My Switch Hitter

Diantha and I were in Creative Writing a few days ago, when we started talking about stigmas with Liz and Staphanie, saying things about how this day and age is a war of extremes. Staphanie brought up the fact that she smokes so she won't cut herself. Liz said the same, and Dobbl agreed, but specified that she didn't smoke. They were all speaking candidly about their lives of escapism. And I sat back for most of this conversation, because I am a young child when it comes to sharing. [read: Mine!] But then, I opened my big mouth. I said, "Though it may seem insensitive, I feel worse for the people who feel so constantly plagued by their feelings, like you all, but have no way to let things out. People who can't cut themselves, but can't smoke or drink or do drugs either."

What I did not tell them was that "those people," means me.

For all my life, I have been pressured to be a perfect Christian and a perfect student, a perfect artist and a perfect daughter. If I were living in a daytime special, I would be the girl who sobs as the blood from her wrists drips down onto the bathroom counter. I would have long sleeves over my scars and black eyeliner pouring from my eyes. And I would be saved at the end of the three episode story arc, never again to feel the pains of my depression, until the season finale, when it would be revealed I had turned to painkillers.

But I am not living in a daytime special. I am the girl who puts her head down on an impossible math problem and does nothing, but bite her lip and wish tears would come. The same girl, who some nights feels so crushed that nothing can stop the pressure of her pulse against her skin. And that girl lives in the house with Ibuprofen being the strongest medication in any cabinet, six cans at most of cheap beer in the refrigerator, and has the friends who have sharper nails than she does blades. That girl can't steal cigarettes from her parents, because they don't smoke, nor can she use a fake ID to buy them.

I don't mean to fish for pity, but I believe that I have it worse than someone who has an addiction. At least they have something that takes the feeling away. I'm living every day with the swell that is hating my life, hating my parents, stewing with resentment and then being happy too fast for too little of time. I'm always dealing with some extent of stress, and I don't have something to settle that.

I don't worry about the stress itself. I worry that it will grow to envelop me. I worry, because all of the deep breathing and counting backwards from ten I've done, all of the knuckle-cracking and writing, has done nothing. Life may be all about willpower, but my will has driven me to be constantly conflicted.

And so, I kept my mouth shut, even though I wanted desperately to ask them for help. I wanted to show them my own wrists and give them my trust. I didn't. I kept my mouth shut.