Bleeding for Happiness

I have around three hundred scars on my left wrist. They were placed there on purpose. Everyone has their vices, but, until recently, mine included putting metal to skin. It's been a year and three months since I last cut myself. It hasn't been easy, but with support from my friends I'm slowly managing. This is my story.

Everything started back when I was in grade six. I had never been the pretty, popular girl. Instead, I maintained an awkward quietness that usually caused the others to avoid me like the plague. I got by, but I always knew I was never happy. Not being accepted by the others bore a deep hole into my heart. To my family, I always acted as if nothing was wrong. Not that it would have mattered, anyway. My dad was always away on business trips promoting his software to various hospitals. My mother was a homemaker who busied herself by constantly trying to improve the house. My sister was just starting high school and therefore too wrapped up in her new teenage world. They were too busy to worry about me. Then one evening, things got worse.

I can remember it perfectly. It was my bedtime and so I did my rounds throughout the house to say goodnight to my mother and sister. My dad was in Australia at this point. My sister was holed up in her room finishing homework, but my mother wasn't in hers. I stalked downstairs to see if she was watching TV. She wasn't, but I saw the light on in my dad's office. As I approached the door, I heard my mom crying and talking. She was on the phone with my father. I could only make out what she was saying when I had myself pressed against the closed door. She was sobbing about some other woman, and asking why he would do this to her. I instinctively recoiled and fled up to my room, confused.

The next day I asked my mother about it. She broke down and told me that my dad was having an affair with a woman in New Zealand. I remember not really understanding the concept, but still feeling hurt and betrayed. My father was the light of my life. I had such a special bond with him, as a child. Every day for a week my mom would tell me more and more about what was going on. I found out this wasn't the first, second, or even third time my dad had done this to her. He had been spending extra weeks on business trips going to see her in New Zealand instead of being home with his family. He was considering leaving my mom for this young, pretty new thing. Her name was Sunita and every time I said it I felt like I was spitting poison. I was devastated.

I managed to cope with these feelings for a few months until every detail that my mom had ever told me just exploded into my brain. Suddenly, I grasped the full story of what was happening. It hit me like a ton of bricks. My world, which was already painfully skating on thin ice, started to crack even more. I didn't know how to react. My mom was already a basket case and my sister didn't know anything yet. I couldn't tell what little friends I had because in those days eleven year-olds were still unable to comprehend these situations. So I further attempted to smother my thoughts and feelings.

My mind couldn't handle it. I would imagine my father and immediately picture him with a strange woman. I couldn't sleep. I subconsciously ate until it hurt. I would scream into my pillow. Nothing satisfied me though. The thoughts were still there. Then I started remembering my sister's best friend Roxanne telling me and my sister that whenever she felt upset she would cut herself. My mentality pushed me to admit to myself that this was a justifiably upsetting enough situation. One day when no one was home, I went to the kitchen and pulled out the sharpest knife we had. I put my left arm onto the counter and I rested the point of the knife on my wrist. I agonized over the decision for an hour before realizing that I hadn't the stomach to do it. I was too scared to get my ears pierced, never mind slicing myself open with a knife. Almost ashamed of my cowardice, I put the knife back and hid in my room.

I spent all of the next day trying to figure out how to hurt myself without really hurting myself. I wanted so badly to do some damage, but my pansy nature posed some severe restrictions. That night I spied my nail clippers and an idea formed. I picked up those nail clippers and I pulled out the tool used to push back cuticles. Slowly, I lowered the sharp piece of metal to my wrist. I pressed down hard and dragged it across my skin. I did this several times to create a pattern of lined scratches. The relief was almost immediate. Though I did not bleed, the effect of those scratches was so powerful, so intense. I had found my solution.

I did this every few days to let the feelings grow until I could take it no more. I told my mom several months later through a guilty letter. Enrollment in therapy followed soon after. I discussed my feelings of betrayal, hurt, and confusion with a very nice woman. After a few sessions I thought I had my feelings under control. Grade seven came along and, while I still felt slight pangs of emotion over the situation, my mind was more panicked with the idea of soon approaching high school. I hoped for a new start among people who were in the same boat. Containing my joy of leaving elementary school was almost impossible.

Meanwhile, my dad came in and out of our lives with more random business trips. It was hard to look at him the same now that I knew and now that he knew that I knew. My sister had only been informed of the marital situation when I had started therapy. There eventually was a blow up between my dad and his poisonous woman. I remember staying up way past my bedtime with my mom, listening to her answer the phone to Sunita when she would call to try and get hold of my dad. He wanted nothing to do with her. For a little while we all thought things were going to be okay.

Grade eight came and went peacefully. I had more friends and gained several ounces of confidence. Little did I know that it would be the only full year that I attended my high school. After beginning grade nine, my mom discovered that my dad was having another affair, this time with a woman within the province. My mom continued to pour more and more stories into my head, airing all of my father's dirty laundry. I came back to my feelings of hurt and they were intensified with a new feeling, anger. I couldn't believe that everything we had worked up to was being ruined again by my father's selfishness. He had a beautiful family. Why didn't he love us? I started skipping classes in order to deal with my feelings, but it wasn't enough.

