Just Another Day
Ok, so I started self-harming when I was in Year 8 (I'm in Year 11 now) so I must have been about 12/13. I did it on and off for AGES- just doing it occasionally, maybe once every two weeks or something like that. Nothing really bad, either, just a couple of cuts in random places. It didn't start getting worse for ages, and for some reason, although I liked doing it, I never thought I'd get completely hooked on it.
But, when I was 14, I broke up with my first boyfriend and that's when everything started to go downhill. I was sitting on my kitchen table one night, listening to music a couple of weeks after we'd broken up, and I felt REALLY miserable. I wanted to 'drown my sorrows,' and, I thought, the usual way to do that is by DRINKING. So I went to the cupboard, got out a bottle of whisky and drank some, and got drunk for the very first time. After that, I'd get drunk every day before school (so I'd be drunk when I went to school,) so I wouldn't have to be fully conscious when I saw my ex-boyfriend.
But that only lasted a two or three weeks, because I went to bed drunk one night and woke up to find that I'd got out of bed and had been sleeping on the floor for hours, had got thoroughly cold (because it was late October) and had thrown up and the floor and then LAY IN IT. So, after that, even the smell of alcohol made me feel sick, so I couldn't drink it for AGES.
Some time around the New Year/a month or so later than that, my self-harming started to get worse. I would do it more regularly, I started doing it on my wrist, which I hadn't done before, I started taking my scissors to school.
That's when I became hooked on it. I completely retreated inside myself. I was cutting every day, sometimes twice a day, I was doing deeper cuts on my wrist, I'd go straight to the loos at lunch or breaktime and just cut for the whole time, and let the cuts bleed all over the sleeve of my school jumper. I’d really retreated inside myself and I hadn’t even noticed, though everyone else had. To me, I was stuck in the dark in a black hole and there was no way out. There was nothing else, and I didn’t deserve anything else. This was it. I did tell my friends, and they were being supportive. But I really did it all the time. I was that easily upset that, for example, one time someone said something mildly evil to me in a lesson, and straight after that lesson, I went and cut. My friends found me though, because they knew what I’d be doing.
Then, in early April, I found I could drink again- the taste and smell of alcohol didn’t make me feel sick anymore. So I carried on. I was even drunk for a mock exam (which, let me tell you, didn't pay off- it was Chemistry and I got a D, whereas in Biology and Physics I got Bs!) I was drunk at home, and at the weekends sometimes as well. Also, cutting while drunk is a very strange thing.
Then, in the May half term (on the Friday, May 29th to be very precise,) in the morning, I'd been sitting on the gate at the end of my garden, looking out onto the fields and listening to my MP3 player. 'Animal' and 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' by Def Leppard- they're great songs that you can REALLY get into, so I was just listening to them on a loop, and it was REALLY fun. My mum and dad had to go somewhere after lunch, so I thought I'd get drunk, go sit on the gate and listen to my MP3 player again, because it would be even more fun when I'm drunk. So I drank some Smirnoff , and by the time I'd drunk it, I'd got too drunk to realise that having some more was NOT a good idea. So, I had some more, and that's where everything faded off for me.
But, basically, I went off down the garden with my MP3 player on, and when my mum and dad came back, they found me unconscious in a patch of stinging nettles. I'd been sick, as well, A LOT. It also turned out that it was 300ml of vodka I’d drank, in literally 5 minutes flat. This was about 3'o'clock, so I'd already been there for about an hour or two. I'd had to wear fingerless gloves permanently for months by then, but when the paramedics came, for some reason, they had to take my gloves off, so my parents found out about my cutting problem. They took me to hospital and I very dimly remember saying (well, screaming, as I was told later by my mum) "I'm sorry" literally OVER and OVER again, and apparently I was also singing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' VERY loudly as well, and when they put me on the bed in the ward, I somehow remembered that I'd left my laptop on at home. My wallpaper on my laptop is Axl Rose and Slash, and all I could think of was that, so instead of saying to my mum "Switch my laptop off" (like I wanted to say) I ended up saying "Tell Axl that I love him!"
Then I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up with my mum standing at the end of my bed. Everything else was blurred, and the light from the window was shining behind her so she genuinely did look like an angel, it was quite weird! I just remember her saying "You could have died. Like Jimi Hendrix” (who apparently had died from choking on his own vomit, which apparently I could have done) and I just said “Anyone else interesting?” (there are quite a few rockstars who have died like that) so she gave me a list of the ones she could think of.
