stupid, stupid, stupid

- wish I could say that last night was cathartic, but not quite. It was about the only diversion, give it that. And at least it transmuted enough so that I eventually went to bed and slept. Not enough though for any more than that. Probably because it was contained at three tidy slices, little enough that I can lie with a straight face about accidental injury. Little enough that someone could pretend to believe me. If they wanted to. Not enough, though, to stop hurting.

Pdoc rags me about being the neat-freak of SI. And I am, although in every other way I am anything but tidy. Not something I am proud of, but it is just the way it is, and the only way that it helps. The cutting is one of the things that has always made me worry about personality disorders, although pdoc reckons not. I've cut sporadically since I was 15, but only in the last few years has it been anywhere that would be routinely visible. Then it was what pdoc calls the Team Adidas logo on my left forearm, and I ripped shit out of that over and over. Still, it is tidy enough that most people will believe - or pretend to - the story about the iguana capture.

That was one of the things that finally let me trust pdoc completely - he didn't make a huge fuss about it, didn't act like it was the end of everything. Just looked, said that at least I was keeping it clean and not in need of any medical attention, and let it be. In turn, I feel that I can tell him when it happens. He understands that it's some unspecified combination of absolute misery and tension, and that I can't anticipate it. There are times where I am so depressed that breathing is a triumph and I don't cut, and times where I am really stressed but don't do it either. And then, shit....get the wrong mix and out come the razor blades. He laughs at that too, that it has to be a blade. At one time I tried not keeping any in the house - after I ended up driving to a really shady area when I could barely stand because I was so wasted, but it was just such an overwhelming need.... I figured that at least if I allow myself to keep one perfect blade, I can sometimes get past it by just watching the blade for a while. Maybe stroking it. Maybe do enough of the ritual preparation. Sometimes it is enough.

Sometimes it's not.


"your jacket,
hanging in my cupboard
has the scent of laughter
- often, I press my face to its softness"
(jcat, 1981)