WARNING: Content may contain raw and harsh truth that may result in the reader becoming emo.
I’ve wrote about this before but if you’re new here then you may not have been aware that I was a cutter. Not the geeky cool band of bicyclist from Indiana :: if you never saw the movie Breaking Away then do.. it’s an oldie but a goodie :: but some one who cuts themselves when everything internalized needs to find an outlet.
No.. this is not a picture of me
And you know.. just in case you REALLY don’t know anything about cutting or self-mutilation or self abuse or carving into your skin with anything you find hanging around… it’s not an attempt at suicide. It’s just release valve. I never wanted to kill myself.. just wanted the pain to go away. Internal pain needs a way to manifest itself and cutting is a way to make it a physical pain. At least it was for me .. I don’t know if all cutters feel the same way about it. Some people use drugs.. some drink.. I used to cut. Hello, my name is Leese ( Hi Leese! ) and I am a cutter!
I stopped cutting on November 8, 1998.. and yesterday for the first time in almost 11 years I cut myself again.
I tried taking a picture of it but I couldn’t get a good shot because of where it’s at and because it really isn’t deep. Actually, I think paper cuts are deeper but yknow.. that’s not really the point.
So I guess your asking why? Why after all this time? What was so fucking bad THIS time that I had to cut six or seven parallel lines on my arm where most barflies get real bad tattoos?
I’m not sure.
I mean.. I know what happened.. the events leading up to it.. and yea, it was bad but I’ve been through worse so I don’t think it was the actual one event that triggered it.. I just think it was a cumulation of things that’s been building up and building up..
Life beat me up this time.
And yesterday, as soon as I put the utility knife down :: sorry, nothing poetic like a straight razor or soduku knife .. however you spell it :: maybe for an instant I felt that rush of release. I guess that’s how heroin addicts feel. Dunno, I never did heroin but that’s what they all say on Intervention.
But then I felt horrible.. disappointed in myself.. guilty. I never thought I’d do this again… sure there have been A LOT of times when I wanted to but I was always able to talk myself down and not go through with it.
This time, I was so mentally warn out from everything that happened Friday and Saturday morning.. so warn out from feeling like my emotions and feelings were being battered against a brick wall.. so warn out of the screaming LOOK! LISTEN TO WHAT I’M SAYING! LISTEN TO HOW I’M FEELING! silently that I guess I just couldn’t take it anymore.
But the trigger.. the one phrase that Chief said to me that made everything fiber in my being shut down.. grow cold.. and tunnel visioned to the utility knife in his dresser was YOU.SHOULD.KNOW.BETTER.
So let’s back up to Friday morning.
Bubba woke up with his ass transformed into a Hell Mouth. So he stayed home from school. His room was still a mess so I asked him to clean it and told him I wasn’t going to ask again.
He cleaned it right away .. because, yknow, his cell phone bill was due. He then asked if he could mow the lawn or weed wack or “something” around the house.
I remember saying to him, “.. Look, don’t be offended by what do you want? Because the only time you want to help is when you want something.” He said that it was just boredom.. there was nothing to do.. and he knew that we were trying to get the house fixed up.
That’s a crock of shit but ok, I’ll take advantage of it.
So I tell him to paint the hallway downstairs that link our bedroom with theirs.
So he does. Meanwhile, I go about hanging new curtain rods and ironing panels.
He finishes .. well, rather, he stopped painting. The hallway was finished but the bucket of paint was left on the floor.. the brushes were just laid on the newspaper.. I mean, he didn’t finish the job because he didn’t clean up after he was done.
I was hanging the last rod when he says to me, ” .. you’re not going to pay my cell phone are you?”
I said, “.. do you think you deserve me to?”
He said, “.. I guess. I mean, I painted your hallway and cleaned the fridge handles.”
What does Judge Judy say? You’re not smarter then me on your dumbest day? Something like that.
I knew that’s why he was acting like SuperKid. So I asked him how many times I had to ask him to clean his room or do whatever? But ok.. my hallway was painted and I’ve been waiting for Chief to do that for EVER so I figured what the hell.. I’ll pay it. But I told him that this was the only free pass he was getting. Next month, no last minute effort to make up for a month of not doing what he’s suppose to do to earn the cell phone priviledge.
