Elsa always wore long sleeves, even in summer. The heat sort of bothered her, but she didn't want Anna to see and think she was a monster or something.
It had started when she was little. Papa told her not to feel, but she knew making ice and snow was bad, so she hit herself. Pulled her hair and banged her head on the floor. And it sort of helped; it didn't make her powers go away, but it helped her feel better. When she got older she learned how to create a super-sharp blade of ice, and would use that on the inside of her arm, where the nerves were, or the bottom of her feet, where she felt it every time she took a step. It gave her something else to focus on, something to distract from the fear of someone seeing her ice and thinking she was a monster, or Anna seeing and remembering and dying from the ice in her head.
—
"Hey Elsa?" Anna entered her room without knocking, startling Elsa into jerking her hand, cutting deeper than she'd intended.
"Shit." Elsa hissed, clasping her hand over the wound.
"Elsa, what's wrong?" Anna walked around the bed.
"Just a second!" Elsa burst, running into her bathroom.
"Elsa? Why do you have an ice knife?" Anna asked through the door. "It's bloody, why were you hurting yourself? Are you alright? Should I go get someone?"
"I'm fine, Anna." Elsa managed, sitting against the door. "No no no no no no…" She sobbed quietly.
"Do you need bandages or something?"
"Please, Anna, leave me alone." She cried, making another blade and holding it hesitantly. She had already cut what was probably too deep, but gods, now Anna knew…
"No." Anna said resolutely from the other side of the door. Elsa's hand shook with emotion, blood trickling from her wound and down her dress. "Elsa, why would you do that?" Elsa put the blade down, then picked it up again. "Elsa, I love you. You know that, right?"
"I know." She choked. "I know. I love you too, Anna." Salty tears mingled with blood on her dress.
"Please open the door, Elsa? Please? I just want to make sure you're okay."
"I'm not going to die, Anna." She could never do that, never leave her sister to have to deal with running a kingdom. She felt a slight movement against the door.
"If you don't open the door in an hour, I'm going to get a hair pin and pick the lock." Anna informed her quietly, sitting against the door on the other side.
Elsa spent half an hour with her ice blade hovering over her arm before deciding she couldn't, not now. She cleaned her arm and dress, wrapping a strip of cloth around her cut and pulling her sleeve over it; but she couldn't bring herself to open the door. She curled up in the bathtub, cradling her wounded arm to her chest, letting her tears drip down the drain. She heard Anna's footsteps leave and then return, and then the doorknob jiggling until it finally opened. Elsa didn't move.
"Elsa?" Anna asked quietly, stroking her older sister's hair. Elsa began to sob again, curling tighter into herself. Anna climbed into the tub and pulled Elsa into her lap, just holding the young woman and rocking slightly.
"I'm so sorry." Elsa choked out.
"Elsa, why would you do that?" Anna asked, her tone one of worry, not anger like Elsa feared. Elsa just shook her head, unable to put it into words. The stress of the entire kingdom both relying on her and hating her… Cutting herself just helped somehow. When Elsa had calmed down some, they moved to her bed and shut the door.
"Just, just talk to me okay?" Anna asked, holding Elsa's hand.
"Okay." Elsa whispered, staring at her lap.
"Why do you do that?"
"I… It… Helps?" She shrugged.
"Helps with what?"
"I don't know…" Elsa released a breath, puffing her cheeks out. "Stress?"
"What are you so stressed about?"
"Everything." Elsa responded immediately in a sigh.
"Please don't do that again, Elsa. I love you, and I hate to see you hurt. If you love me, please don't hurt yourself again." Anna squeezed her sister's hand, who nodded. The girls hugged.
That night, Elsa paced her bedroom. She had told Anna she wouldn't. But she really really needed to. But Anna hated to see her hurt. But she really really needed to. But if she loved Anna, she wouldn't. The next thing she knew she was carving lines into the bottom of her foot, grasping her toes to keep her foot from spasming.
The next morning her feet were red and painful as she walked to breakfast, but she told herself she deserved it for making Anna upset.
"You doing alright?" Anna asked, hugging her.
"No." Elsa said truthfully, swallowing a sob.
"Did you do it again?"
"No." Elsa tried to fake a smile.
Elsa cut again that night, farther down her arm, away from where her wound was still healing. She debated doing it on her other arm, but she wasn't confident about using her non-dominant hand.
After breakfast the next morning, Anna pulled Elsa to the younger girl's bedroom.
"You told me you wouldn't!" She pointed at Elsa's arm, where the 3/4 sleeve had ridden up, exposing the scabbed-over line. Elsa pulled it down and looked away, tears starting up again. "Elsa I told you I hate seeing you hurt! Why did you do it again?"
