beat me steadily

I sort of boycotted the physical act of writing for months. I think I was scared of what might spill out. I've been away for quite awhile, but I am finally ready to settle down and write:

In the room I was raped, a bedroom that belonged to me: where it was a supposed safety net, a bosom buddy, where secrets were passed. Instead, here's Ed, in front of me, who has shared so many of my memories, and violated my body in so many ways.

This is what I remember. My lips were wet with blood and spit. He had kissed me brutally, after he had grabbed me from behind and left a bruise on my arm. He said these words: "Jane, my best girl, if you don't scream I won't hurt you." I nodded my head silently. My arms were pinioned and pressed against his belly, and his hot breath was spilling into my ear.

He released my arms. I screamed D's name. Quickly. Abruptly. The struggle began. I had good aim, and whacked him on the cheek, but that didn't deter him. He kneed me in the stomach, so I would fall back onto my bed. "You don't get it, Jane. You are my best girl. Remember?" He gripped my short hair tightly and straddled me. I scrambled for purchase of something, anything. I wanted nothing but out. I made sounds, little noises, they were nothing but soft droplets. They urged him on, they made him righteous and hard. He flipped me around on the bed, and kissed me again, his eyes open and taunting. For a moment, I lost consciousness. When I came to, I knew I was staring into the eyes of my former molester, and now into the eyes of my rapist.

In that single moment, I feel like I signed myself over to him, I was convinced I couldn't fight anymore. He was going to rape me while D was downstairs frying her hair with color. That was it.

I remember him undressing me rapidly, eagerly. I wasn't a virgin, I knew the procedure. He continued kissing my lips like they were newborns, and caressing my body like it was a foal. He pulled me forward by belt, before unbuckling it, so I could feel his hardness. I swallowed my vomit.
"Please," I said. "Please don't Ed."
"You already asked for it."
 I watched him unzipped his own pants and let them fall to his ankles. He laid down on top of me, and started humping me, before inserting his penis. I was dry, and I felt the nausea swimming in my stomach. In my brain, I never stopped apologizing. It was serene up there, and there were poems, and wild animals waiting. I tried, as numbness overtook me, to recite one of the poems. I moved my lips, but no sound came out.

He made noises, and rammed his hips in and out, in and out, grunting with each thrust. And then it was over. He came and slumped over me. I laid under him, my heart fluttering wildly. My brain feeding me poetry, new books I wanted to read, Gary, anything. I began to shake again, and he moved off of me like a snake. He looked at me, and bent down to hand me my clothes. He moved aside and stood up, zipping and buttoning his pants. Easily. Like nothing irregular had occurred.

He held my underwear out to me, and I slid them on cautiously. Then he handed me my pants and shirt. I stood up and put them on, almost falling back from lack of balance. I needed to lean on my bed to pull my pants up. I was worried about my face, the bruise would be noticeable by any passerby. I couldn't control that, anymore than I could control the situation.
"D's hair is probably finished now..." I whispered, shoving my shirt over my head, so I didn't have to look at his expression.
He watched me. He laughed. "She probably does need you, my best girl."
"Can I leave now?" I asked.
"Come here, and kiss me goodbye," he intoned. I kissed him. I had no freewill anymore. It left me, and I believed in that.

After, I remember pushing aside what happened, and giggling with D as I rinsed the hair dye from her hair, and watched the fake color whine down the sink. I waved goodbye to the both them, smiling. I shut the door and ran upstairs, fiddled around my bathroom counter, and found my razor. I cut, and cut.

I was aware of nothing but a release. This was the one thing I required. That was all.

something wicked

This week has been full of depression and hurt. I've been living with my aunt since Tuesday, and at the start it was comfortable, yet full of tension. I had called the night before after screaming at L, telling her I cut myself, and I couldn't stop the urge. Wednesday,  full of genuine laughter, and spirit, D was happy for once; her niece was willingly spending time with her. I was wearing a denim mini-skirt, one that showed off my legs, since Gary was coming over, I was drinking a Corona beer, and carelessly flinging my legs about, no matter if the skirt rode up a few inches every time I did so. I wanted him to see, I think.