Fast foward to later on in the evening.
Spaz was in the bathroom when Bubba came out of his bedroom and turned on the PS3. Spaz comes out of the bathroom and tells Bubba that he was watching tv. Bubba does care. He just wants to do what he wants to do with no concern for anyone else.
It’s starts a argument and then finally Spaz says that he doesn’t care anymore. Let him do what he wants.
I actually thought that that was pretty mature of Spaz.
So then Spaz asks Bubba to take a round on the PS3.
Flat answer: No.
I was like.. you’re kidding me, right? He’s just going to say “no” like it’s his?
So again, an argument ensues with me telling Bubba to let Spaz play and Bubba telling ME “no” this time.. defiant mother fucking bastard.
Something was on the stove in the kitchen so when I went to go tend to it, Spaz followed me. I hear Bubba say, “.. go ahead Spaz. Watch TV” and then went into his bedroom. I tell Spaz to go in the living room and he said that NOW he wanted to play PS3 :: why, of course he did :: but that Bubba took the controller in the bedroom with him.
NOTE: Did I fill you in about the controller? How they broke yet another one and I refused to buy one since they’re 50-something bucks a pop? And then how all of a sudden a controller showed up at the house with Bubba saying that he borrowed it from a friend?
I tell Bubba to give Spaz the controller and he gets all defiant again. MORE defiant then before… SO DEFIANT that he slips up and says that the controller is HIS.. he BOUGHT it.
Ahhhh… so that changes everything now. Because NOW you lied to me.
And when I tell you that I got so TORQUED .. When I tell you that it took all that I had to not wind up and land a square one right in his puddy face.. that, my friends, is an understatement.
Okay boy.. I warned you that the bitch was going to come and here she was.
I grabbed my jacket and keys and told Spaz that I was going to be right back. Bubba.. knowing that something was up.. that he had pushed me way further then his idiot mind could comprehend.. offered up the controller.
I told Spaz DO.NOT.TOUCH.THAT.CONTROLLER.
Bubba tried to say something and I said I wasn’t listening to anything else he had to say.. no excuses.. no manipulations.. no more lies.
I was going to GameStop to buy another controller WITH the money I was going to use for his cell phone bill. You thought you got away with hood-winking me earlier with painting the hallway and the whatnot? Well guess what? Jokes on you.
So I leave and of course, in my haste, forgot my freakin’ debit card. So I stop at the shop and tell Chief that I need 60 bucks and tell him why. I’m literally bouncing off the walls.
Why did I react this way this time and not all the other times the boys did something? Dunno.. I guess enough was enough, yknow?
Chief agrees with what I’m doing but he doesn’t get as wound up as I am. I wanted him too.. wanted him to feel everything that I was feeling but yknow.. different personalities I guess. Whatever.
We go to GameStop and I buy a blue controller so that I can identify it from Bubba’s and we go home. Chief goes in the bedroom and I go into the kitchen to open the package that was sealed by Satan himself and yell out for Spaz.
You bought me a controller??? he says all excited.
Noooooo… I bought one for the house. Do you UNDERSTAND? This isn’t YOURS
Thank you, Leese! Thank you!
I told him don’t thank me, thank his brother because I used his cell phone bill money to buy it.
I know Bubba heard me. That was the point.
So Spaz goes out to play with the PS3.. Bubba is in the living room on his laptop :: that is now tethered to an ethernet cord because HA! he got a really bad virus from downloading Lime Wire and now the wireless card don’t work! Booyaa! :: and me and Chief sit down in the dinner room to eat dinner.
Chief asks Bubba why he looks all depressed and stuff. Bubba mumbles something.. gets up.. walks into his bedroom.. come out.. walks into the kitchen and says something like “.. people not keeping their word” or something random like that.
I jump in and say something like “.. oh, like you lying about the controller? Like you saying your going to do whatever so you can get what you want and then not doing it after you get it?.. that what you’re talking about?”
He tries to say that the reason he lied is so that Spaz would take care of the controller and I call him out on his bullshit. I had his back up against the wall.. there was no way in hell he was going to get around me this time and when Chief started in on both of them for the way they treat each other, Bubba does what Bubba does best.. he called the Crack Whore and cried foul. Telling her how much of a victim he is and that we’re always picking on him.
