Connie
You'd think in twenty odd years as a cutter you'd get to learn the addiction inside and out. How it feels, how to avoid detection, when is a good time to cut and when most certainly isn't. And for me, that's the way it is, the way it has been for as long as I can remember. The routine comes as easily to me as taking a breath, drinking a glass of wine. And yes, occasionally there's a break from the norm - my husband throwing a fit or an excessive bout of guilt attached to some over enthusiastic slicing and dicing but those breaks in themselves have become part of the routine. And once again I know exactly where I stand, secure in the knowledge and understanding of what I'm doing.
In control.
All of which makes it pretty hard for me to come to terms with the fact that this evening I broke every rule in the book. Cut where I shouldn't. Got caught. Confessed all.
I should start at the beginning.
I did it over Zubin Kahn.
Not literally over him. Even I can see that drenching him in my blood after convincing the Board to force his resignation might have been very slightly sacrificial.
Sorry. Cutters humour, and probably not that funny.
I delivered my bombshell to him and found myself in the unenviable position of feeling bad about it. Feeling guilty. I didn't let it show, far be it from Cruella De Beauchamp to show that she has a heart, but I felt it all the same. Yes, I hate Zubin but I also know how much being a doctor matters to me.
How I'd feel if someone took that away from me.
The guilt isn't why I cut though, not directly.
I cut because I was feeling compassion for someone I wholeheartedly despise, and I'm sorry, the two things don't really go together.
I'll be ringing up HER next and asking if she wants to do lunch.
I made for my office, that 'feeling' coursing through me. That ache, that need to get control of the situation.
Only one problem. I don't cut on the job. Too many professionals around, and besides, on the job
I'm the Doctor, not the Cutter, and never the Twain shall meet.
Except then.
In that one moment.
I grabbed a pair of scissors from my desk tidy, didn't even make it to my chair, just threw myself down on the floor, utterly and quite ridiculously grateful for the soft carpet I'd wangled myself. I was wearing a skirt so access wasn't a problem.
Although…
I stopped, the blade inches from my legs. I'd have be careful not to lose control, the skirt was short, there was only so much you can do with a tube of foundation.
I ripped off my jacket, undid my blouse, reached again for the scissors.
I'm not going to spell it out to you. Far be it from me to incite anyone else into trying it. I just did my thing. Made the marks, the furious red lines that covered my breasts.
I only meant to be quick. Nothing major. Just enough to calm myself down so I could drive home.
No such luck.
Guess
which 'experienced' surgeon caught an old scar at just the wrong
angle?
Guess which 'experienced' cutter forgot to lock the
door?
Guess which mistakes came to my attention at the exact same
moment?
I turned my attention to the door first, being as it was, open with one Ric Griffin standing in it.
Seconds later I pulled my blouse around me, desperately trying to shield my handiwork from view.
A waste of time as it happens. On two counts.
He'd already seen, and even if he hadn't the blood seeping through from my last cut would have been a pretty good indicator.
In that moment, seeing the look of pity in his eyes I actually wanted to kill myself. I mean its one thing him knowing that I used to have a problem, its another thing entirely him walking in on me 'at it'. Even Michael's only been there once and I can assure you THAT is never happening again, not after his reaction.
But there was a difference between Michael and Ric. I suppose it's a love thing really. Michael actually felt compelled to pretend he cared. I can still see him now, sat on the bed in our honeymoon suite, a look of anguish on his face.
Ric on the other hand, well Ric was actually very good. Came fully into my office, locked the door behind him - why didn't I think of that - slowly crossed the room and knelt at my side.
His expression was nothing if not neutral and when he reached for my hand, released it from my blouse so my chest and stomach were exposed once more, I couldn't bring myself to argue.
"I knew it."
Three words. Three pointless words confirming what I already knew. That last time I'd been half-naked with him in this office he'd known what he was now having confirmed for him.
Without a word he helped me up. Sat me at my desk then turned me on my swivel chair to face him and touched my breast.
With the touch of a doctor I hasten to add, not that of a lover. That was how he looked at me too, as a patient. He surveyed the deep gash. An old scar, long forgotten, back to haunt me.
"That was unintentional."
Again, three words but this time less pointless. Joe public has their view of self-harm, big deep gashes all the way. For me, and others too I suspect, that's not always the case. Sometimes little scratches will suffice, or a tiny nick. Sometimes the gashes grow over time. The blood doesn't always have to be flowing. If Ric knew that then there had to be a reason…
I asked him.
"My ex wife. She has a similar habit."
I was tempted to ask which ex wife but was distracted by him heading for the door. I suddenly had images of him telling the world and more specifically the Board - even Michael wouldn't be able to help me lie my way out of this one.
