Day 4: Describe the most difficult experience you had this year. How did you get through it?

When I was a teenager, I was a cutter.  It was just as much something fueled by masochistic tendencies as it was a symptom of the lack of control over my own existence that I felt because of my abusive childhood.  And it was an escape.  But it was an escape that I left behind, in those teenage years, that I'd grown out of.  At least... I thought I had.

A few months ago, LIBF and I were spending an evening relaxing, having a few drinks, and just generally goofing off together on the internet and what not.  Not unusual for us.  But, for whatever reason, things got away from us.  I'm an experienced drinker.  I can usually drink guys twice my size under the table, and still be thirsty.  LIBF, however, does not have that same ability.  He's the epitome of lightweight.  And how much he had to drink... Was more than either of us realized in the moment.  If I'd known how much he'd had I would have stopped him before it got to the point it did, because I know he isn't always aware of his own limits and breaking them isn't generally a pretty thing.  I usually keep track of what he's had, and how much.  This time, my awareness slipped.  And this time, things definitely weren't pretty.

At first it was okay.  But he started taking things I said the wrong way, and before I knew it, we were fighting.  We were fighting in a way that we'd never fought before.  And he was saying the ugliest things I'd ever heard him say, in our entire 7+ years together.  And when he said those things, it triggered the worst emotional flashback I've ever had.  20 years of maturity disappeared, in a word, and I was suddenly the scared 12-13 year old that I never thought I'd be again, being berated one more time by my mother for all the failings she thought I had.  Every ounce of self reliance, self confidence, and self respect I had for myself vanished.  Because this was worse than my mother saying all those things.  It was LIBF saying all those things.  Someone that I loved, and trusted, with all my heart, was reciting the litany of insecurities I'd had drilled into me my entire first 20 years of life as if they were gospel.  And then, in a fit of anger, he walked out the door and left me alone with my mother's voice echoing in my head.

I crumbled.  I dissolved.  I... broke.  And then, I cut.

It wasn't a conscious decision.  I was so deep into emotional flashbacks that I wasn't even seeing my own apartment as I was walking through it.  I saw my mother's house.  I didn't see myself in the mirror as I am now, I saw me as I was as 12 year old.  It was almost hallucinatory.  A complete break from reality.  A transitory psychotic episode (I'm pretty sure that's what a psychiatrist would have called it, in a medical record).  Temporary insanity.  And because of it, I wasn't me.  I didn't have any of the tools that I've worked so hard to acquire over the years.  I didn't have any of the coping mechanisms, or any of the defenses.  All I had was what I would do when I was a teenager.  And cutting was what I had to feel in control, to feel like I was safe, to feel anything except the pain that was being inflicted on me by things outside myself -- even if it was pain that I was inflicting on myself -- and to feel like there was an end, somewhere, to what I was feeling (yeah, that's pretty damned morbid... Sorry...).

The act snapped me out of my altered state.  But not before I'd managed a number of deep slices across my thigh.  And "coming to" was devastating.  The guilt, shame, regret, and fear, about what I'd just done to myself was overwhelming.

To my credit, I didn't try to hide it.  When LIBF came back home after an hour or two, and apologized, and I finally relaxed into his attempts to make up, I admitted what I'd done.  And when I talked to OBF the next morning, I admitted what I'd done.  They were both unhappy about it, and for a bit LIBF blamed himself (until I set him straight about it) and was confused (I tried to explain, but this is a man who doesn't even really understand depression, so it was kind of hopeless).  

Admitting it was probably the best thing I could have done, though.  Not just because they both would have noticed the cuts anyway, but because it made me face the full weight of it.  OBF even made me write about it, why I'd done it, what was going through my head, what it felt like, everything about it.  Which forced me to look at it, when I would have preferred to just forget it ever happened.  It forced me to look at it, and see what effect it had on other people.  Writing about it, knowing OBF would read it, and be upset by it, was incredibly hard to do.  It hurt to do that.  But that was the point.  Facing all that, made me not want to do it again.

You see, cutting can be addictive.  And the longer I go without doing it, the easier it is to continue not doing it.  Because the seduction of it fades over time, and I even start to forget that it's even an option.  But once I "fell off the wagon", and did it again, the idea that I could do it "just one more time" stayed in my mind.  Every time I feel bad, or even just see the cuts, the desire to do it floods to the forefront of my thoughts.  Even now, because the scars haven't quite healed yet, when I run my fingers over them, I find myself thinking "One more time wouldn't be so bad, would it? Just one more?  A little one?  Then I'll quit for good, really, I will"  But I know it wouldn't just be one more time.  I know if I gave in that way, I wouldn't quit.

That desire... That sensuous, seductive, dark, desire to cut again, is the most difficult experience I've had this year.  And I keep having it.  I will probably keep having it long after the scars on my thigh finish healing.  Writing about it, right now, is tugging at that desire, even; it's digging it up and letting it breathe...

<shakes head and takes a deep breath>  Moving on...

As for getting through it... Understanding the motivations behind my wanting to do it helps me fight that desire.  Having people who care about me, and understanding how deeply it upsets those people, helps me fight that desire.  And remembering that I have better tools than that helps too.

Getting out of the house, when I hit an emotional flashback and start to feel like that scared, trapped, little girl again, is a good tool.  It helps me feel less trapped, and keeps me away from sharp objects at the same time.  LIBF has spent a good couple tanks of gas just driving me around aimlessly in the middle of the night, letting me sit there in silence smoking too many cigarettes, or rant at the countryside, or talk to him, while I try to sort out my head.  Walking is a good tool too, though in winter it can be kinda hard to manage (being drenched icy rain is probably just as destructive as a self inflicted cut or two).  Writing is also a decent thing to do, to process all those fucked up emotions, and it's been pretty effective once I get past the initial whirlwind of things.