We were sitting in the kitchen, and I was on my second beer, pleasantly mellow and numb, when he glanced over at my exposed scars, and touched them. I glanced down too, he could see the scratch marks, the star pattern, and three vertical cuts, they were definitely deliberate. He looked up, and I did too, tomato red, and cringing. I was waiting for a look of disgust or revulsion, but it never came, and he seemed to know what I was expecting; "I'm not going to criticize you." He reassured me, and touched them without restraint, and just told me he understood, all while D stood off to the side, staring in wonder. Looking straight in my eyes, he told me he loved me, and I was moved beyond belief. But, now he holds a responsibility to me, he is tied inextricably, juts by virtue of loving me - even if I know it's platonic.

But, based on what happened last night, when I was desperately calling HIM for help and support, he calls D in concern instead. I confided to his answering machine, that I cut again, and instead of calling me back, he didn't acknowledge the pain that was tugging me under, but rather made me feel displaced and out of touch. I can now tell, he is also so hungry-beyond the food way-all the time, and sometimes I think I am not his friend but his lit cigarette. Just another experience or person to fill him up and get him by. I don't want to be held in by lips like his. When I talk, he listens, but I am constantly terrified that he will change his mind and spit me out when he decides he doesn't want such a burden on his shoulders.

I am afraid of my love for him. That is why I cut yesterday. A heart, with a ribbon. There was this extraordinary pain knocking at the door of my head, an overwhelming, extreme sensation, and I knew that if I let it in, I would fall under. So I cut, to become immune to the emotional pain, and I felt like it - the razor had saved me - in one of the most profound ways. I was no longer a burden, but a moment of blood and physical pain.

I can feel it happening. The progression has been slow and steady, but I am starting to feel the pull again, the mania. I am lonely, and the need for isolation, has been roiling in my stomach. There is a ringing in my ears, and I can hear the blood pumping viciously through my brain. I feel as though I am stuck between; I have no idea what I am between, but the feeling is very specific and I know it like the back of my hand. I can sense that my smile isn't genuine, when I look at Gary, and there is a definite rage boiling under the surface of my skin, and my moods. Everything trivial causes me severe anguish, and I've taken up purging my breakfast and only eating a yogurt and having a beer the rest of the day. I'm turning into a lush, but what kind of damn do I give?

I am surrounded by everything and cared for by nothing.

blood

Life always seems so complex when you sit and try to figure it out but when you actually take time to walk on the sidewalk and not count your steps, life is very simple. I just closed my eyes and imagined how my space is not as diluted as it seems, that I am not as closed off, and shut inside my own little box.

Last night, I was itching for something, and morose, and agitated. A bundle of rapid fire emotions. I wanted someone to save me, but I dreaded the moment they would. And the only people I can imagine saving me are D, Gary, or my mother. So, I cut, twice. Deep, but on the shallow side, and this pain, physical and not emotional, was flowing through my veins like a shot of herion, and I was finally immune to the overwhelming chatter in my head. The chatter that told me I was fat, that I would always be second rate to Gary, that my friends were drifting away from me and I couldn't reel them back in - I didn't deserve to reel them back.

It’s not the triggering moments, that me feel crazy, it’s the full on rapport I have in my head with myself when it’s happening. It’s the way I pace around my house as if I don’t know where I am, till I forget where I am. How I had my hair chopped off, and bleached it again. It’s the need to have something my hands, to aggressively swing an object or my hands. It's getting completely angry, and then very depressed within minutes, it's the need to break something or someone. It’s the fact the better side of me doesn’t want to, but the temptation is emotionally overwhelming. It’s the fact I can’t manage my thoughts enough to break the urge, but I can pour them out articulately to my therapist.

I hate expressing my emotions, they're all pent up inside, and I like it like that. Nothing to worry or fret over if I'm just a fake personality. But, the fight with L made me realize something. I have no patience or immunity to people. It's too much, so I broke the dam and began screaming.


I've noticed that for me, it's easier to cry in the shower than anywhere else. It's as though the water running down your face mixes with your eyes, and the tears come without hesitation. I was so overwhelmed, I just sobbed, and sobbed. I had cut a shallow line this morning, and watching the blood mix with water and pour down the drain was cathartic.

If you repeat it

In the past few months, I have lost everything close to me. My relationships are falling apart. I'm distant. I'm fully Anorexic again. I couldn’t balance everything. I shut things, or rather, people out when my life is in chaos and have no idea what I am doing anymore. I am no longer in control - Ana is. It's frightening how much I'm comforted by restriction.

