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Amanda

Copyright, Amanda

story...humm..it is hard for me to say what exactly makes me want to cut, or what lead up to it. i have a very sketchy past, and some theorys as to what may have happened to me. i know that something must have. it is just one of those things that you can feel but you have no idea. like when you are in a dark room and yet you know when something is standing right next to you. there are a few hints that help you see that object. for me, i have my dreams, and a few memories and obviously my current behavior. my parents divorced when i was 5, i remember the day almost perfectly. my parents believe that this was what the trauma in my life was, along with my grandmother, who was like a mother to me dying a few years ago. no... that was just what started it. i never remember my father visiting me for about 3 years after my parents divorced. even though i am told that he did quite often. my mother was pretty much non-existant in my life after the divorce, both my parents were never really parents to me before either, they were always working, and i was always visiting my grandmother's, which was fine with me seeing as she was always there for me and was just about everything anyone could imagine for a mother figure. well anyways. after my parents divorced my mom, sister and i went to live with my grandma, we lived there for 3 years. her always being the one to care for me when i was sick, if i got hurt, to help me with school. my mother contnued to work constantly. well when i was going into 3rd grade my mother told me we were going to move out of my grandma's house. (i just found out a few months ago that my grandma and aunts and uncles did not like that idea for they knew how my mom was with her work, and wanted to keep me and my sister there)but anyways... we let this family friend live with us, his name was Kenny. him and my stepdad were both heavy alcoholics and well me and my sister recieved all the bullshit that goes along with it. none of that ever really bothers me though..maybe it is just becase i don't remember much from around then. but i always remember that Kenny would tickle me and i would feel uncomfortable. i don't know if this means something, my friend that i've told says that it probably does. espically since i have dreams of being raped. but i just don't remember a thing. and if it didn't happen then why can i picture something like that happening, and why do i have so many uncomfortable memories around him? who knows. i did have a friend where i lived, she was two years older than me, and we used to play rapist. one of us would be the guy and one would be the girl and we would pretend to rape each other. not ever really touching eachother in that way but just acting out the motions. i never really thought twice about it at the time. three years later, before anything with my grandmother happened, me and my mom got into a fight and i went into my room and got out a chmistry set that i had owned and opened up the bottles and held one up to my mouth and was about to drink it when my mother walked in and took it from me. i wanted to kill myself, and the school found out because i said something about suicide and some girl told a guidance counselour who had to call my mom. and so forth. nothing happend though.. nothing ever does in my house. but whwt really bothers me is that my mom doesn't remember a thing about it. not one thing. things went on pretty uneventful for the next 2 years, when i was in 8th grade my grandmother's cancer came back, i didn't know that she had had cancer before and was in remission. well the doctors gave her 6 months to live. and on the day after her birthday, on the 6th month she died. i remember comming home from school and my mother telling me, i forced myself to cry. i wasn't even sad. i hated myself for it. i was supposed to be sad and i wasn't. i should have been sad. i loved her to death. she was practically my mother and now she was gone. at her wake she looked so beautiful. and i did a eulogy for her. everything seemed so fake. she wasn't dead. and even today i act as though she isn't. it still hasn't hit me. one year later, on the same day she died i overdosed on Tylenol. my bestfriend at that time had done the same the month before, right in front of me, and i couldn't stop her. she went unconcious and had to have CPR done on her. and all i could do was stand there. i remember the lights of the fire truck and ambulance taking her away. and i made my mom take me to the hospital to see her. she was in there for a week because of liver damage. she went to a psyche ward and everything. during that time my eating had dwindled to about an apple a week. i was loosing weight like mad. and i was miserable. then i overdosed, not many but just enough to have to drink charcoal and goto a psych ward myself. and of course i had to eat there or else they would notice. and that is all i needed. well i made up some lie and got out of there. there was a girl there who scratched her arm with tweezers, she broke the who ends apart and used the rough edge that it created. it fascinated me. and i don't know how but that just stuck in my mind and a week after i got out i got into a fight with my mom and i went into my room and scratched myself with ym fingernails. my first self harm act. it felt sooo good too. everything was serene and peaceful for that moment. i remember counting the amount of minutes that i continously scratched myself for. 5, for i have to do things in fives. (OCD) i didn't do it again for about a month. and then it gradually progressed to about once a week and somehow i found a razor blade, the kind from a disposable razor that you shave your legs with and began cutting with that. it started to become more frequent and deeper. i got scared and told my counselour that i had begun seeing after i got out of the hospital. sh of course had to tell my parents. and of course nothing was done about it, as does everything else in my house and i just cut deepeer and more frequently until i was addicted, and couldn't stop, nor did i want to stop. it was now my release for every feeling in the world. love, hate, anger, shame, happiness, anything. it brought me back to reality when i dissociated. it brought me to a dissociative state when reality was too much to handle. cutting consumed my life, and i loved every minute of it. i couldn't handle life anymore and through cutting and scratching i could. and when even cutting didn't help i quickly learned that burning myself would. there was always something that i could go twards to help me. Fall of my 9th grade year i moved to my dads house because my parents thought i needed a more structured enviroment. that same year i ended up back into another hospital for my cutting. it had just gotten out of control. i was in there for 4 weeks and was forced to leave mainly because all the psych hospitals are short term nowadays. while i was there i got in alot of trouble for sneaking in razorblades and such. i needed them. i would look all over to find things to harm myself with when they found my razorblades. after i got out, i started cutting even worse. nothing helped. i started being brought to the ER by my parents to have stitches. and i would always have to talk to a person from psych. but i would tell them some lie about how i was fine and such. then about 6 months later i was back in another psych hosp. for cutting. i was out in a week. i just pretended like i was better. the truth was that i just didn't care enough to bother cutting. i was too far gone. not even cutting helped me anymore. it just felt good. the sensation of the blade running across my skin was beyond words. and here i am today. i now live back at my mom's house because my dad's fiance broke up with him and he didn't like the idea of me being alone for over three hours when i got home from school. so i am living at the house where it all started again. and of course nothing has changed, and i doubt it will... i know this is pretty long and mainly just a synopsis of my life, but it was just something i needed to write down for myself, and if other people read this and it helps them know they are not alone then that's even better.