Michael

When I was young there were three things my mother told me never to do. One of those was to forget to brush my teeth before bed. The second was to run out into the road without checking for cars. The third was any kind of illegal substance.

Points one and two I managed perfectly. Point three is something of a different story.

One thing she never warned me against however was marrying a woman whose idea of a good time is carving herself up. A shame I think in hindsight. She could have saved me a good deal of heartache and a fortune in laundry bills. At the very least she might have pointed out that if I was going to marry a self harmer it might make more sense to go for one with inexpensive taste in threads. Connie's designer gear seems to spend half its life at the dry cleaners, at least if she dressed from the high street we'd only have washing powder to pay for.

Apologies if I sound flippant about my wife's 'little problem' but if you'd lived with her for 17 years (15 of those as her husband) you too would be flippant on occasion. Don't take it to mean that I don't care – I do. I still have my moments where what she does shocks and appals me in equal measures but its such a large part of our life that I can't allow myself to feel that way all the time, hence the flippancy.

Connie's own attitude doesn't help mine either. What she does doesn't faze her, she barely seems to register the harm she's doing herself. To her the relationship she shares with her razor is no different to Joe Public and a cheap bottle of plonk. If your average woman has a bad day at the office she might expect her husband to open a bottle of chilled Chardonnay and listen to all her woes. If my wife has a bad day in theatre, she brings her scalpel home and locks herself in the bathroom. I'm not joking, nor being metaphorical here. The day Will Curtis died on her operating table she didn't even bother to wash the scalpel she'd been using on him, just bought it home in her briefcase, got it out in full view of me and disappeared upstairs.

You would think as a doctor the concept of cross contamination wouldn't be completely alien to her - but hey, that's my girl, a screwed up bundle of contradictions.

In the early days, the very early days there was still a degree of guilt involved on her behalf. She claims there still is but I'm not sure I believe her. I admit, I have seen the tears. I've lay beside her in bed and watched her sob, apparently disgusted by her own behaviour. But its happening less and less now and usually only when she's gone drastically overboard in the heat of the moment - cut too deep or more than she'd intended or dripped blood on our white hall carpet.

That's another thing my mother should have warned me about. The white carpet. Big mistake.
Now Connie would probably try and convince you that while she isn't perfect, neither am I. This is, I suppose, to some degree true. I admitted in my first paragraph that I have used illegal substances. Nicotine at 13 (well it was illegal then - at least for me), Cannabis at 16 or 17 and after that and to this day, Charlie. I don't know if addict is the right word to describe me. Connie would say it is but I prefer 'casual user' and getting more casual as the years go by. That's the difference between Connie and I. The older I get, the less I use. The older she gets… well you can probably work it out for yourself.

I have tackled her about the way her problem is escalating but she's quick to shrug off my concerns. Her cutting is apparently, only as frequent as her most frustrating days, and in her opinion since she's started working at Holby it just so happens that these days are more frequent, a case of all things relative and all that. And I would believe her but my girl thrives on pressure, loves her job. She wouldn't leave Holby if I asked her to.

That's the other major difference. If she asked me to stop taking drugs tomorrow I'd do it. It might not be easy - drugs are my chosen pleasure, I enjoy them, I like the buzz but if Connie asked, begged me to like I've begged her, I'd stop.

She on the other hand won't stop. Not for me. Not for herself. Not even so we can have a child, a child she desperately wants although she now tries to tell me otherwise. It's odd, because originally she was the one who didn't want a baby. She informed me on our honeymoon that under no circumstances were she, the cutter and I, the druggie going to produce offspring. I didn't blame her, given her difficult childhood which I knew full well was blighted by a mother who was nothing less than useless but back then I didn't see what harm it would do. Yes, I took drugs but that wouldn't make me a bad father unless I used them around the kid. It's not like I was going to buy my coke out of the housekeeping leaving the child starving - any child of ours would be amply provided for. And Con, armed with a sharp implement or not, was never a danger to anyone else, just herself.
But gradually, I've reassessed my thinking. I think a lot of it came from seeing what Connie's experience with her mother did to her. If we had children we'd been sentencing them to the said same fate. Not me so much, I could quit the drugs I've said that, but Connie would just end up producing a mini-version of herself.