"I can't stop." Elsa whispered. "Anna, I love you, but I can't stop, don't ask me to because I just CAN'T." Her voice broke on the last word.
"Elsa?" Anna's voice was soft. "Elsa, how long have you been doing this?"
"Since you got the white streak in your hair. Since you forgot about my powers. Since we stopped talking. Since I hurt you and you almost died and it was all my fault." Elsa sobbed. "I'm sorry, Anna, but I can't stop." Anna hugged her tight.
"You said it was because you were stressed. Talk to me, okay? Let me help. Do you think you can do that? Try that first?" She amended.
"Even in the middle of the night?" Elsa whispered.
"That's what sisters are for. Can you promise me you'll try talking first?" Anna stepped back, taking Elsa's hands in her own. Elsa nodded, tears dropping to her dress.
—
Elsa began venting to her sister about the woes of their nation and her allies every night. She was pretty sure Anna saw through her lie when she said she didn't hurt herself anymore, but Anna didn't say anything. Elsa didn't feel the need to cut herself as often. A lot of the time she'd pace while she talked to Anna, then go across the hall to her own room and fall asleep of exhaustion. She still cut herself occasionally, mostly on the bottoms of her feet, but it was becoming more and more infrequent as Arendelle settled into a time of prosperity, Elsa talked about what was bothering her with her sister, and also found other ways to relieve the stress of being a 22 year old monarch.
—
"Anna?" Elsa asked shyly.
"What's up?" Her sister grinned. Elsa didn't know if it was her sister's naiveté or boundless optimism that allowed her to not think of Elsa's shameful habit first thing, but she was glad. Just as her little sister saw her through her powers, Anna didn't let Elsa's emotional problems cloud her vision from her big sister.
"I, um…" Elsa wasn't exactly sure how to put this, but she wanted Anna to know. She so hoped her little sister would understand and be proud of her. "I haven't done it for a week." She glanced at Anna nervously before staring at her clasped hands. "The last time was last Tuesday and it's Thursday today…" She froze as something crashed into her, wrapped around her, but relaxed when she realized it was Anna hugging her tight.
"Oh my gosh, Elsa, that's great!" Anna enthused, grinning. "That's really really great!" The girls ignored the fact that Elsa had just admitted to lying about not hurting herself earlier. Elsa was incredibly grateful Anna didn't call her on it, and instead chose to celebrate her small victory, pulling her to the kitchen for chocolates.
Like all good things in Elsa's life, she fucked it up. Friday night she awoke from a nightmare, and without being really conscious of what she was doing, she made a knife and began to cut lines into her arm. When her senses returned, she quickly turned the knife into a snowball, opening her window and throwing it away. It barely helped, she knew she could make another knife in seconds. She tended to her wounds mechanically, falling back into the same not-really-there state she'd been in when receiving them.
The small clock on the mantle chimed 3:15 and Elsa debated waking Anna. The redhead had said Elsa could go to her whenever, but had she truly understood what that meant? And could Elsa bear to burden her again, the day after they'd celebrated her getting better? Anna didn't deserve that kind of sadness in her life. She didn't deserve any sadness, but she'd gotten stuck with Elsa as a sister, who seemed to do nothing but bring sadness. It wasn't like Anna could do anything, heal Elsa's wounds, or go back in time and stop Elsa from hurting herself. So the blonde curled up in bed, resolving to not hurt her sister with news of her mistake.
—
"Elsa?" Anna found her sister curled up in a large armchair in the library Saturday evening, but the chair had been taken from its place near the fire, turned toward the corner of the room, and Elsa wasn't reading. "Elsa, why are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding." Elsa lied unconvincingly.
"So, did you put yourself in time-out?" Anna asked, eyeing the corner of the room her sister had been staring at. With a jolt in her stomach, Elsa realized that was essentially what she did. She'd been trying to avoid disappointing Anna and had subconsciously sent herself to time-out. And Anna had still found her. "Elsa, what's wrong? I haven't seen you all day, and it's the weekend…" Elsa looked away from her sister, curling up tighter in the chair. Anna took the opportunity to take up the space she wasn't using, squeezing next to the blonde in the chair. "I know talking is still really scary, but I'm not going to get mad at you." Anna promised quietly. She waited while Elsa's emotions warred inside her.
"You don't deserve to have me as a big sister." Elsa murmured eventually.
"What?" Anna asked, confused.
"You shouldn't have to deal with having a screw-up like me for a sister." Elsa edited the cuss words out. "And I certainly don't deserve someone as wonderful as you as my baby sister."
"Elsa, you're not a screw-up, and I'm not half as wonderful as you. You were so happy the other day, what happened?"
Anna gently laid a hand on Elsa's shoulder, but at the reminder of what they had celebrated just two days before, Elsa impulsively did something she hadn't in over a decade. Leaning forward, she turned her head swiftly, banging it into the wooden edge of the chair's headrest.