No one, but my ED friends, could know what I’m going through, it’s a fight everyday and it just keeps getting harder and harder. I’ve lost myself, I don’t even know who I am anymore. This constant battle between myself and the voices in my head is never ending. I don’t even know what it’s like to feel happy anymore, I always just fake it and put on a show to hide my real emotions behind this facade I wear. I want to disappear and never come back. I just want perfection- thigh gap, slim hips, whittled waist, tiny arms. I’m torn between my real thoughts and the thoughts this ED is feeding me.

I don't hear any whispers at the door trying to help me, either.

I've had my ups and downs the past few days. I decided twice in one week that restricting was bull, and binged like crazy and it was really terrible. I purged it all up, and had heart palpitations, and acid reflux everyday this past week. I had forgotten what a toll Bulimia takes on my dilapidated body.

I'm restarting ballet on June 13th, and am so stoked! This is the event that's kept me moving, moving through the dregs, and past all the bullshit thrown my way. On Wednesday, my mother and I went to The Hip Joint, to purchase new tights, leotard, ballet shoes, and knit shorts (in the academy I wore a skirt). I've either grown to tall to fit into my 2-year-old outfit, or it's too ruined for class. Nevertheless, it was a heartwarming day, and I twirled around, pirouetting, and standing on relevé.

I love S, I see her every Thursday; she’s not a bitch and she definitely does not judge me and she makes me feel comfortable in her big plush couch. Several times, she's gotten me to do an assignment where I would write down what I felt like before I binge, whether it be anger, sadness, bored, hunger or cravings and so on, and this is what prompted me to keep a journal, and then a blog in the first place. However, while this blog has become my confessional of sorts, it's not private. I've considered publishing all of my journal entries from December 2010-February 2011. That's when I stopped, and began using this blog full time.

Gary has been calling almost regularily, and the afterglow of our conversations is intense. Yet, I can't help but think, 'who do you think you are? running around leaving scars on my heart- perpetual wounds.'

Basically my reaction to those to situations is to self-harm, but I didn’t. Actually I’m feeling every ounce of stress they’re causing me. I don’t remember the last time I let myself feel this way.

trust myself

I believe I've figured it out, I feed people their pain. The more I try to get closer to the people around me, close enough to trust them with this mess… the further I push them away. I don't really do it purposefully, but I’m beginning to feel like nothing good would come of telling anyone anything, because the very moment someone found out they knew exactly how to hurt me. Trusting people has all ways got me hurt, made me persona non grata, and as nice as the idea is of having friends that I wouldn’t have to lie to, that I could be completely open with is, well not possible anymore. I just don’t trust people enough to do so. I tell people things for the beginnings, not the ends; for the answer I'm searching for.


I think it's the worst when you’re feeling happy, yet there’s still something under the surface that tugs violently at you, telling you to cut, and restrict. Thats whats like for me today. I have no reason to be sad, to self-harm, yet the thought is lingering around my mind. I know about 'urge surfing' and how I should be waiting for the emotions to drift away, and the water is still again, but I can't today. It makes me feel like I’m going crazy, and it's only 9am. I need to be doing something something something, with my hands, like typing or fiddling with my nails. I have so much energy, but I can’t distract myself. I was cutting every single day for a few weeks and now I've been 3 days clean and it's just doing my head in. It’s literally just ‘cut, restrict, cut, restrict, cut, restrict,’ in my head. I just want to fucking cut, and starve. I want to bleed.

I have dozens upon dozens of scars on my legs, but they represent the emotional ups and downs I’ve experienced and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I thought I was free of cutting, but I am tethered inextricably, and god is it a realization.

My mind feels unstable and unhealthy today, which is horrific. It terrifies me that I don’t want to be healthy, anymore. Originally this was all about my ascent into recovery, and now it's all about my descent into my eating disorder and self-injury. What happened? I'm very disappointed with myself... I'm my own worst enemy.

I just want to float off into Fantasyland.

greedy

I don’t understand why I am so much pain over something so silly. It’s overwhelming and uncontrollable. Part of me wonders why I deserve this, but the voices remind me I'm a greedy, selfish, idiot. I finally revealed to A, who I considered a best friend, that I felt slighted when she 'spoke to other people.' She in turn assumed slighted meant mad. I finally told her, and it just made the problem worse. I began wondering who she was telling, and what kind of story she was spinning. And those 4 days were torture for me. Which she tried, and then failed to understand. I feel like she used the only weapon she had against me, which was fear of being alone. I can't say I tried though, because I tweeted about my failing mood, and my cutting' hoping she would see, which makes me the bitch. I wanted her to feel guilty. For 4 days I did this, and am still tweeting about how depressed I am, even though, we don't follow each other anymore; we don't talk anymore.