I can't let her do it.
And she hates me for it.

She knows I'm right but since she asked me if she could come off of the pill and I said no she's found it hard to hide her resentment.

Then again I don't know if that's because she really wants a baby or just because I told her 'no'.
My wife doesn't like the word 'no'. It makes her stroppy and obnoxious. That's why I don't tend to say it very often but I'm not putting an innocent child through life with her just because she NEEDS to have her own way.

So, I think you can conclude from what I've said thus far that we are not a normal couple. Connie and Michael Beauchamp have always been very slightly warped.

Actually that's not true.

When we met Connie was a third year med. student. Bright. Bubbly. Incredibly smart. I'd graduated a few years before, was in a fairly low level management position in the hospital where she trained. I adored her on sight. I'd have been hard pushed not to. Connie is, was and ever will be the most beautiful woman in the world. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, for me she spotted me across the crowded hospital cafeteria and wanted me on sight too.

And what Connie wants Connie gets.

Even once she had her claws in I insisted on doing it all properly. The first date was a classy affair. A meal in the best restaurant I could afford, Champagne, the works. Even as I stared at her over our Crème Brulee's I knew this was the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.

The perfect date.

It started to fall apart the moment I tried to bed her. I'd have had to been off my face to ignore the scars that covered her. I did ask but she said she had a skin condition, said she scratched.

Bollocks.
Bollocks.
Bollocks.

I didn't get her to confess though. Mainly because I couldn't be bothered to ask. I know what it's like to have a secret, you don't give it up unless you have to.

The night I eventually got her to confess will stay in my head forever. I'd told her it was poker night. Me and the boys. She, predictably, didn't like being left out. She turned up on my doorstep just after the boys left. The residue was on the table. I'm sure she'd tell you that the evidence was on the edge of my nostril.

She pressured me. Made me feel like a criminal. A liar. I pointed out that she lied to me every time she mentioned her scars.

That was when she started talking.

It's a gutwrenching story. The poor baby with the manic depressive mother. The anorexic. The bulimic. The self harmer. Poor little Connie. The little girl who wanted for nothing but lost everything. These days I probably sound deprecating but back then I loved her, felt sorry for her.

I still do.

Always do.

That night was difficult for both of us. For her, it was the first time she ever trusted anyone enough to tell them why and how she cut. For me, it meant the grim realisation that the woman I loved was far from normal. Even then, while my heart was weeping for her my poor baby's lost childhood and scarred body, my head was telling me to get out.

"You don't need the hassle Michael."

"She. Cuts. Her. Self. Out of choice. Nutter. Clearly."

"Jump ship while you still can."

But how could I jump ship? It was too late. I was in love with her.

So, I accepted it. I had a girlfriend who used to come to bed bleeding, who would whimper in pain as I touched her - I can't say it was a turn on but she was still beautiful to me.

In return Connie tolerated the drugs. She disapproved but couldn't argue, because of her secret and because she loved me back.

On more than one occasion part of her student grant went on cocaine.

It was a fair trade. On more than one occasion I went to shave and found her blood on my razor.
Like I say, we weren't the most normal couple in the world but against the odds we really made a go of things, both with each other and in life generally. Two years after we initially met and fell in love my beautiful girl, by now out of medical school and on the wards, consented to become my wife.

The happiest day of our lives.

Hilarious.

You see it was on our wedding day that it started to hit me exactly what I was taking on.
Ironically the day was perfect. We married in a small church near where we lived. Connie floated down the aisle on the arm of her father, a vision in white, like a bloody princess.

A 'bloody' princess.

Now there IS irony.

