Authors Notes – I'm back with a whole new pen name and everything. This fic will be about 8 to 10 chapters, I haven't decided yet, and involves the topic of self-mutilation. If you don't like, please don't read. It won't really contain rampant description of blood or gore or anything; it's more about the psychological reasoning and effects behind the disease. Nevertheless, this'll contain angst, swearing, unpleasant topic discussion, general unhappiness, and other stuff. It also addresses a disease called Deliberate Self-Harm Syndrome, which is basically when someone has the inexplicable urge to hurt themselves, whether that would be in the form of cutting, burning, breaking bones, etc. I've been wanting to write something like this for a while now, but first, the research itself disturbed the hell out of me and I almost trashed the whole idea because it's sort of like, it's none of my business because I myself have never been victim to severe trauma or anything. I mean, I never like it when people write about things that they don't seem to know anything about, and I don't expect anyone that's ever done this to not be slightly insulted by my open…topic…addressing. Whatever, I mean that I don't want to insult anybody by writing this in case they have ever done it. So please…don't be if you have because I'm not trying to be insensitive and all, 'whoo I want reviews so I'm going to write this!" I just sort of realized after a while that shit happens and as long as stuff like this is going on, someone should recognize it, right? So here it is. I wrote it several months ago, was told that it sucked and agreed, forgot about it, then dug it up two days and figured, hey! Why not? Therefore, this is badly written and amazingly rambly. I was told that it was boring but…I'm not going to listen to that. Anyhoo…I'm trying to make it as open and realistic as I possibly can. I have no idea when the next chapter will be out. Please give me C & C!

fallenbrokenbleeding…but still BreaTHinG

By NHSpartanGal14

We don't fare well with endless reprimands

We don't do well with a life served as a sentence

This won't work well if you're hell bent on your offense

I am a man who understands your reticence

~Alanis Morissette (A Man)

Chapter One ~ we don't fare well with endless reprimands

The first time I cut myself was in the sixth grade. I was eleven going on twelve and eerily pre-pubescent at the time, scared to death of anything involving blood or personal injury of a sort. I didn't even like sports as much as I should have because I was so scared of getting hurt. It's a little scary, and if you're more the 'half-full' rather than 'half-empty' kind of person, it's a little brilliant. Someone develops an addiction through a former slash current phobia. It sounds sick but fascinating at the same time, like one of those gross B-rated horror films that forever remain clichéd and predictable—it's so stupid that you're almost embarrassed to watch it, but you watch it anyway because it's too hard to get up and turn it off, or worse, you secretly want to watch it. I guess that's how it was for me. Not with movies—but with the whole cutting thing.

To tell the truth, I have no idea why I started. Okay, well that was a lie. My foster brother told me that if I cut in just the right spot down there, I'd get an orgasm. Not that I knew what the hell that was at the time. But I mean, I guess I always told myself that that was the only reason I started the whole big thing, and it was so easy to believe because it was so unjustifiable. It's sort of like, it's such a stupid reason that it actually makes sense because I was so stupid then. Does that make sense? Probably not. It used to. But when I think about now….when I really, truly, sit here on the bathroom floor with a razor in my hand and a dozen crimson slivers stretching across the lengths of my arms and think about how it all began for a simple little orgasm…well, it's pretty hard to believe myself. Someone doesn't just start slicing themselves up for something that they don't even know exists. Maybe some people do…but as ignorant and simple-minded as I was at the time, I knew that hurting myself the way I was doing wasn't normal. Or right. But then why did I keep doing it? On a skin-deep level, there just wasn't a legitimate motive behind the whole thing. Okay, you can scratch the surface and scratch some more and discover some sort of subconscience within a labyrinth of childish simplicity and inane fluff. But…until then…until I even try and scratch the surface, what kind of motive is there?

Course, once in a while, it all felt like some badly manufactured puzzle—nothing would fit together where it was supposed to. But most of the time, I was just a mediocre little middle school boy trying to fit in. Sure, sometimes I would freak out and wish that things were different, but who doesn't once in a while? Who doesn't wake up every so often with a throbbing head and an insane buzzing in his ear and think, 'man, my life is so fucked up!'? We've all had those days. Maybe I've had more, maybe less. Who knows. All I can say is, I didn't think myself any less ordinary than any other quasi-macho certified pretty boy of the sixth grade. And I certainly wanted nothing more than to live, be happy, be accepted.

Or maybe I did want more. Correction: I definitely did want more. The trouble is, it's hard to tell what it was I wanted so badly, so badly that it drove me to this. I don't even know what I want…not then, not now. It's scary, scary, scary. I mean, I know that until I try and scratch the surface or whatever, I'll never know what I want. And ninety-nine percent of me really doesn't want to. It's scary not to know, but it'd be even scarier to. I mean, what then? Okay, I know, so I'll move on? Now that I know myself, this sick obsession will magically obliterate? No. Knowing means confrontation, and I fear confrontation more than any other thing. Confrontation with myself, my problems, Lance, Todd, Fred, whoever. Not so much Evan Daniels, and I think that was because I knew that he didn't know me any better than I did. Yeah, that's it—that's why I was never as scared of him or the X-freaks as I was of my own brothers—I knew they could never touch me and because of that I felt safe being around them. With Lance or Todd or even Fred, everything seemed clearer, more realistic, so much colder and sharper. I'm pretty sure that Lance could read me like a book if given a chance. Maybe he would want to help, but it's scary and intimidating nonetheless and the reason that I never allowed myself to be close with him, or any of them. What if they figure me out like some sort of intricate math problem, label me right or wrong, and define my worthiness by their own personal outcomes? I know I keep saying that it's scary, but there's no other way I can describe it. They would hear me out, listen to my equation, then attempt to figure me out. It just wouldn't work. Thus the reason that I don't tell anyone, don't know, and don't even want to know.

Imagine being blindfolded your entire life, led about on a leash. You don't know what the hell is going on. You don't know when someone is going to stick out their foot, or walk you right into a wall, or anything because you don't even know who the fuck is leading you. You know that life's got its ups and downs, but other than that it's a dark little world for you. And then, one day, just one ordinary old day, your blindfold gets ripped off and you're blinded by light and shit and whatnot. It hurts and you could do nothing to prevent it—and suddenly you're supposed to frolic around like you were never blind, never living in darkness. And you're supposed to accept and even enjoy this newfound sight, like it was a good thing. But what would they say—God, what would they say if they know that you always had a choice? You always had a choice to remove that damn blindfold and you never did because you were scared? What would they say?

I guess I realize that that's what it'll come to some day. For me. I'll lose the blindfold and I'll be expected to love and live like I could always see. And I'll hate it. Heaven help me, maybe one day in the far, far future, I'll embrace it—but until then, I know I'll hate it and I probably won't last till that day, anyway. It's so scary, not knowing when you're going to have to know…it's just so scary. See, cutting myself wasn't the bad part. Neither was the not knowing. It was the not knowing when I would know that was the bitch.

end of chapter one