I just want to stay curled up in bed, and do nothing but cry. I don't know if I'd be able to get out again though – get out into the world again. After I suggested the break, she went and talked to one of her other friends, who made her feel like she did nothing wrong. At all. And that none of what I was feeling was her fault. Which really, really hurt me, because it felt like my feelings were just thrown out the window. That my cutting wasn't important, that my starving wasn't important. That I wasn't important enough, to befriend any longer. I mean, what the hell. We've only known each other two and a half months. Was does that do for a friendship? It just scares me to think that you might not miss me if I left.

It's sick and disgusting. From now on, it is all my own fault. I have caused this situation, my isolation, my desertion. No one else is to blame, just me. It's a depressing feeling, and yet a liberating one. If I want to become someone who can walk down the street and hold their head up high, without always focusing on just one person. I determine who I will be, and what I will look like.

I wished for emptiness and I received it, and now I don't want it. My heart is empty. I cannot find the drive to move forward, to walk until I pass out, or to snarl at the sight of no food. That emptiness in my stomach has expanded and consumed me like a disease. I did not heed the adage: be careful what you wish for. It was my own idiocy that drove me to this point.

I can feel myself falling down the rabbit hole again. It's like I was running down the hill to escape the big bad monster. I was running and running and forcing myself to pick up the pace. And then suddenly, my feet grow lumbering and clumsy and I'm losing my footing. My face is crashing down face-forward into the mud and my hands are reaching out to catch my fall, but I can't. And now I am rolling down the hill; without any control, or any way to stop myself.

In the morning hopefully, I'll be a different kind. I don't want to wake up one day with regrets. I just don't know what's wrong with me.

rash

In the safety of my bedroom, I sobbed without restraint. These weren't the choked tears, I had dabbing away with a tissue. These were very real, very hard sobs that I had let my guard down to cry. I felt broken and defeated, in a sense, but at the same time I felt some relief. I was finally expressing my honest feelings about the situation.

Essentially, A abandoned me for 4 days and I felt ridiculed for revealing how I truly felt. What she did was inexcusable, and I felt that my rock-solid demeanor had been crushed. I was triggered into a depressive stage, one which I don't know how long will last. I don’t know if we’ll ever be how used to be - best friends who talked to each other day and night - or if I'll be able to forgive how she handled the situation, but I hope that after a cooling off period we can be friends. But, what I can't forgive is that I cut, I cut today, and I cut for 4 days in a row. The only person I had was H, who helped me through it all - she talked me down several times from doing something rash.

I may be going to my aunt's again, because no matter how much she's hurt me, she's never deserted me. I'm also planning on seeing Gary (!) this week, hopefully tomorrow, because I have an eye appointment.

I'm getting better. Not in the recovery sense, but in the fact that I have now placed a welcome mat for my ed back into my life. I've been down to pretty much two meals a day: cereal and yogurt. There's plenty of medications I'm on that suppress my appetite, and this is the first time I've ever felt truly empty.

something bad

I wanted something bad to happen to me. I wanted to get run over, shot, to hurt somebody, to go to the hospital. To take too many pills, overdose, and die. I want to bash my head into a mirror, and I want to cut my legs up. Because I hate myself and want somebody to realize that. I guess my thinking too much has been fucking me over, and I've become my own worst enemy.

When you already desperately don’t want to wake up breathing, when you already don’t want to be alive anymore and someone turns around and tells you shouldn't be expecting them to stay much longer, that cuts deep. I don't have doubt that I'll end up isolated completely with my ed, and 00's, friendless and alone.I don’t have the confidence nor strength to ever seek help, and I can already see how my mental state is continually going to get messed up, rapidly and quick. But it’s still something you don’t want to hear, you know? I’d be surprised if I even make it another 2 months with my ed ans si, but it stills rips you apart when someone really makes you feel detached, and abandoned, it fucking crushes you. I feel really fucking low; because all it really does it amplify my own thoughts of worthlessness, and for some reason I can't stop them. They keep running through my head like a reel of tape, and I can't find the rewind button. Please make it go away.

I feel like I'm stuck here in this cage. A cage where you can't eat unless you want to drive yourself mad through numbers that seem to have their own power over you. You're powerless in there, and I've locked away the key.

