please send all writing to me at selfdestrukt@hotmail.com , with "Sharing" as the subject. i'm REALLY rusty at my html, so please bear with me. i figure it's the content here that matters anyhow.
this is a completely non-fictional account of my life from my mid-teens to the present depicting my descent into depression and self harm. there are of course many, many parts left out and eventually i will add them. this is just a quick summery of the things that have led me to this point.
last names have been omitted due to fear of recognition on both my and their part[s]. some names have been changed entirely.
i met her when i was 15 years old and i met her only once. i don’t recall what she even looked like, what she wore or the timbre of her voice. it was a chance meeting, in a way.
as a bored teenager from a rural town 40 miles north of philly, on friday and saturday nights my friends and i would drive 13 miles to the farmers market in Quakertown, which was affectionately referred to as “Q-Mart”. There, we met erin, a fellow goth who tended the booth where her parents sold her mothers stained glass and watercolor paintings. at first we would just eye each other, as teenage misfits do. this progressed to smiles and nods and finally we began to spend the two to three hours we were there hanging out with her and her friends at the booth, waiting for her mom and dad to come and relieve her for breaks so we could walk around.
erin was from q-town so she knew almost everybody there. this is not to say she liked many of them. we would walk around and she would fill us in on who was a poser, who was the real deal, who was a nazi, etc. etc.
one night we arrived after i’d dropped two double dipped tabs. we decided for the very first time to meet outside the Q, and i gave her directions to my parents house for the next day--a saturday. the plan was for her to bring her friends and i would gather my own and we would all meet and mingle in an attempt to sort of encourage solidarity between towns.
the next day erin arrived with her entourage. i don’t remember much about this meeting. i remember that my group consisted of jill and joey and most likely dave and jason . i only remember one of her friends, and like i said before, i don’t remember anything about how she looked or sounded. but i do remember her words.
somehow we’d gotten onto the topic of our parents. joey won the prize for the most fucked up mom. his mother was a psychic. she made her living giving consultations/readings from her home and she also worked for a psychic hotline. that’s not the weird part. the weird part is that she always had her blinds closed because she was afraid aliens were spying on her. she would regularly tell joey to strip so she could check him for alien probes and anytime he got himself a new scar she’d go crazy, telling him he’d been abducted. joey was into free-style bmxing--had built his own bike and gear, so he was always bailing and getting cut up. he also like to hang with jack, aaron, and phil, who were into building explosives and filled with general destructive urges. all of these boys were smarter than the usual small-town adolescent boy and as happens with brainy boys, their slipups manifested themselves in shrapnel cuts and chemical burns. so joey’s mother had plenty of cuts and scars to freak out about.
after joey finished talking about his mother, she stepped up. at about the same age as i was, she had already worked with her own mother on a psychic hotline and as a palm reader. upon hearing this i proffered my hand and she took it and gently began to trace the lines. she was quiet for a long time. i remember we went off and sat alone on the grass, and she finally looked up at me and told me that as i neared my thirties i was going to run into some emotional problems. she told me it would seem very bad and get progressively worse and that more than anything i should remember to not be afraid to get some kind of help. she also assured me that by this time there would be much less of a social stigma when it came to psychiatric medications and treatments.
i never forgot that. i remembered those words all through the remainder of my adolescence and into my early twenties, which were a bit of a roller coaster emotionally for me. the difference between then and now is that i enjoyed it then. i loved it. i loved the way my emotions seemed wildly out of control and when i began drinking excessively, well i loved that too. 7 nights a week from approximately 12am to 8 or 9 am i was wasted. and christ, my days off are a blur for the most part.
there was a point where i developed something unnamed which i began to refer to in my journal as The Dread. this was before the drinking was completely out of control and while i was still living in a safe environment. The Dread would come at night when i was trying to sleep and would manifest itself in heart palpitations and a terror so strong i would lie shaking and paralyzed, horrified that i had no idea what my future held. i would try hysterically to make a plan in my head to get myself onto some kind of track--give myself something to work for, a goal, anything to ensure i wasn’t going to end up dependent on other people for my entire life.