It wasn't until we took the floor for our first dance that I realised there was a problem. Connie had chosen 'Stand By You' by The Pretenders (dark as 'first dances' go - but in truth, it suited us completely) and as I took her in my arms, placed my hand just above her waist, I felt the gauze.
Not directly of course, it was under her dress, but I felt the difference in textures, in levels and instantly I knew.

And she knew I know. She looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights.

My baby had cut herself on the morning of the happiest day of our lives.

To our wedding guests we were Mr and Mrs Beauchamp, swaying away to Chrissie Hynde's vocal. To us, things were far less idyllic.

We made it through the dance, barely. There was applause and The Pretenders were replaced with some cheesy disco song. She looked at me,

"Mike, I'm sorry. Annie dropped Bucks Fizz down her…"
Annie. Her Chief Bridesmaid. Clumsy bitch.

"… the car was running late."
One late car. One Bridesmaid covered in OJ and fizz.

I was fucking marrying her. Why should she give a shit? Her and her fucking control issues.

She sensed I wasn't being placated.

"And I wanted mummy here."

It was more than I could take. I wanted to smack her one. I know what they say, every girl needs her mum but her mum was fucking useless, her mum was the one who screwed her over. Claire, her step mum, had been more of a mum to her than her real mum had ever been. Why ruin our wedding day over her?

I walked away from her. I figured it was better than giving her a black eye. She might have enjoyed that.

The rest of the reception was a blur. I drank mainly, caught up with my friends. I did avoid coke though. I wouldn't have done that, not on our wedding day. I wanted to remember it all.

At one point she disappeared. I started to feel a bit guilty and when she came back I grabbed her arm, pulled her towards me, meaning to whisk her on to the dance floor and twirl her around in a romantic fashion.

That was when I saw it.

The blood on the sleeve of her gown.

It was a trace. To anyone else it wouldn't have been noticeable but I knew exactly what it was and what it meant.

It meant that not content with self harming on the morning of our wedding, my wife had decided to have a go during the reception as well. I gave her a questioning look.

She shrugged, "I let you down. Cutting this morning. I'm sorry."

Far and away the most stupid thing I'd ever heard. She'd eased her guilt over the morning's activities with a repeat performance.

I told you she was a bundle of contradictions.

It got worse.

She went up to the honeymoon suite before I did. I know I should have carried her over the threshold but I was too busy trying to bundle my very pissed bestman into a taxi. When I finally succeeded I made my way upstairs to make love to my gorgeous wife.

I suspect you have some idea of what I found, but what the hell, I might as well tell you anyway. It doesn't matter how many times I spell it out, I still can't quite get my head round it.

She was in the bathroom, leaning on the bath. Like her dress, the bathroom suite was white. Ditto the floor.

Oh, except for all the blood.

It's the only time I've ever seen my baby doing that. Hurting herself in that way. Before that and since that she wouldn't dare.

The worst thing was that I couldn't stop her, or rather couldn't bring myself to. I just watched as she went over old scars, opening them up. Stared at the blood like it was the Holy Grail. She was like an artist painting a masterpiece.

I can assure you. Taking cocaine doesn't compare.

We had our first fight that night. Our wedding night. She stomped up and down in her blood soaked wedding dress. I began to realise what married.

I think my habit got worse after that. It was easier than remembering my baby slicing herself to bits.

Easier than living with her too. Easier than having to look at the scars.

After a few months of waking up to blood stained sheets I thought getting her on Charlie was a good idea as well. I thought that if she was doing something I understood I'd cope with it better. Unfortunately Coke didn't do it for Con. Not enough control.

So this is us now.

This is our lives.

Ironically Connie thinks it's her cutting that keeps us together. She thinks I'm with her because she cuts, thus I have someone to keep my cocaine secret. Its ironic because I'm not with her because she self harms, I'm with her in spite of it. She thinks I love her because she cuts. Actually it repulses me. My life would be simpler if I could pack my bags and leave her. Find someone who has a normal life, who could have my child.

And you know I could do that. I'm not an unattractive man. I could be with someone else.

But someone else wouldn't be Connie.

And scars or not, she's my happily ever after.

End of.