Then, they were talking to a nurse, and this other nurse came and said to me “What are those cuts on your arm? We need to talk about them.” And, because I was too tired and drunk to think up an excuse, told her straight. I just said “I did them myself” and then I said “PLEASE don’t tell my parents, you can’t tell them, they’d kill me!” But she must have done because a moment later my mum and dad came in and said they needed to talk to me about the cuts. So basically I started crying so hard I couldn’t breathe, but then we talked about it and they were REALLY nice about it. My dad actually said its not as bad as he thought because he had a suspicion that I was taking drugs (which I wasn’t, but had been thinking of doing because I was so desperate!) I basically told them everything (why not, at that point!) and they were really supportive.
So I stayed the night at the hospital, which was NASTY, especially seeing as I had to get up loads to go ask for some blackcurrant juice because I was so darn thirsty! Anyway, then, in the morning, my mum and dad came and we spoke to one of the hospital dudes who said I had to stay in until Monday morning, to make me a priority to see CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service- NHS counselling, basically,) because the it was necessary to see them (for some reason) in cases of self harm & "alcohol abuse." But they said I could go home in the day but would have to come back at night, so I went home, got a shower, and me and my mum & dad had ANOTHER VERY LONG talk about the whole thing. Then that night, I had to go sleep back at the hospital, which was NOT great, especially seeing as I discovered that I had burnt my throat from being sick so much. But at least I had: my MP3 player, a book to read, a book to write in, and some SWEETS to eat! And my parents stayed with me till about ten, so that was cool. After that, I listened to Def Leppard and wrote in my book until midnight, then I SLEPT. The next day, I went home again, had a shower, then my mum & dad took me for a walk round Attingham Park (I go there A LOT and I love it!) then we went and ate tea in a pub (I love pub teas!) and talked SOME MORE about ‘the whole thing.’
Then it was Monday, and officially time to go to school, but me and my mum & dad stayed off, and my dad went to speak to my school about ‘what had happened.’ Basically, I was then allowed to wear wristbands, I got a Time Out card (basically it allows you to leave the lesson if you feel really shitty) and if I used it, I could womble off somewhere and listen to my MP3 player, plus my dad got me the rest of the term (about 2 months or so) off P.E (because I HATE P.E, plus it would give my scars some time to heal, which, incidentally, they still haven’t properly!) And, somehow, my Head of Year managed to tell my friends what happened (my Head of Year is lovely, to be fair) so they all knew when I came back the next day, but they were all really nice, which was good.
So after that, I didn’t self harm AS MUCH, although I still did for a while because it was so hard to stop, I couldn’t get drunk any more because there was no ’strong alcohol’ in the house, and my parents were KEEPING AN EYE on that kind of thing anyway. I started going to that NHS counselling thing, (where everyone ascertained that I was actually addicted to self harm) and it was cool to talk about it, all secrets disclosed, talking about really deep stuff kind of thing. I did have a really bad time where I cut up my legs and stomach as well. I went to my doctor after a while, because I still felt shitty, and I just ended up with HERBAL anti-depressants, which really don't work anyway, so there's not much point.
I eventually (about late June/July-ish) stopped self harming (for the moment) and my parents would be really pleased if I got to a certain time-limit without doing it (a week, a month, that kind of thing.) It kind-of left my mind when I went on holiday to Spain with my mum & dad, auntie & uncle and my seven-year-old cousin. Because it was really hot and I had to wear shorts or a bikini all the time (although my whole holiday wardrobe was completely black. And my auntie and uncle already knew about the self harming thing anyway) inevitably, they saw my scars, so I told my little cousin (because she asked) that I’d fallen in a thorn bush (it is a good excuse and it works!)