I found the nail clippers again in February. The same sharp metal danced around my wrist every day for the rest of the month. Then it stopped working. There was too much rage for a simple scratch to be able to heal. I pushed the cuticle tool back into the nail clippers and before I could really comprehend what was happening, the nail clippers were clutching a chunk of my skin and blood was slowly squeezing itself out of the wound. I was both horrified and overjoyed for the same reason. I had actually done it. I had found a better way. This prompted me to attempt suicide, twice. Each time I'd wake up with my sheets covered in blood and full of disappointment, so I stopped trying. My method of "clipping" the skin out of my wrist was probably more painful that actual cutting, but it required far less guts for me. My new addiction began.

I managed to get away with it for several weeks before my frightened friends caught a glimpse of my destruction. A school councillor, though I prefer to call her an angel, began a lengthy process with me. I told her everything and, in return, she removed me from all of my classes except English and science for the rest of the year. My mother was dismayed. Her own child had succumbed to a far deeper level of depression than suspected. Nail clippers were banned from the house from that moment on. They still are to this day. I still managed to buy them cheaply from the pharmacy and sneak attacks on myself. In the meantime, my mom bought me a giant stack of black rubber bracelets to cover the damage. I was such a disappointment to her.

In the summer I resolved to stop hurting myself. The hidden nail clippers went unused while I attempted to forget about everything by spending copious time on the computer, listening to music, or with friends. I got through two weeks of grade ten before starting to skip again. My councillor had warned the teachers that this may happen and not to call me on it. I took full advantage of it. Then the cutting started again. I was feeling stressed with my mom now, as well my dad. She wasn't taking anything the way she should have. Somehow, my parents were still together, but they were always arguing. My mom took her anger out on me. I wasn't thin enough, smart enough, or pretty enough. Her criticism took its toll on me.

Eventually, my problems were so severe that I had to be taken out of my high school completely. I was put in a special school for teenagers that had issues that stopped them from being able to function at school. Problems ranged from people like me with severe depression and self-harm issues to others with drug addictions. While we all hated the therapists there because they never seemed to be able to fully understand our issues, we bonded as broken teenagers. For the first time in my life I became popular. I was at that school for the remainder of the school year and I only cut myself once, which was threatened to get me removed from the program.

With the promise of being able to come back to that place for an after school program, I once again returned to the same high school. The councillor had warned my teachers about me, yet again, so I felt confident that I could succeed. Much to my horror, people who were once friends had turned on me in my absence and informed my peers of my situation. I was constantly bombarded with strange looks and insensitive questions. My return was the hot gossip of the school. It didn't take long for me to spend more time in the bathroom than in class, again. I pleaded with my councillor for another solution. She enrolled me in another program, this time at an adult and continuing education centre. It was called the Youth Learning Centre and it was my haven.

I was a student there until I turned nineteen, when I was considered too old to return. By this point, my mom had finally filed for divorce. Her temperament was no better and I still felt negative feelings over my relationship with her as well as my place in the world. My dad had decided to move to Thailand to shack up with several different young bar girls. I continued to cut during my time there. Then, when I turned nineteen, we moved to another city. The stress was unbelievable, but I had managed not to cut for several months. In September, my boyfriend at the time moved in with my mom and I. My sister had long moved out at this point with her boyfriend. We went to another adult and continuing education centre to finish up our high school degrees. Things were okay until late March.

I was feeling emotions that hadn't been provoked in a while. My mom was never off my case and I was hearing stories about my dad's escapades. Then, I found out that I had a half-brother in the Philippines whom I didn't know anything about. Still to this day I don't know very much about him. This proved to be too much and I, yet again, failed myself by turning to the familiar nail clippers in early April. Since my wrist was constantly inspected for evidence of anguish, I resorted to attacking my inner thigh. I didn't tell my boyfriend, who was well aware of my history, until several weeks later. He was furious. My mom and sister never found out.

That was the last time I ever cut myself. The guilt I experienced from it was enough to stop me. The pain I saw in the eyes of my boyfriend and my friends, when I admitted it to them, was unbearable. I felt like the biggest failure. Thankfully, they have still stuck with me to this very day. I couldn't ask for better people in my life. My years of self-harm have definitely taken their toll on every aspect of my life. There is very little trust between me and my mother. I still have to wear bracelets to cover the scars. Not because I'm embarrassed of them though. I do it to prevent unnecessary questions from people that have no business asking. I refuse to be an article of curiosity. If people want to know then when they're important enough in my life, I will tell them.

It's been a very difficult path since last April. I think I've grown to be a better person for my experience though. I know I definitely never want to go down that way again, but I wouldn't erase that history for the world. These scars are a constant reminder of what I have accomplished and I never want them to fade.