First time here. Just wanted to talk…

Once, when I was like 14,  my mother found a few meager scratches on my wrist, hidden under a bracelet. She exploded with anger, not a shred of sympathy, and I was mortified. I never wanted to hurt myself and I actually didn’t like the pain, which is why I hardly did more than drag the razor across my wrists. Her reaction was the icing on the cake. No more of that nonsense, I thought. A kid my age can’t be that unhappy; it’s just silly.

In retrospect, I think that was the first time I really felt anything.

I was molested by a family member throughout my childhood, until I was about 12. I don’t think I knew much better then because I don’t remember ever feeling overly sad during those years. Maybe I was sad in the moment, but I carried on the way any child would. I had friends and I played sports; my parents were well-off and I was generally happy. I think it all started hurting later, like the self-hatred and depression were just waiting to swell inside of me.

I started drinking and doing drugs in high school to forget. Everything from cough syrup to methadone, more often the latter side of the spectrum – just whatever I could get my hands on, usually some terrifying cocktail of booze, benzos, and opiates. During that 4 years of which I can hardly remember, I was kicked out of high school, sent to vocational school and rehab, finished vocational school early, completed 2 years of college before high school graduation, and got all charges expunged from my record for completing rehab. It was almost as if I was being rewarded for my self-destruction. So, of course, I didn’t change.

Except, at some point, I had to. I got into nursing school and my world was turned upside down. I could no longer maintain that lifestyle, both because it seemed completely immoral and hypocritical and because we were drug tested. Strangely enough, I had no problem stopping. I think I was just tired of it all, anyway.

I don’t think I realized at the time that I was about to release all of those suppressed feelings.

I tried cutting again. This time deep enough to numb me the way the pills had. I often cut veins by accident and soaked towels with blood. I obviously needed stitches many times over, but there was no way I was going to admit to this kind of foolishness, especially as a medical professional. It felt dirty and so did I.

I guess it’s not as debilitating as it once was, though. I’ve given up all of my poor coping mechanisms, aside from the occasional digression, and I often feel like I can still handle the day ahead. My only concern is that when I have a particularly awful day, I no longer feel the urge to hurt myself; I make the jump to being completely prepared to end my life. To make matters worse, I’m sharing that burden with someone else…he just doesn’t quite understand the gravity of it yet.

I’m recently engaged. Sometimes I feel like it may have been the biggest mistake of my life. Not because I don’t love him, but because I know I am not a stable person. I can’t admit to him that one day, I might just do it; I might just end it. I can’t have my drugs anymore. I can’t have all the booze. I can’t even hack up my body without him being mad. I mean, I understand why, but what outlet do I have? I’m tired of crying about it. I’m tired of talking about it. I just want to fix it, whatever that means.