looking back, i think i began to drink to drown those feelings. when i moved into another apartment i began intentionally to surround myself with people who were hopeless causes: homeless kids, total fuck ups, drug addicts, alcoholics and wanted criminals.
this isn‘t to say i didn’t love them. i did, even though a lot of them weren’t really my friends. as often happens with excessive drinking i became extremely promiscuous and as usual the guys i fucked liked me until they’d had a taste then they talked shit on me behind my back. i was one of few in our circle who held a job and for this reason i was always able to buy beer and smokes and even food; therefore our place became something of a fuck-up magnet. people were always around. and i was always drunk.
when i hit bottom i left and moved back home. i’d lost my boyfriend my apartment and my job all in a span of about 2 weeks. the only things that mattered to me by that point were my roommate, Boo, and my best friend, Sheila. I was also worried about my good friend mike but i knew that he was going to go his own way no matter what and there was nothing i could do to save him. i was too busy trying to save myself. i was drowning and i think i was on my way to losing the battle and submitting completely to my vices.
it took me 15 months to heal sufficiently so that i could move away from my parents house. 5 years in the iron city had banged me up but finally i was healed and i’d saved enough money to move to another city. i moved in with my sister in Baltimore the day before Halloween of 1999. and i felt good. i felt happy. i felt like things were going to start really moving for me. 5 days later i met a man in a bar. we went back to my place at around 12 am to listen to some music. i had no intention of sleeping with him--those days were over for me. and he wasn’t putting out any kind of a fuck vibe so i felt safe. there was another fellow with us as well, and i felt safe enough. I'd met billy on halloween night at the rendezvous lounge and he was just a sweet little man. he had a lot of tattoos and was short and a little bit chubby. i found him charming, especially since he shared an affinity for gary numan. the other, Chris, was the one i met that night. he and billy knew each other and when he walked into the ’vous, he sat on the other side of billy, to whom i’d been talking for about 20 minutes.
when the upstairs bar opened chris suggested we go up there, so all three of us did. chris and i wound up sitting next to each other and somehow everyone up there got onto the subject of pro-wrestling which i hated. chris and i began our own conversation about music. eventually we decided to get beer and go to my place because it was close. billy came too but had to leave early and somehow chris managed to convince me to sleep with him and although it took a long time i finally gave in.
the next morning he asked me for my number and told me he’d call me on sunday and we’d go out. this was friday morning. i gave it to him and he kissed me. at the last second i turned so he ended up kissing my cheek. then he left, and i was left with mixed feelings. on one hand i was pissed off at myself for having slept with him, therefore repeating a pattern i’d thought that i was finished with. i felt like a whore. on the other hand, he genuinely seemed interested in me and hadn’t been in a hurry to leave. when he did, he’d changed into his extra work clothes which he had in his car [this should have tipped me off to something but of course it didn’t] so i believed that he had to go to work.
sunday came and went without a call and i felt stupid and used and ashamed of myself. i didn’t want to go to the rendezvous again in case i ran into him there. on tuesday i was getting ready to go out job hunting when there was a knock at the door. i opened it up and there he stood, work clothes and all. my heart flip-flopped as he told me i’d given him a bogus number. i had just moved there and hadn’t learned it yet--i’d screwed up a digit.
we went out the next night and from then on we seemed to go everywhere together. we were a couple. we went out to bars, to the movies, to the mall, thrift shopping--everywhere. it felt right. it felt like the best thing that had ever happened to me--but not at first. at first i wasn’t particularly attracted to him. i liked him, i thought that he was funny, and he always took me places and i liked that. it wasn’t until march that i really totally fell for him. i fell head over heels and right about then, as soon as he sensed that, things began to sort of sour.