She wants to talk to Chief and I hear him tell her, “No.. not this time.” and then he went into what douchebags they are to each other and everything else about them not cleaning up after themselves, yada yada yada .. same old story.
He hangs up the phone and then starts in on Bubba again about how Bubba been treating him [Chief].. and how he looks at him with utter contempt, hatred and distain until he wants something like his laptop fixed and then he’s his best friend.
And then he asks him what his problem is with me.
FINALLY.. I mean.. really. FINALLY.
Bubba says he isn’t going to “.. say it in front of HER” meaning me and I yell out that if he has a problem with ME then he needs to man up and talk to ME because if he doesn’t talk to ME then there is no problem.
Bubba then gets back on the phone with the Crack Whore and basically, conversation over.
Bubba goes in his room.. Chief goes into his room.. and I’m left in the dining room waiting for.. something. Maybe Chief telling me what his conversation was with the Crack Whore?
Spaz asks me to play video games with him and since I’m also waiting for Bird to come over to get the kitten :: she had a vet appointment in the morning :: I go sit out there with him.
But it’s bothering me that Chief isn’t telling me anything.. that he’s not talking to me about what happened or whatever.
So I go in the bedroom and what’s Chief doing? He’s playing Call of Duty. Timing was on my side this time because his round had just ended so I said to him, “.. are you going to tell me about the conversation you had?”
“Oh.. yea. I’ll tell you” and he proceeds to say that she wanted Bubba to sleep over her crack den because he was upset and when Chief said no, she was concerned that Bubba was going to be picked on.
I started saying something.. I don’t know what.. I guess just rehashing what happened and how I’m not going to let a 14 year old play me.. or manipulate me or something.
Chief said not to feed into it and I said I wasn’t. Because if I was, I’d be in Bubba’s bedroom and not ours.
So what does Chief do? Goes back to playing Call of Duty.
I was stunned.
STUNNED.
Obviously, the next round was WAY more important then what I was going through. Dumbass me, right?
That room became a little box. A little box with no windows, doors or outside source of light and I had to get out of it. So I went back out to the living room. Spaz is talking non-stop about nonsense and I can feel my face getting numb and teeth clenching and ever muscle in my body getting tight. I’m desperately trying to remain calm for Spaz’s sake. None of this is his fault.. he can’t help if his father is an emotionally void asshole.
But then he starts telling me that he asked his mother to buy him a winter jacket .. and she asked why I wasn’t buying it for him and he told her something like I had to pay bills and I wasn’t getting paid or something like that. Something completely off from what I had told him before.
NOTE: The weather started to turn really bad the week between my unemployment checks so since he was going to her crack den everyday after school, I told him to ask her if she could get him a jacket .. since she was all ghetto rich and everything..
And that he doesn’t live with her so it isn’t her
And then I went off.. telling him that she was just a miserable person who can’t deal with anyone else being happy and it isn’t her place to tell him what she told him.. that she should call his father.
I don’t him that she can’t just be a “mother” when she feels like and when she doesn’t “feel” like it.. she can’t just dump it on me and make it seem like I’m the one who isn’t doing what they’re suppose to be doing.
While I was saying all this.. Chief had walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen and then was standing behind me.. but I didn’t acknowledge him. I walked back into the living room.. he into the bedroom and that’s where he remained.
Bird finally got there and I told her the whole story. Being his cousin, having grown up with him and his brothers and staying mostly at their house.. AND having been in therapy for years.. she knows better then anyone why he is the way he is and does what he does. But at least I was able to get what I SHOULD be telling him off my chest.
But. yknow.. Call of Duty is WAY more important.
He never came out of the bedroom and after Bird left, I remained in the living room watching tv until I fell asleep. There was no way in HELL I was going to sleep next to him. I probably would have stuffed a sock down his throat while he was sleeping on his back snoring away. Really though, I didn’t want to be ignored anymore.
I know that the bedroom door was closed because the dogs stayed in the living room with me.. and somewhere in the middle of the night when I got up to roll over :: a feat not unworthy of medal on my couch! :: the dogs weren’t around so I know at some point he woke up and saw me out there and just wasn’t going to deal with whatever it was he thought he was going to have to deal with.