He clearly saw the anguish in my eyes because he quickly reassured me. He wasn't about to go and provide a Holby Newsflash via Donna Jackson, he just wanted to get a gauze to dress the cut, to keep it clean, to stop it scarring any more
I let him go but I was in two minds. I dress my wounds out of necessity; to keep that white shirt looking crisp, to protect the sheets when staying with friends, that kind of thing. I do not dress them to stop them scarring. I like the scarring. It reminds me where I've come from.
My roadmap of a body was a testament to that.
All the same though, I didn't argue with Ric when he returned, just watched him numbly as he cleaned and dressed the wound.
He paid more attention to that cut that I have to all my others in total. It made me feel sick. It made me want to pull off the dressing and start all over again.
But I couldn't.
That much was obvious.
It didn't stop the feeling getting worse though. Especially when Ric told me I WAS going for a drink with him.
Saying no wasn't an option.
And you know how I feel about that.
What happened next though is interesting. Dramatic. I think I'll love Ric for it, in the loosest possible sense of the word, forever. He took me a casino near the hospital. He seated me in the bar, returning 5 minutes later with a Brandy for himself and a Gin and Tonic for me. He sat opposite me and then, with a grin, threw something onto the table.
In spite of my black mood I laughed when I saw it.
A pack of cards.
He grinned back, "That's me putting all my cards on the table."
Cheap puns aside, I saw his point, I knew through the Holby grapevine about his gambling habit.
His gambling addiction. This was him admitting it to me in his own way.
He looked at me pointedly, as if he was waiting for something.
Suddenly I realised what.
Reluctantly and almost mechanically I reached for my handbag, opened it and rifled through it. Eventually when I'd gathered all I was going to I looked him right in the eyes,
"And this is me putting down mine."
A scalpel, half a credit card, a nail file, a razor blade and a darning needle joined his cards on the table in front of us.
Two addicts. One bar.
It was going to be a long night...
----
I didn't want to talk to him. Not at first. Its been 17 long years since I last explained to anyone why I cut. Occasionally I've thrown it at Michael mid argument but that's not the same as telling someone for the first time; that's nothing he hasn't heard before.
Ultimately though I knew I couldn't sit there and say nothing. Ric wouldn't accept that and right now, thanks to my own stupidity, he had me pretty much over a barrel.
All
the same, I said nothing to begin with. And when I did eventually
tear us from a long silence spent staring at our own individual
weapons of choice it wasn't to talk about me. Not directly.
I
asked the question I'd wanted to ask him since we'd been in my
office.
Which of his wives had been just like me?
Keira.
I think he said she was wife number three, although to listen to him I think all four of them are pretty much one of the same now. Mistakes in his past, blots on his copybook. Her story wasn't a million miles away from mine. A bad childhood, a need to control that led to 'the habit', the habit that led to her seeking out another addict to marry.
To have someone who understood what it was like.
The thing was Ric wasn't like Michael. He couldn't understand. Granted, he knew the feelings involved, the compulsion, the rush. He could draw some parallels with his own gambling but he couldn't get past the actual act.
Couldn't
live with the blood, the tears.
Couldn't live with her.
I
wanted to hate him for that, for abandoning her. I knew how much she
needed his acceptance, his confirmation that she didn't have a screw
loose, she was only doing what was necessary.
Me and you against
the world and all that…
But then again I understood. Couldn't feel that hate. You know why?
Because if I was married to me, I'd have left myself years ago.
Anyone would.
Except
the junkie who needs me to reaffirm his sanity as much as I need him
to reaffirm mine.
It's not love with Michael and I. We just need
each other.
I repeat, me and you against the world.
But tonight it wasn't me and Michael. It wasn't me and my emotional crutch. It wasn't me and the man I could use the words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' to every time he tried to insist I was walking a very dangerous path.
I was with Ric.
A man who was fighting his addiction and who for no reason I can figure seemed hell bent on trying to get me to fight mine.
After he told me about his wife, he gently tried to prise the truth out of me, starting with why my apparently sane and sensible husband had never tried to help me.
I said he had. He'd tried to turn me into a junkie too.
Ric picked up on the 'too' but didn't push me to discuss it. I think he sensed that Michael's problem was not mine to share.
He didn't seem shocked though nor appalled by the principle. Apparently he'd caught Keira cutting once and in shear desperation dragged her to a casino and forced her to gamble away a months rent.
It didn't work for her either.
But its interesting that men the world over are coming up with the said same ways to remove the razor blades from their partners hands.
For the record though, it doesn't look like it works so I wouldn't waste your cocaine on the cutter in your life.