In about September, I started self harming again. I cut up my legs again, and I’d cut my wrist with a razor EVERY DAY (sometimes twice a day.) Throughout ‘the whole thing’, I’d always had suicidal thoughts as well, and for a long time, they’d been basically the only happy thoughts I’d had. At one point, I literally couldn’t imagine living beyond the end of that day, and I thought it would be so much easier if I just committed suicide. And in September, I walked up from my house to the bypass one evening (it’s not to far a walk, plus I’d wanted go stand on the edge of the bypass and watch the cars for years, because I LOVE cars and motorways are my favourite places to be) and stood there by the roundabout watching the cars (it was ACE) but I was crying as well. A couple of people who stopped to go round the roundabout asked if I was ok, and then I ended up texting my friend saying “I’m standing by the bypass. Someone’s just asked if I’m ok. Am I?” because I genuinely thought I was going insane at that point. And my friend was like “You’ll be fine!” but every time a lorry went past, or any vehicle going fast enough, I couldn’t help thinking that it would be SO easy just to run into the middle of the road and let it kill me. I told my friend this and she said “Don’t even think about it. What would the wibbles do without you?” (the Wibbles were these random little cute creatures that I’d invented) and that made me laugh and distracted me from thinking about suicide because it was so randomly cute in a funny sort of way, so in the end I went back home. Thanks to my friend though, really, because I was definitely more than half ready to die and if I’d stood there for long enough, there’s a good chance I would have done it. So, my friend kind-of saved my life there, in a very strange kind of way.
I’d also started drinking AGAIN, and one day I’d drank ’a bit’ too much, and my friend noticed and asked me why, and when I realised that I couldn’t tell her why, it struck me as so sad and pathetic that I started crying. And I literally couldn’t stop. This was in the middle of first lesson, and we’d been to the school library and then we were going back to the English classroom. But I really couldn’t stop myself, so in the end, I had to go tell my mum (who works in my school. She’d have found out anyway) that I’d got drunk and we talked about it (she wasn’t pleased, but thankfully didn’t shout at me) then she took me home because I LITERALLY could not stop crying. I’d been crying really hard for about a hour by then. So when I went home, I went to bed and my mum told my dad, who, when I got up, talked to me about it and thankfully didn’t shout at me either.
After October, I stopped self harming, and I thought that was really the end of it (although there was still some part of me that didn’t want it to be) and, for 2 days short of 3 months (!!!!!!!) I actually didn't self harm!!!! But, two weeks or so ago, everything came back- the self harm, the drink (for about a week until my mum and dad found out. It was hard anyway because there is STILL no 'strong alcohol' in the house, except at Christmas, when there was a lot, and I managed to get drunk on Malibu the day after Boxing Day) and even some of the thoughts of suicide. The problem is, I can't cut anywhere visible, like my wrist, so at one point, I cut my finger joints (which is surprisingly easy to hide), and my legs (which are hard to make decent cuts in, so it's never as satisfying) and made a couple of pretty deep cuts on my shoulder.
I also had a couple more alcohol incidents- I drank a third of a bottle of whisky, went for a walk and had to be rescued by my friends. At some point, I fell in a hedge and someone stopped their car and pulled me out. They must have called the police, because the police came and took me home, where I was sick on the kitchen floor then fell asleep.
Somewhere between that an the next alcohol incident, I went back to counselling and finally agreed to take anti-depressants!
After that, there was another 'incident' where I drank more than half a bottle of wine (in 5 minutes) and my mum and dad found out and asked me about it and I spent quite a long time crying.
Then, a couple of weeks after that, I went back to counselling and told them that the tablets weren't working (which they really weren't) so they said to double the dose. 20mg is the dose you're meant to be on, but now I'm on 40mg. And that still doesn't quite work either, because I still have the urge to self harm and even to commit suicide.
And then: the latest alcohol incident- within about 2 weeks of the last one. Me and my family had friends round to our house and were having a meal and talking, so I had about 3 glasses of wine. Then, when I started to get a bit drunk, I thought 'why don't I get properly drunk?' So I secretly drank some of the wine straight from the bottle, then when the friends had gone, I had a couple more glasses with my mum and dad. Some time along the line that night, I ended up in the toilet being very sick. And my parents were REALLY angry. Once I'd stopped being sick, I was lying on the floor of my downstairs loo, so they just left me and went to bed. I'd fallen asleep on the floor (I think!) but then I got up, put my MP3 player on and walked down the lane. This was at 1am. When I got to the bottom of the lane, I lay down in my pajamas on the grass kerb next to the main road and, crying, screamed the words of the songs I was listening to out into nothing.
And that's it so far. Nothing's really changed, and it's just another normal day, wanting to drink and self harm (despite all the help that I'm getting) but not being able to.
Story shared: 08/06/2010 23:08:56
Comments
I hope things will get better for you even more!
icy-piyo21
Anyway, good luck. I personally thought CAHMS were a bit shit, but if they help you, excellent.
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