Mary Alice Brandon
Outtake from Self Medicating – Emmy1512
Read Self Medicating first, or this will just seem like angsty rambling and make no sense what-so-ever.
10th of May, 2008. (Six months before admission to Greenside Psychiatric)
I thought I was making progress. It has been weeks since I last hurt myself. But in the space of a few hours, everything has turned on its arse. I am now sitting in a stall at school, wondering how the fuck I got here, and how I am meant to stop the blood now running tiny rivers down my arm. The blade I had used just minutes ago is lying reverently next to me, as if it is something to be venerated. I did, but others see it as a tool of destruction, a way that I cut family's apart, a way to slice the bond between friends. That's all they see this as. It is a way for me to move in and everyone else to move out. I know it isn't that though. This is the thing that I use to keep people from being close to me. I hurt myself, so they can't hurt me.
I'm writing in this stupid book instead of stopping the bleeding. I can't see a point in that at the moment. It's bleeding onto my spare jumper. I'll shove that into my locker later. The teacher will contact the guidance counsellor, and I'll tell her I felt down, so took some time to myself. I will promise that I didn't hurt myself, and life will go back to "normal".
I want to scream. The compulsion to hurt myself is too great. It's like I'm a completely different person sometimes. My thoughts are different, my behaviour is different. Even my damned handwriting changes. But I know these different times are just the emotions.
Emotion changes everything.
1st of June, 2008. (5 months and two weeks before admission to Greenside Psychiatric)
It's the first of June, the beginning of a new month, and the beginning of a new season. It's Monday; the beginning of a new week. So why does it just seem like the same damn old shit? Because it is. There is no new beginning. Ever. I will always be the same broken trash.
-
I don't know why I bother. All I'm ever doing is lying to people, hurting them. I lied to my mother this morning. We used to be so close. 'Like bread and butter, we go together'. Our stupid little saying, our stupid little 'in-jokes'... they mean nothing now. All I do is lie to her. All I do is make her believe I'm ok. It's not like before... it's not like when I could tell her about everything.
She knew the day that I "fell in love", the moment I failed my first exam. Most parents would be angry about something like that, right? Not my mom; she took my out for a chocolate frappucino and told me that it was ok. That she knew I was brilliant, and one stupid test means nothing. Next time, she knew I'd do better. I got full marks on the next two tests, leading to the teacher to mark the failed one via "pro rata" or whatever. A failed test, never on my middle school records. Not before I was fifteen.
After fifteen and six months, everything started to drop. Slowly, but surely, to the point that mom expected C's, not A's. And a record card saying I was absent often, and when I was present, it was as if I were somewhere else, that was what my mother expected too.
Mom stopped questioning it. She brushed it off as my rebellious stage. Perhaps if she hadn't, perhaps if I had told her the truth... I wouldn't be here now...
-
Now? Now I'm sitting in my beat up old car in the work car park, holding a blade to my leg and pulling across. I have enough Band-Aid's in my bag to stop the blood from leaking through onto my work pants. That has happened once. The panic attack that ensued was enough to make me more cautious next time.
I find it amusing that the one thing I don't lie to is this book. A pen and a ream of paper, bound by a spiral. Inanimate tell all my secrets.
I know that is it freezing, but I think we have to walk.
We keep waving at the taxis; they keep turning their lights off.
...
When everything is lonely I can be my own best friend.
7th of June, 2008. (Five months, one week before admission to Greenside Psychiatric)
SCREAM. PAIN. HATE. LIES. STUPID. WHORE. EVIL. BROKEN. WILTED. DEAD. ALONE. FIGHT. SMILE.
Fake it. Never, ever, cry.
8th of June, 2008. (Five months, six days before admission to Greenside Psychiatric)
Have you ever wondered if all those people you see smiling and laughing and joking are really happy?
I mean... if I can fake it that well, surely they can too?
I'm not sure if I hope they're happy or if I hope they're not. If they are happy, it'll give me a little hope... maybe. But if they are faking it... it means I'm not alone.
8th of July, 2008. (Four months, six days before admission to Greenside Psychiatric)
Moods fluctuate, and yet my belief that I am worthless doesn't.
I know it's been a month since I last wrote. Please don't think I've abandoned you, my one friend. Please...
I've been seeing a psychologist. I hate her. She is... annoying. She pretends she understands what I'm saying. I know it isn't possible. I don't even understand what I'm saying half the time.
She says I have "Major Depressive Disorder". A tag the psychiatrist gave me, and told the psychologist to relay to me.
What does what it's called matter? Will it make the feelings lessen? Will it tell me what I am and give me a reason? No. It gives me a tag to hang around my neck and let people read and laugh at.
I want nothing more than to have the pain ended and I will rot in my grave for eternity.
So why don't I do this? It's not that I don't want death. It's that I don't deserve it. I don't deserve the peace, the ease, that is death. I deserve to suffer. I deserve to pay for what I let... for what... for... fuck I can't even write it in the damn diary.
You got wires... going in.
You got wires... coming out of your skin.
You got dry blood, on your wrist.
Your dry blood, on my fingertips.