We were using cocaine on weekends pretty regularly by this point. i’d used it before but never so regularly and never in such amounts. while i can’t really pin-point when it began, he eventually started coming around a little bit les, blowing me off when he said he’d be around. and in july, on my birthday the big one hit. he’d very recently moved into the city--about 5 miles from when i was living. this was great, i thought, because before he’d lived about 25 minutes away outside the city and i didn’t have a car. the week before my birthday he’d been blowing me off a lot and i was really feeling depressed. for about 3 months i’d been getting progressively worse-- i was crying several days a week ,and i was just generally very unhappy with the relationship as i was in love with him and he seemed to be withdrawing further and further from me.
the day before my 27th birthday he told me he’d pick me up at work and we could hang out all night. he picked me up at 11pm and asked if we could stop by his house, which was close to my work. we did and he got a beer for each of us and we sat outside and drank. he told me he was sorry for blowing me off and that it had nothing to do with me, that he still felt the same way about me as he always had.
in the middle of this speech the telephone rang and he answered it. after the initial “hello” he lowered his voice but i could still here him. i heard him say “when” and “where are you” and “i’ll be right there”. and then he came out and told me he had to work on his room and he was sorry, he’d make it up to me, and he dropped me off at home at about 12:30 am. i had officially turned 27. i wasn’t even all the way up on my porch before he peeled out and tore down my block and around the corner. i waited 5 minutes and called his house. no answer. i kept trying. again. again. again. he was gone all night. on my birthday.
to this day i have no idea whom he was meeting. i don’t care. that night is burned into my heart for eternity. just writing about it makes me feel sick inside, makes me want to hurt myself to make myself forget the pain inside. but that comes later. this, this is just the beginning. this is when i began to break down. and i haven’t been the same since.
my sister wasn’t home so i walked to rendezvous . i told the bartender it was my birthday and she gave me a free drink. the girl next to me said happy birthday and i left then. i was just out the door when the tears came. i walked back home and i tried to call him again. no answer. so i drank. i drank 3/4 a bottle of vodka. packed up three boxes of his things and in the morning when my sister came home she took me to his house where i gave his roommate his things.
two days later his best friend left a bunch of messages from England on our machine and i called him to pass the messages along. he came over with my “birthday present”, which was 3 bags of cocaine. the next morning he left and i didn’t hear from him for three weeks. he began calling me that way--every three weeks, always telling me it wasn’t my fault, he still cared about me. always when i was at work and we couldn’t really talk. and then he eventually just stopped calling.
my heart was broken. i slipped into a depression so great i wanted nothing more than to curl up and die. i stopped sleeping. i would lie in bed all night crying. so i began to drink and to take otc sleeping pills. i would fall apart for no reason--at work, on the bus, in the shower--all the time.
in october i got a new job out of the city which paid me twice what i’d been making previously. i was still heartsick, but i think i was beginning to heal. i took a bus and a train to and from work every day. i had little fear of running into him as i had to go downtown which was further away from his home. i began to save some money and i started going to happy hour at a pub downtown some days after work where i knew he’d never go. in November out of the blue he called me. he expressed a desire to see me and promised to call me in a week, and of course i believed him and my hopes rose. for the first time in 4 months, i felt happy. i stopped crying. for 4 months i’d cried every day. 120 days of crying. i finally felt better.
at work i met a man during a smoke break who seemed handsome and interesting, and we began to hang out. within two months i was living at his house--a spacious 3 story historical townhouse on a wealthy square in west baltimore. all winter we were together, however our relationship was platonic. at first we had sex like crazy, but he decided he wasn’t ready to pursue a meaningful sexual relationship at the time. he was divorced at 31 and unable to connect with women outside of one-nighters and when he met me he wanted to keep sex and us separate until he felt ready to trust me in that way. i knew it was the truth because we worked together and spent every second together--he told me he wasn’t going to sleep around and i believed him and still do to this day. i missed sex but it hardly mattered. i was never alone and i was having fun--we got along well and did things together and i felt loved and needed and like i was finally over chris. he also treated me with respect--like a lady--something i‘d never had before in any relationship.
i spent the winter happy with this man and i think we were beginning to fall in love.
out of nowhere in march chris called again. as was usual by that point i wasn’t home when he called--he left a message. he actually left 3 messages. he seemed desperate to contact me. so i gave in and called, thinking my heart was steeled against him.
he told me he’d left me because he was in love with me and didn’t know how to deal with it , that he knew he’d made a mistake and he wanted to see me, even if it was just to say goodbye properly. he told me he didn’t expect me to take him back. so i agreed to meet him in 3 days.