In the morning, he wakes me up because the kids had school and asks me why I was sleeping out there. I told him I was catching up on Project Runway and fell asleep.
My attitude was WAY off so he didn’t buy it but you can tell he SO wanted to.
He leaves for work and I take Bubba to school. Not that I wanted to.. not that HE wanted me to but he’s too fucking lazy to walk so I wasn’t going to be the one responsible for him missing a day. Especially on a Friday.
I came right home instead of my usual stop at the shop. I didn’t have to get him coffee and I had stuff in the house already for Spaz’s lunch. But around 8am he calls me and asks where I was at and sounds SO wounded that I didn’t stop at the shop because he had fixed me a cup of coffee.
“oh” was really all I said.
Spaz gets dropped off at school and I go down to the shop. I’m very low key. Not only is it morning.. not only did I not have my usual caffeine quota in me.. but I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened and the way he acted / reacted … and I’m basically only at the shop out of necessity .. not because I wanted to be there.
He kisses me hello and I ask him if I have to go to the wholesalers.. or the produce place. No to both. I nod my head “cool” and then make my way to the front of the store to glance through the paper.
He’s in the back doing whatever it is he was doing but then he comes up front.. stands opposite me on the other side of the counter and says “.. are you upset with me?”
Only it doesn’t come out as, yknow, “Is there something bothering you, honey?” .. it comes out HOW DARE YOU BE PISSED OFF AT ME
Cuz.. like.. that’s going to make me feel better right?
So I said, “Yeah.. I am”
ROOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! WHAT DID IIIIIIII DOOOOO?????
I told him that I was trying to talk to him last night and he just turned away to play the video game.
And then he went on a rant. And when I say rant.. I mean R-A-N-T!
I can’t even remember everything he said .. but a few things stick out.
He said that I wasn’t trying to have a conversation .. that I was ranting and he wasn’t going to deal with that… I was like, “fine” .. “okay” .. I had no intentions of getting into a scream-fest because we were in the shop and the shop is NEVER the place to talk about anything important because of the interruptions.
He returns to the back of the store and then a few minutes later he comes back out and starts going off again. He said that I was torqued all night and that I was doing nothing but being aggitating so that’s why he went into his room.. and I was like, “.. you ALWAYS go in your room” and you may have thought he swallowed a toad.
No! No! He said.. you’re not going to twist it around and make it seem like I’m doing something bad. I get up early every day and I come home and Im exhausted.
Like I’m not.
He was just going on and on and at one point he said a reason why he was pissed at me but really, he was yelling so much and so loud that I more interested in keeping my sanity. Telling myself that I was not the one who was wrong here.. that I had every right to feel the way I feel..
You know.. that kind of thing.
But then.. then… then he went into how he heard my burst with Spaz and how that kid doesn’t need that.. how the crack whore acts like that all the time and he doesn’t know what I was going off on him about but he doesn’t need that..
AND I SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
Me.
I should know better.
Me.
Me who does everything I possibly can to keep this kid normal.
And then the curtain in my head came down and I was done. I could literally feel all the warmth in my soul drain. I could feel the emotions ice over. Whatever tears I was fighting back just went away. I was as hard as a rock. And I knew at that point that there was no talking myself down from nothing and the only way to bring me back was the utility knife in the nightstand.
When I wasn’t responsive anymore, he went into the back again.
I yelled back that I forgot something at home and left.
I drove home.. went into the bedroom and did what I did.
I’m not going to lie… when doing it, it felt good. It felt real.
There’s a song called HURT, written by Trent Reznor of NIN and remade by Johnny Cash. The first two lines pretty much sums it up:
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
But once I started to “feel” .. then I was mad at myself for getting to that point.. mad at the feelings of disappointment.. of guilt.. of now having to make up a story if someone asked what happened.
“Life just beat me up” is what I planned on saying. Pretty much sums it up, right?
I go back to the store.. there were a few customers so I just put my game face on and acted almost normal. After they left, he came at me again. But this time I was stronger.. and this time I wasn’t going to pull any punches.
Honestly, I can’t remember verbatim. I usually can but there was so much raw emotion that I think my brain just said, “Nope. You don’t need to hold onto this one.”
