Anniversary

It’s been a year since I last left a post here. I hadn’t thought I’d be back, both for the reasons I’d left and the reasons I had tried not to look back.

Today’s the anniversary of my last suicide attempt. Ironically it is the one that ‘saved’ me but at the same time took so much from me. In survival I was able to remove a mental block I had put on my emotions and memories that held years of abuse by the hands of my father, who has lost his memories through alcoholic seizures, and the only one who really understands what I suffered from him is myself.

It’s really tough having an anniversary so close to the hols where I am because he tries to contact me, even though I hear he’s afraid of me. I haven’t been able to figure out why since the information I have that could put him in jail is impossible for him to know with his memory loss but there’s also the fact that I fear him.

Just hearing his name, or listening to my brother speak so fondly of him… makes me itch to grab the glass from a bottle to break into my skin as my father had done to me so long ago. I remember last year so well… and I learned from it that the only one I can rely on is myself.

I think… I think the only reason I was able to survive my overdose last year was because I regretted so much. It’s such a weird thing for me, because I was hoping back then it would end me, but instead that regret turned into fear and by then… it was too late and I ended up going to the hospital, where the truth of my 10-year long depression came out along with therapy revealing the six attempts on my life and countless, countless debates of how I would go about doing so.

I confessed this event to one another person, someone I really shouldn’t have, and again was reinforced with the rule of survival that the only person you can count on is yourself. It feels cruel, so cruel, to live and yet have old wounds that won’t heal. Hell, wounds that won’t even be scars.

The only scars I have – physically – is a minuscule line on the vein of my wrist which caused me to gain severe anxiety and a fear of blood. I remember before this development I despised how I was fighting two sides of me. The one who wanted someone to see that I was clearly on the brink for the final time and the side that was taunting this one, knowing people were too full of themselves or wanting to see something else – to be blind of what was right in front of them – rather than help someone else.

But… at the same time I remember giving away too much to someone once. I had to distance myself from them severely and became an eccedentesiast. I took more risks, and yet no one noticed.

I think the worst part is knowing that no one wouldn’t have caught me at all if I hadn’t cut. I went through ten years of depression and five suicide attempts before picking up that blade. I wanted to see what was so special about it… wanted to take the risk to see if someone noticed. If they did I played it off and they let it go – too comfortable with themselves.

At the same time it’s ironic. I wanted someone to understand me and ask me if I was alright and the one time they did… I pushed them away. It’s almost like I wanted them to reply, “no, you’re not,” but who knows because they never did.

A friend of mine actually made me promise to stop cutting when I revealed my scars to her after cutting nearly too deep and wanted her to tell me how to stop – for it’s truly addicting. She made me promise not to do it again and though it tore me up inside I stopped. Funny, just a week longer and those scars would’ve been mostly faded and I probably would’ve died of cardiac arrest in the parking lot.

I can’t really describe what it’s like to be caught. I sort of just… shut down. I had all these secrets, two of which it seems I’ll only be able to reveal anonymously online. The abuse under the hand of my father who has no memory of it and I never told anyone out of fear… and what had caused me to lose any self-restraint I had towards suicide.

Even now, somewhat more alive, I feel myself itching for a blade whenever someone who knows my past tries thinks I’m repeating my old ways. Or bringing up my father. Or trying to make me someone I’m not. It hurts that I pushed all my real friends away last year out of anxiety but I know it isn’t worth getting them back because they never knew me in the first place.

I swear it’s like even though I am finally myself no one seems to want that, because they missed the broken me, that had been around for a decade, playing them all for fools, loving someone who was secretly suicidal.

Every suicide attempt killed a part of me but now I feel like a phoenix, yet also like a phoenix I have the memories of my past. The lives I’ll never be able to forget. It’s difficult only relying on yourself… especially on this anniversary. I know life is better not being numb and suffering from memory loss but I doubt that pull will ever go away.

…not even sure if I want it to. Last year was such a close call. I know if I tried it again it’d leave a mark… and most of me doesn’t want to go there but the small part of me that remembers everything – and all my regrets – is another thing.

Those are what I can never forget; what I can’t allow myself to be forgotten.

I’ll try to leave this on a good note though. It’s surprisingly freeing to let myself finally be myself; sensitive, empathetic, and allowing myself to cry. It’s good to feel even if it hurts at times too. The thing about depression is that my pain became addicting while I suppressed every other feeling. Having all emotions dulls the pain when it comes and evens it out.

It’s nice to stand on my own strength rather than faking it till I break it. I still have a long way to go in the road of recovery but who knows, maybe doing something drastic like tattooing ink on my skin will remind me why this is an anniversary. The year went by all too quickly but it was a year since depression/cutting/suicide attempts and so… that counts as something I think.

And as myself, I’ll be able to know who I can trust and who I can let in again. The trick now is moving forward. Moving forward without burying everything that was once my name.

Embrace the change, I’ll go with that for now.

The end is where we begin – TFK

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There is no fate but the future we make for ourselves – Terminator.

• Living quotes right there. Living quotes…