of it, but not afraid to admit it, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I don’t know the exact day it started, but it was around two years ago in August. It was towards the beginning of one of my worst “downs” I’ve ever had. That one itself lasted over eight months.
In simple, stereotypical terms, I am a cutter. There, I said it. (Tangent — I really hate the fucking emo kid jokes about cutting because around people I seem fairly together, but those jokes fucking hurt more than people really understand. So if you’ve ever told them, whatever, just stop because chances are there’s someone around you who is insulted that it’s something you take so lightly — end tangent)
It initially started pretty light with just making light scratches along my palms. I am a pianist though and so that quickly became a bad spot. So I moved to my upper right thigh. It was more….convenient… I guess. It was easy to cover without questions to be asked.
The light scratches soon turned to more prominent cuts as I became more “brave”, so to speak. Weapon of choice: a pair of sharp metal tweezers. Bloody parallel lines soon loitered that section of my body. Jeans (and pants in general) were getting more painful to wear, but I didn’t care at the time because it felt good. Even though the damage was done, I was able to feel it for periods of time afterwards when the fabric rubbed & irritated them. Yeah, it’s kind of fucked up.
There were times when I tried to stop. I did everything from rubber band snapping to pushing my nails into my palms, but nothing ever felt good enough to replace it.
Why did I started/kept going it is something I frequently ask myself. I think I have a pretty good idea — I was alone and it felt like my world was falling apart. I think I needed something else to feel besides weakness and being out of control, because that’s how I felt. I felt weak for letting someone I cared about tear me apart and leave me. I felt weak for letting my best friend be taken away by an asshole of a guy. I felt weak for pushing people away because I hadn’t mastered the whole ‘act like everything is okay’ bit and I was so fucking afraid of them seeing me as imperfect. I felt weak for constantly feeling depressed. I felt weak for not figuring out how to manage my own fucking life. I felt weak for letting my emotions completely take control. I felt weak for not knowing who I was and feeling disgusted inside my own skin. I felt weak for not being able to make myself happy. I felt weak for not being able to reach out. I felt weak for faking everything about myself. But most of all, I felt so weak that I couldn’t hide from past demons that occurred years earlier, things that if I ever talked about or relived, I would probably turn into even more of a disaster. I had been getting nightmares and panic attacks again, and I just couldn’t handle reminders of things.
By hurting myself, I was distracted, if only for a little while. I could feel the sting and watch the blood. I was taking control of my life in the only way I felt I could. Control is a huge issue for me. I’m a major planner. I don’t like things out of their natural order or being late or not knowing what’s going to happen. Everything was just out of control and I couldn’t stand it. Cutting was the one thing I could control in my life at the time. I could control how much, how deep, where, and when. It felt good for a while. Then it felt worse because that control only lasts so long. So the pattern kept repeating itself. It was this cycle that I had fallen into and couldn’t get out of. It still makes me nauseous to even think about it.
It got so bad that I found myself on fucking Christmas Eve with a razor in my shower. On school days, I did it in the bathroom at lunch. If a class was ever becoming too much to handle, I’d excuse myself and do it then too. It was so constant, and my whole life was revolving around how deep I needed to get me until I could be at it again, it was pathetic. Nothing was ever in my way, so nothing ever made me stop.
A little past February things started to get a little better. I have no clue what changed, whether it was the depression letting up or just a fluke. Then things got worse for another few weeks. Then they got better. It wasn’t overnight. It was a gradual change I noticed. I was able to space it out more, I didn’t rely on it as much.
I have not quit completely. It’s a goal, but it’s something I’m working for nonetheless. I use a calendar, and for every day that I don’t, I put a star. I don’t remember my longest run without any off the top of my head, but it’s somewhere in the fifties I believe (as in days). At the moment, I’m around the forty seven-day mark. This is the time when things do get a little rough. Hence why I’m writing this blog, to try and just talk it out instead of just brooding over it in my head. I probably seem pretty contradicting. It was only yesterday when I said I was living life and having a good time, but then again my moods change in an instant.
Somehow I kept in mind not to ever go too deep or too far. Just enough to leave a mark for a few weeks and then fade away. Maybe it was an inner conscious that saw a future ahead where I didn’t want brutal scars. There are scars, there is no doubt, but they’re not as noticeable. You have to be looking for them to really see them, which I think is helpful in many ways. I’m not reminded every day when I look in the mirror, yet when I need to remind myself of where I’ve been, there’s always plenty to look at.
Two years. I know there are people out there, who have it much worse, but this is my story, and this is my life and my story. It doesn’t matter if it’s been a few months or a few years. It still matters, and it still affects people differently. And it’s still wrong, despite how it may feel at the time.
Besides cutting, I do other smaller forms that could be labeled “self injury” though I don’t really think of them that way. I pick at my skin and chew on my lips/inside of my mouth. I pull hair from my scalp, legs, eyebrows, and eyelashes. Sometimes I’ll purposely get angry and give myself bruises. They’re still self-destructive, but I feel like it’s still a step down from actual cutting.
So anyways, to wrap this all up now that I’ve kind of gone on a tangent because I started feeling uncomfortable, self-injury sucks. It’s a problem, and it’s one I’m trying really hard to fix. The best thing I can suggest to people is a strong support system. When I initially pushed away all my friends, it was probably the worst thing I could do. Now they’re what keep me grounded and remind me that I’m alive and need to snap out of things. They’re also there just to listen to me rant when I need to take my emotions out on something other than myself. I have so much anger and sadness that when it gets bottled up, things just go wrong.
So. Yeah. Now I feel awkward. Um, questions or comments are welcome.
Filed under: Random
Kudos points to whoever gets the reference in the title. (And it has nothing to do with this post other than the first few letters)
This is kind of a random thought that I wanted to get out before delving back into the crap of a book I’m being forced to read for AP English summer shit. I may embellish on it later. But if you’ve read my blogs and have paid attention, you’ll know that I am currently in therapy. And in all honesty, I’m not sure how much it’s doing. It felt like it was in the beginning.
Now though, it’s really making me realize how well I know myself. Though there’s a difference between knowing who I AM and knowing MYSELF, I feel like one out of two is pretty good. I understand the problems that I do have, and I understand where they come from (for the most part). The only thing therapy may help with is finding ways to fix or deal with them. At this point, I’m just realizing that I know a lot more about myself than I thought I did and why certain things in my life are happening. It’s kind of refreshing yet scary at the same time. Either way, I still think the experience as a whole is worth it, even if it has been for the most part to clarify the simplicity of it all.
More added to this later? Maybe, maybe not.