I remember saying to him that he puts me on the outside until he wants me in the middle. He wanted examples and I told him that I didn’t have anything specific. I think I said, “.. excuse me for not being prepared but if you give me an hour I’ll go home and get my journals”.
I remember a point when I was screaming at him about his kids.. about how I’m with them more then he is and every single minute it’s nothing but arguing and bickering and fighting and mental gymnastics always having to stay one step a head of them.. but I do it.. and I don’t even tell him half the shit that’s going on because I know he’ll just go off in his own little world because HE doesn’t want to deal with HIS kids and excuse me for getting to a fucking breaking point.
And that’s when the tears started..
And that’s when he was like, “… There! See! That’s what you should have done.”
I have absolutely no fucking clue what he was referring to but I know I answered that why should there be something that I have to do.. if I was so over board last night and you knew it.. then why the hell didn’t you try and calm me down instead of just ignoring it? Why can’t YOU be the rock that I am for you?
That’s when he accused me of twisting things around. “See! You’re doing it! You’re twisting it around!” he was all pointing his finger at me and you know.. I’m from the ghetto.. you SO don’t point your finger at me.
Honest to God if he wasn’t on the other side of the counter I would have swung at him.. that’s how mad that made me. It literally brought me back to when I was married and the Spawn from Satan’s ass would say the same damn thing when he knew I was right and wasn’t going to admit it.
But instead of swinging at him, I shoved the stapler off the counter with such force that if it had hit the fridge door it would have shattered.
That actually geared him down and when there was a break in his yelling at me, I said to him… very calmly.. “Where you ever lied to?” I know he has been and I didn’t wait for him to answer. I said, “.. not a good feeling is it?”. He quietly said no and then I said, “… so not only does your son lie to me but you lie to me to”.
He was all indignant and was like, “.. when did I ever lie to you?” and I had two words for him. Two words that I had tucked up my sleeve waiting to bust out at the right moment.
Parking Ticket.
I didn’t give him a chance to say ANYTHING .. I just said what I’ve been rehearsing in my head. How he threw me under the bus. How HE may be used to all this but I’M not.. because he didn’t want to get in trouble? Because he didn’t want to pay it? What the fuck, man?
And then while I had the floor and before he could say anything else.. I told him that a piece of me believes that a part of him is just waiting for this relationship to fail.. like all his other relationships failed.. that the crack whore was going to get to me.. that the kids were going to get to me.. and then I’d be gone and THAT’S the reason why when we DO argue, his response is always, “.. you’re going to do what your going to do” where I would fight to the death for this relationship.
He didn’t say anything.. he was quiet and just whispered “no”.
He told me that he wasn’t good with “feelings” .. not even his own. I told him that that was bullshit. He knows how he feels.. he just doesn’t want to.
I wanted to tell him about cutting myself and so I brought up about the last time when I had called him from my job and told him that I was hanging by a thread.. that MY demons were starting to surface and that I wasn’t coming straight home from work because I had found a S.A.F.E (Self Abuse Finally Ends) meeting. When I got home that night, he never asked me ANYTHING about it.. or how I was feeling or anything. It was hard for me to say.. I kept having to pause to regroup.
And then a customer came in.. and he had to go cook them something and then another customer came in and another and another and another and then his father.
Conversation obviously over.
Right before I left, I had to use the bathroom. Up until that point I was trying to avoid him.. not look at him.. not be anywhere near him. I had the game face on for everybody else but I just couldn’t wait to get out of there.
When I came out of the bathroom, he was standing there and when I went to maneuver around him, he said “Stop. Come here.” and just held me like he should have the night before. He said he wanted to go out.. just the two of us. Do dinner and a movie or something.. he didn’t care. Just as long as it was us.
I really don’t remember what I said. But I let him hold me because I wanted to be held.
And then I left. He walked me to the car and hugged me again and said, “I really, really, really do love you.”
Nice to hear but I ‘m not going to say that it made everything go away.
When he came home, I was sitting on the bed playing around with my DSi. I had a tee-shirt on and the cuts on my forearm were puffy and red and very noticable.
When he came into the bedroom and went to kiss me hello, he saw them. I saw his eyes look at them … but he never said anything. Nothing. At all.
But I know he saw them.
LIVING ME 101 