of course we got back together, even though he was too much of a coward to officially break up with the other girl he was seeing--21 years old to his 35-- and was ‘buying time‘ until she broke up with him. yet for a short time everything seemed great. but with chris came the cocaine and even after he moved in at the beginning of july he began to blow me off to party with other people. i was on Zoloft by this point and it got to the point where instead of buying my medication we’d use my money to buy drugs and beer and smokes.
i had been exhibiting many symptoms of depression--lack of interest in things/people i used to love, insomnia, not wanting to get out of bed on days off [or days i worked--i didn’t work a forty hour work week from about April through august]. i wouldn’t answer the phone or the door unless i knew it was chris. i hid from my friends and even my own sister whom i lived with. i avoided social situations and sequestered myself in my apartment, sometimes seeing only chris and co-workers for weeks at a time. when i went to the doctor, he gave me the Zoloft and i felt relieved. i knew something was wrong i just hadn't known what. i finally felt, once again, as if things were going to get better.
in September i lost my job and stopped my meds and broke down. he was talking about moving to Florida. i became suicidal. i wanted to die. chris didn’t exhibit any concern for my feelings at all. i guess he never has, really. when i checked myself into the psych ward for 3 days he didn’t call or visit. when i came home he wasn’t there. the day i left, he took off, didn’t offer to help me pack or move any of my things. i was given 1 day to pack up all of my stuff and he didn’t stick around to help me even though i’d helped him move in upstairs, and even though since he’d lived there he hadn’t lifted a finger to help keep the place clean.
after a few weeks he called me, begging me to move with him, but by then it was too late. my parents had their hooks in my and i wasn’t sure i wanted to be with him anymore. when he moved, he called me constantly and swore that if i came to florida our relationship would progress and he’d treat me the way i needed to be treated. i was having no luck finding a job at him and he kept telling me i could come down with no money and he’d help me out until i got a job. when i told him over and over that i didn’t want to be dependent on him he accused me of not wanting to come at all. so on the first of december i flew down to florida.
at the airport i got neither a kiss nor a hug from him, although we hadn’t seen each other in 3 months. nothing’s changed. there’s no sex, no affection, noting but him mocking me, ridiculing me and making cracks about how i’m a financial burden, how my snoring keeps him awake....when he goes out he doesn’t take me because he can’t afford it, or because we always fight.
and we do fight. we fight because when we go out he treats me like shit, he embarrasses me. one time we went out and chris kept leaving me for 20 minutes at a time, to go to the adjoining bar leaving me by myself. when finally i found some one to talk to chris took the guy off to the other club, leaving me to sit by myself and look stupid and pathetic. one time i asked him to buy me a drink and he said he couldn’t, and instead bought one for some one he didn’t even know. he gets jealous if i talk to other guys but ignores me when i don‘t have anyone to talk to but him as soon as some one he knows comes along. . he won’t fuck me but accuses me of flirting or talking too much with my one sort of friend. i will admit i did tell chris i was going to hook up with the guy , who was at the time sleeping on our couch, but it was just to get him to recognize that i felt neglected. this kid and i e mail each other and chris can’t stand it. he acts like i’m cheating on him. yet he won’t touch me, kiss me, hold me or act like he’s even remotely interested in me as anything other than a parasitic roommate. in novemeber over the phone he began to encourage me to lose weight. i began to purge.
since arriving here, i feel alone and neglected. since i haven’t gotten a job, he tells me i’m going to have to leave, after he brought me down here. so i’m expected to go up and stay with shonna with no money. she isn’t the one who begged me to move in with her, regardless of my financial situation. he keeps telling me that he’s “not the asshole”.
he constantly makes cracks about my leaving then turns around and gets pissy when i get angry with him for it. he doesn’t want to take any responsibility for the situation we’re in, even though i was prepared to wait the agreed upon 6 months before coming down here. he pressured me and nagged and pleaded with me. and now he wants me to just disappear, without taking any responsibility.