"Elsa!" Anna instantly pulled her into a hug, away from the edge of the chair, one hand on the back of Elsa's head as the blonde broke into sobs. Not only had she just hurt herself again, she'd done it right in front of Anna. She didn't even have the self-control to not hurt herself with her baby sister right beside her.
It took her a few minutes to calm down, trying to pull away to sit up properly when she regained control, but Anna held her head firm.
"Anna, I… I'm not going to do that." Elsa awkwardly squeezed her sister's hands. "Not right now. I just want to sit up. I'm sorry I scared you."
"Is… Is that what you were doing all day?" Anna asked quietly, keeping hold of Elsa's hand even as she released her sister's head.
"No." Elsa shook her head, starting to feel the headache/bruise starting, punishing her for her selfish impulsiveness. "I was…" She took a deep breath. "I was hiding. From you. I didn't want you to be disappointed in me. Too late now." Elsa got progressively quieter as she spoke.
"Elsa, I'm not disappointed. This is something you can't control, right?" Elsa froze as her sister hit the mark. "Or it's really really hard to control. So when you controlled it for a whole week, that's a really big accomplishment, and I'm not surprised you're taking a rest from resisting. Next time you feel strong enough to resist, I'm going to be just as proud of you. It was me talking about being happy and celebrating the day before yesterday, wasn't it?" Anna asked. Elsa swallowed as she nodded, wondering when her baby sister got so clever and perceptive. "Okay, I'll try not to do that anymore. But you don't have to be scared of disappointing me. I'm always gonna love you, Elsa. Even if there's this thing that makes you hurt yourself, even if you're not always strong enough to resist." Anna squeezed her hand. Elsa wasn't sure if Anna didn't understand what Elsa was fighting against, or if she understood better than even Elsa.
When Gerda found them she began to fuss over Elsa's darkening bruise, even though the blonde was holding a snowball against her head at her sister's request.
"What in the world happened?" The older woman asked as she gently moved Elsa's hand aside to examine the bruise. Elsa looked down.
"Well." Anna immediately jumped in. "I was looking for Elsa and she had fallen asleep in here and she was having a nightmare, a really bad one, and she managed to whack her face into the wood here before I could wake her up." Anna pointed to the section of the chair that Elsa had indeed whacked her head into. The blonde smiled at her sister in thanks.
"Oh, my dear." Gerda looked at her sympathetically. "You know bad dreams are nothing to be ashamed of." Elsa just nodded, still not looking at the woman who had helped care for her for so long. "Well, it's good you can talk to your sister about them at least. If you have any bruising tomorrow morning, I'm sure we can cover it up with some makeup. Try to get some sleep in a bed." She smiled gently at the pair before leaving.
"Thanks." Elsa murmured to her sister after Gerda left.
"Oh, I'm so glad that was okay, I wasn't sure if Gerda knows or not, but I figured if she did know you'd stop me, and you didn't." Anna babbled.
"You're the only one who knows." Elsa bit her lip.
"Royal Sister Secret, got it." Anna hugged her tight. "I'm really sorry I made you that upset." Anna gently guided the snowball back to Elsa's head.
"That's not your fault, Anna. I need to learn how to. Not do that." She still had trouble saying it aloud.
"No, I- I figured fighting it was hard and I went and brought it up. I should've known better and now you're gonna have a huge bruise."
—
Thinking of it like Anna did, as something other, something not part of Elsa made it a little easier to resist the urges to hurt herself. If she was fighting something else, something that wanted to hurt Anna through her, it was easier than trying to fight herself.
A few weeks later Elsa woke from a nightmare and stopped herself with the knife only half-formed. With shaking hands, she threw it to the floor and crept to her sister's room. Even though Anna barely woke long enough to say she could enter, Elsa crawled into bed with her, taking deep breaths. She couldn't hurt herself in front of Anna. She didn't want to scare her sister like she had in the library ever again. The terror on Anna's face as she was forced to watch her big sister slam her head into hard wood… Elsa didn't want her sister to have to deal with that. It was bad enough that it had happened once, she couldn't allow it to happen again. 'Like I had sworn as a child that I would never hurt Anna with my powers ever again?' she remembered. She tried to calm herself. Keeping Anna from having to watch her while she was hurting herself was easier than never losing control of her powers ever again. But still, she'd lost her composure that day in the library. If she couldn't even wait until she was away from her baby sister… But she could. That was why she was curled up in Anna's bed in the first place. To make herself wait until the urge had passed, until she was safe to be alone. With her power, it was a matter of keeping her emotions under control, a very difficult thing to do at times. With her habit of hurting herself, it was a matter of patience, and Elsa could be patient. She could wait here, with the chance of Anna waking up at any moment.
