T H I S I S R E C O V E R Y
D A Y 4 2
Recovery. For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like I mean it. I feel like I am going to recover, and I feel like I am going to get through this. I don't want to sound conceited or anything...but I'm proud of myself. I have not cut myself in 42 days. Sure, I still have scars. I will always have scars. But you know what? Being alive and actually seeing those scars...that means I won the battle. I survived. I'm going to countinue to survive. I'm going to find someone to love me, scars and all. I do miss you, I won't lie. Half of it is because I feel guilty for pushing you away before you got to see how much you helped me and just how much of my survival and recovery I owe to you. I really don't know how to thank you, but I promise I will find someway. I know the best thing I could do for you right now is probably just drop off the face of the Earth or something, but I really want to display my thanks with something physical...perhaps another Obama card is in order? Do they make thank you cards with Obama's face on it? Do I dare find out? Ahah...no, but really, I owe you big time. I owe a lot of people, big time...I'm just not sure how to thank any of them. I suppose in the end, they all got what they really wanted. They wanted me to recover, to be happy, to be sane, and here I am...In a way, haven't I already thanked them all by taking their advice and learning to live positively?
Let's be frank. I was a cynical, selfish little bitch. I never took other people's feelings into consideration, and if I did it was only because I flat out didn't believe them. I had the nerve to tell other people what they were feeling, and I suppose at the time it seemed quite logical to me. I could never imagine that I had so many caring friends, so I just believed that you all were liars...I believed that I was just a huge problem in your lives and you all just lied to my face because you didn't want to see me hurt...which is ironic, because you all saw me hurt anyway. Looking back, I just feel so selfish...I feel like I was always the one who had to bring everyone down. I was always the one who couldn't just shut up and have a good time...I really didn't mean to seem like I thought it was all about me. The truth is, I was just hurting inside and I didn't know how to channel my feelings into something productive and positive.
Different people do different things when they're in extreme emotional pain. Some people, like you, find safe ways to express their pain. I remember you would like to sleep..because you found you felt better in the morning. I envy your ability to just be able to go to sleep and wake up to have everything perfectly in order. I wasn't like that...I don't know how high your emotional pain threshold is, but it's obviously much higher than mine. I don't know what the deepest level of pain you've ever felt is, and I don't doubt that you have felt real pain at least once in your life, but you've never had full blown depression. For me, not only was the pain I felt so deep and opressive, but I had no idea how to deal with it. You sleep, I cut. I make physical marks on my body to display the pain I feel inside. I don't know why. I'm finding better ways to relieve stress now, of course, things like painting, browsing the web, etc... I just have to be very careful. As hard as it is to believe, the rubber band snapping thing is SUPPOSED to be a technique to keep people for self-harming...obviously I wasn't ready for that technique yet. I needed to recover before I tried to use techniques to keep me from harming myself, because I was in so much pain that I would ALWAYS find a way to harm myself with the most seemingly harmless things. I snapped that rubber band on my wrists so much it was leaving quarter sized bruises on my skin. That's insane. When I didn't have a rubber band with me, I would use my nails to dig into my skin and try to cut myself that way. A few times, I even resorted to taking my fists and pounding on my legs just because I was in so much pain...I just needed to hurt myself, partially because I felt like everything that was wrong in my life and other people's lives was my fault. I felt like I always needed to be punished when I did something wrong, even if it was something a trivial as answer a question wrong in class. There was this scary little voice inside my head, and everytime I did something wrong, it would just go "Oh, now that you've fucked up again, you stupid idiot, you have to hurt yourself. You deserve it."
Up until a few months ago, I didn't think I even deserved to recover. I thoght I deserved to just die alone, perhaps spending a few years working in a factory...I didn't think I was worth anything. I didn't even think I deserved to be alive. It took me a long time to realize that I do deserve to live, and I do deserve to prosper, and I do deserve to recover. Besides learning to feel good about myself, I also opened my eyes up to everything that was being taken away from me by my addiction and my mental illness. I lost you. That killed me...and I was so close to giving up. So close. Reading the beginning chapters of this journal probably tell you that. Remember the first conversation we had this Summer? On the sixth? I felt like, maybe you still cared a little bit. Maybe I still had a chance to get my best friend back. Maybe I could recover, and maybe you did care. That conversation gave me motivation to kickstart my recover instead of relying on others close to me to take brunt of my illnesses. The next conversation we had hurt, because it made me realize that there was no hope left. You weren't going to be there for me anymore. It was over. But by then, I had already developed barely enough esteem to keep going on, I had realized that my recovery is for me. I had partially realized that I was at least worth something...even if I wasn't worth anything to you anymore. Maybe you still care a little...maybe we won't ever talk again. Maybe it'll atleast make you realize your efforts weren't in vain if you accidently looked in my direction at school one day, and saw me really smiling. Maybe that would be make you feel just a teeny bit better...but you'd probably feel nothing at all.
Contrary to what the beginning of this journal says, this is not either a journal of recovery or the last of my writings before I die. This IS a recovery journal, because I am recovering.
YOU ARE READING
73 Days
Non-FictionA series of letters to a once best friend, a series of letters he may never get to read. There are 73 days in summer, and that means 73 days of change. From a suicidal, depressed, self-harm addicted teenager into a (hopefully) stable young woman, th...