I think it was realising how close 'we' were to 'them' that prompted me to talk. To tell Ric my whole ugly story in glorious Technicolor.
I started with the night Will Curtis died.
Cutting deeper than I've ever cut before. Using the scalpel that couldn't save him. Having to suture the cut myself without the aid of an anaesthetic. Ripping the stitches out minutes later because 'he died and I couldn't stop it'.
And then I worked back.
Countless
nights. Countless attacks against my own body.
Our honeymoon on a
gorgeous cruise ship, the pool on deck that I couldn't swim in
because my body was too disturbing for public display.
The
wedding.
Meeting my knight in shining armour only to find out
that armour was as tarnished as I was.
Medical school.
The
first time.
The bulimia. The anorexia. Her. My dad.
Finding my
mummy dead on the floor. Wishing I'd been a better daughter, a more
special daughter, the kind of daughter that would make her want to
live.
Ric said nothing. Just let me talk. And I did talk, plainly, matter of factly and calmly. Until I got to the bit about mum. What her death meant to me. What her depression meant to me.
Then I cried.
And that was a big thing, because I don't cry. Oh, don't get me wrong, I do occasionally weep. I weep in a self-pitying pathetic fashion in faux guilt over the cutting, or more usually if Michael isn't letting me have my own way.
Empty tears.
If I need a real release its in private. And its not with tears, its with drops of blood.
Same shape, different colour.
But not tonight. Tonight I sat in Ric's arms and cried, I'd go far as to say sobbed, like I was never ever going to stop. And he held me, and stroked my back and kissed my head like daddy used to in the days before I turned vile and he stopped loving me. Like he did when he told me mummy was gone.
I
felt 8 again.
Ric made me feel 8 again.
Which is quite pervy
considering we've fucked each other.
But I digress.
So I cried, and felt 8 and generally made a show of myself and when I finally reached the point where it didn't feel like there were any tears left in me I collapsed in an exhausted heap in Ric's arms.
Silence.
The discreet bar tender used the break in conversation as an opportunity to take a drinks order and bring it over.
When he'd gone, Ric placed a hand under my chin, tilted my head up so I was looking into his eyes.
"I bet you didn't mention any of that to the Board at your interview."
I forced a smile.
"You
don't make bets. You quit."
He pulled me closer to him.
"Some
odds are just too good to ignore."
We talked for hours after that. Round in circles mainly. He kept saying stupid things like how much he respected me which is clearly crap because what's to respect? Yeah, I'm a fabulous surgeon and a pretty excellent lay, but he's no slouch in those departments either. I kept coming up with a million and one reasons why cutting myself to shreds was a damn fine way to spend an evening. He kept insisting that I was in denial if I thought I had an ounce of control over my habit. I cried over not being able to save my mum, Will, COOP Dividend Points.
It's the plastic cards you see. Perfect to snap in half and scratch myself with in the absence of a more conventional tool.
He tried to tell me none of those things were my fault.
I refused to believe him.
I seem to recall there was a bit of whimpering about the situation with having a family or lack thereof as well.
You seeing a theme here? Sensing that maybe the whole conversation was more than a little bit self centred on my part? In fact it took until just past midnight for me to turn the conversation back on to Ric himself, when I finally realised the significance of where we were.
I looked at him, during a break in the constant Connie commentary (don't try saying that when you're drunk), a puzzled look on my face.
"Why are we here? This is a casino. Don't you want to go and blow the very generous wage I pay you on the turn of a card or a little ball falling on a number."
He nodded.
"There's nothing I want more."
"So why are we here?"
He reached for my hand, "Connie we're here to show you that with a bit of effort I learnt to control the craving instead of letting it control me."
Suddenly I saw it.
"You're going to tell me I can do that too?"
He shrugged, "I don't know. Can you?"
And you know I really don't know if I can. While I was with Ric, in his arms, there was a glimmer of hope that I could sort my life out. As we shared a taxi home and he encouraged me to seek professional help I could see a future without cutting, a future with a baby, a new start.
Sounds promising eh?
Some hope.
You see, as I walked through my front door and found my husband passed out on the sofa, a rolled £50 note on the coffee table and enough white powder residue to know he hadn't been using it as a pea shooter or something, reality kicked in.
It wasn't Michael. Not really. It was the reality that what I should have kept behind closed doors was now in the public domain. I had told Ric EVERYTHING. I'd made myself look weak and pathetic and everything Connie Beauchamp isn't meant to be.
And I hated myself for it.
I bet you can't guess how I handled that one…
Yeah. You've got it in one.
It's a shame Ric wasted his time on me.
A leopard can't change its spots. And neither can I.