—
"Please excuse me for a few minutes." Elsa rose from the table, the government officials barely glancing at her as they continued to argue. If anyone had looked at the armrests of her chair, they would have found them covered with frost.
"Stop." Elsa whispered to herself, carving lines on her arm again, over her old healed scars. "You shouldn't be doing this, you need to stop." She got slightly louder. "Stop it, Elsa, stop it right now! You were doing so well! What will Anna think?" But still she continued. She had already started, already broken her longest streak of consecutive days without hurting herself. What was a few more cuts? And she deserved to hurt for the hurt this would bring Anna.
"Elsa?" Anna knocked at the door.
"Just a minute, Anna." Elsa took a small amount of pride in the steadiness of her voice as she went to her bathroom and dropped the blade in the sink.
"Kai said you walked out of a government meeting, are you okay?"
"Honestly, no, but we can talk in a minute. I've made a bit of a mess, just let me tidy up." She was already wrapping a strip of cloth around her cuts, hoping her sister understood the meaning of her words.
"Elsa, you know I don't care about that."
"But I do. Just a moment longer, Anna." She put her medicinal things away and washed her hands, making her knife melt. She pulled her sleeves down as she crossed her bedroom and opened the door to give her little sister a big hug.
"Elsa, what's going on?" Anna held her tight. "You never walk out of meetings."
"I'm so sorry." Elsa whispered thickly, shutting the door. "I let you down and I'm so so sorry, Anna."
"What is it, what happened? Were you discussing something that affects me or…?" Anna was confused, no idea why her sister was hugging her and crying after walking out of a meeting.
"I tried to be strong, I tried to fight it. I'm so sorry I let you down."
"Oh. You… You hurt yourself again?" Anna asked. Elsa nodded, still not letting go of Anna. "Elsa, that's okay. That's not a big deal. I'm so proud of you for being strong."
"But I wasn't strong." Elsa insisted. "After months of being strong, just starting to think I could do it, I was weak again."
"How many months?"
"Four. Four months and… seventeen days."
"Elsa, that's amazing!" Anna grinned, giving Elsa a squeeze. "Four and a half months! I'm so proud of you!" Elsa hugged her sister tighter, so thankful Anna chose to focus on Elsa's accomplishments before she failed. "C'mon, we have to go celebrate!" Anna pulled out of Elsa's hug to grab her hand.
"What? Anna I just walked out of a meeting with no explanation, we can't go celebrate." Elsa explained, not following her sister, wiping her face with a small smile.
"Then I'll be back in a minute." Anna grinned before dashing off. Elsa smiled; she had just admitted to hurting herself again, and Anna wanted to celebrate and trusted her to be on her own.
A few minutes later Anna returned, chocolates in hand. They were slightly melted from Anna's body heat, but a wave of Elsa's fingers cooled and solidified them again. Anna unwrapped one and held it in the air, Elsa watching her questioningly.
"Do it too." Anna whispered with a smile. Elsa hurried to copy her sister. "To four and a half months."
"To four and a half months." Elsa echoed, close to tears again as they ate the chocolate. She couldn't for the life of her conceive what she'd done to deserve Anna as a sister, but she was trying her best to earn it.
—
One morning Elsa sat down to breakfast to find a small cake on her plate bearing the word 'congratulations'.
"Anna, what's this about? My 25th birthday isn't for another few months." She chuckled.
"You haven't been counting?" Anna asked.
"Counting what? What am I supposed to be counting? The number of suitors I've turned down?" She smiled at her sister, utterly confused.
"Elsa." Anna explained quietly. "You haven't hurt yourself for a full year." Elsa immediately stood up and rounded the table, grabbing her sister in a tight hug, crying.
"Why are you crying? Did I miscount? Did you do it again?"
"Happy tears, Anna, happy tears." Elsa sobbed.
THE END
—
If you or anyone you know feels the urge to hurt themselves in any way, there are numerous resources to help, no matter where you live. (If someone you know is hurting themselves, don't use your love as an ultimatum or guilt-trip. It won't work, it will just make the person feel worse when they do self harm. People who hurt themselves need patience and a listening ear, not fear and ultimatums.)
There are free anonymous suicide hotlines where people will talk with you if you feel like you should kill yourself. Your friends and family are there to help you.
When you relapse, that's okay. Relapse is part of the process. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Take a big deep breath and tell yourself it's not a big deal, and you'll do better next time.
I know (trust me, I've been there, I KNOW) it's pants-shittingly terrifying, but you need to talk to someone.
My inbox is always open.
To not unbroken yet, I'm so proud of you for keeping going, for trying to stop hurting yourself. You're so strong for not giving up. It's not easy, but you'll get past this :) I believe in you.