i feel worthless and useless and the emotional pain i’m feeling is crippling. i’ve turned to cutting myself on my left wrist, under my watch band with a razor blade. when i feel like i’m about to lose control i nick myself, over and over, and the quick sharp sting and the threads of blood make me forget about what i’m feeling inside.
i’m purging between 4 and 8 times a day. at first i was using the toilet, but now i do it in our room while he’s at work, into ziploc plastic bags with the door locked and the TV turned up. that way it’s near-silent and there is no odor and there is no mess to clean up.
i’ve been reading up on sexual addiction, bulimia, self mutilation and anorexia, more for tips and tricks than to help myself stop. i recognize the reasons for what i’m doing, however i can’t afford medication or help. chris can buy a four track, a distortion pedal, a guitar, a new 27 inch television, dvds and go out once or twice a week but he hasn’t offered to buy more Zoloft for me. i’ve now submitted over 20 job applications and been to 8 interviews. it’s not as if i’m not trying. everyday i scour the paper and once or twice a week i call the agencies i’m registered with and inquire about open assignments. all to no avail.
not one night goes by that i don’t lie in the dark and wish for a way to disappear.
so here i am, 28 years old, depressed, bulimic and cutting myself regularly to keep the emotional pain at bay. i know i should never have given in. i should never had gotten involved with him again and all i want to do is get away. i’m 1,000 miles away from my friends and family, stuck in a house far removed from any place to go pass the time. i now understand that i suffer from severe co-dependency due to cripplingly low self esteem. the only things that give me comfort now are cutting and purging. my only friends i keep in constant contact with are the girls on the proana and promia sites i’ve joined. i’ve even created one for other mias, since ana groups are far more plentiful on the net.
chris has always read my journal [another indication that he doesn't respect me or my privacy], and recently he has scanned it and ignored the parts about purging, so i guess he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to be bothered. in 2 weeks my parents are coming to Florida and today he made it clear that he isn’t interested in spending any time with them--that i should just go by myself .
when i do go to stay with sheila i plan on cutting off contact with him although he thinks that he can just waltz up there when he feels like leaving here. that’s his plan. he wants to wash his hands of me--throw me away-- until i get a job and a place then come up to be with me and continue this non-relationship. i’m not going to tell him my plans until i go. or maybe i’ll just disappear. tell my parents and my sister to not give him a number where he can reach me--sheila’s number is unlisted. i think that he’s been nothing but a detriment to my health and the sooner i get away from him the better. i feel like i love him but i don’t think i really do. i think i’m clinging to the memory of what he was like two years ago, when everything felt good and safe. before i knew what he’s really like, that he only really cares about his own wants, needs, and comfort. he only cares about me when its convenient for him or when it benefits him to do so. as far as the cutting and bulimia are concerned, i’m a late bloomer. but i still remember what that girl said, how it would happen late for me. and it’s all come true.
sometimes i think i wouldn’t mind the absence of sex if he would just give me some positive attention. but maybe that’s just me reaching, trying to find a way to salvage what’s been gone for a long long time--a reason to stay with him.
the times i need his support most--when i’m very very blue, when i break down and cry, when i feel alone and cry myself to sleep right beside him in bed--he either ignores me or tells me that he ‘doesn’t know what to do’ or ‘doesn’t have time’ for ‘it’ --whatever ‘it’ means--me? my reaction to his behavior? my needs?
more than anyone i understand that i’ve put myself here and i don’t expect a big pity party in my honor. unlike many of us, i’ve arrived into my situation through bad choices and a refusal to let people and things go. all i want now is to get a job so i can go back up north to be with my friend and not be broke and a burden on her. i’m trying so hard to get work, but the economy is for shit here. and if he sends me away with nothing but my suitcases i don’t know what i’m going to do.
so that’s where i’m at right now. i encourage ALL of you who have your own story to tell to write it out, e-mail it to me, and i’ll post it here. this page is not just for me--this is a place for us all to share, a confidential place where we can all get to know each other and each others’ stories, ok?
please be sure to submit all writing in at least basic html format--for those who don’t know, this simply means that at the beginning of each new paragraph you must type “p” between < >. this will ensure that your story isn’t one big run-on sentence, and will make it easier to read.