The older I get the more I realize no one really cares and it just really ruins me; I can’t handle people anymore, no one is ever a good friend or anything at all. I just don’t want to be part of this world anymore, and cutting again gave me that release.

scrambled

An eating disorder is a gradual erosion. It’s a chip chip chipping away. A slow, insidious takeover that removes all traces of an individual, erases all suggestion of an identity, dominates thoughts, actions, feeling, and enunciates one devastating message: “without me, you are nothing."
It doesn't feel like a lie anymore. I keep caressing the bandaid that hides my cuts and liking the sting that comes along with it. I wish I had explanations. But, because I have very few answers to my copious amounts of questions. It's also the very source of my pain, at times. Life comes me fast. I don't want to get caught up in it. But I am, and I cut, again, and again. Cutting when I'm alone. Cutting before bed. This is really starting to get ridiculous. Do you ever just want to slap yourself for being stupid? I kind of just want someone to bash sense into me, but it shouldn’t take that. I already know what I’m doing isn’t good in long run, I know its a temporary fix. It’s just the fact that stopping has never been a harder choice. It's hard to explain to people that you really need this when they always think you're lying/wrong. I am always dropping in and dropping out, always having a foot in the door, sometimes being found of my addiction, sometimes hating it...
Wanting to quit but being afraid at the same time. I've given up trying to understand all this. Actually, I really started seeing it as an addiction. It's like drugs. The only difference is, that food is always around. If I need a quick fix, I can get it everywhere. Eating and purging. That's what I did in my 4 years of isolation. But now, I restrict. Severely. I only eat 400-450 calories a day, and I love the schedule of it.

This feeling is something that I know too well. The empty, dumb, hot head. Little pain in my stomach. The eyes still warm from crying. Despair and apathy at the same time. No reproaches, not anymore, it’s been too long for that. There’s a voice in my head, screaming at me “Look, here you are again! Same spot! Same place! We will always meet again. You can never say goodbye! Same place, always!” And I’m afraid. I’m afraid that little voice might be right. For now, not knowing what will be is the best thing I can get. Uncertainty means there’s still a chance. But, I don't like change.

I think about suicide a lot, I know we keep a hand gun underneath the mattress in my parents bedroom. I wasn’t meant to know we had it, but I found it one day while fiddling around in their room (jumping on the bed) and it fell out. I was 9, and I wrote to notes, one to my mother and one to my father, and then put the gun in my mouth, counted to ten, and my mother drove up the driveway. That was about 9 years ago. I’m to scared to even go see if its still there, because I know if it is I’ll almost certainly use it on myself. I think I’m better off believing we got rid of it, or it's somewhere else now.

Ahh! I'm just so pissed off tonight! It is my secret and mine alone. She needs to learn to curb her mouth, that's all. I was banned, unfriended, and unfollowed by a bitch who needs to learn to fuck herself on her own; she forced me into isolation again, and I cried all night because of it. For 2-3 hours I just lied in bed, like a zombie, and cut. I want so desperately to be able to parse my thoughts into words, but I can’t. I just know I want to cut, I just know its the only thing I’m really good for… and I know I want to sleep. I just feel like I’m talking to myself, in some constant argument 24/7. I just want to cut. I always just want to cut these days. Fuck.

listen

It's so fucking hard to articulate how much I want you, Gary. Just hear me.

Recently a friend of a friend said he didn't and never would understand cutting. For me, it's because I either think too much or not enough, and either way it results in doing, and I just do it, because in the moment that's all you know how to do. You don’t just sit and go, ‘Oh, I might as well slash a razor through my leg, because it releases addictive endorphins, and shit, and it's the only other way you can make yourself feel alive.’  You don’t think like that when you self-harm, or at least I don’t. You just do it, and you deal with your actions afterwards, because you can't realize your thinking is screwed and you don't listen to the rational side of your brain; you just cut and cut. And it feels good. I have a bad day I cut. I have a good day I cut. I got in trouble I cut. I don’t get in trouble, I still cut. I have 100 things to do in a day, I cut. I have nothing to do, I still cut. I listen to music, I cut. I don’t listen to music, I cut. I eat, I cut. I don’t eat, I cut. It’s just like cut cut cut cut cut cut! And it's such a fucking distraction, I just don’t know what to do with myself this past week. I'm always thinking about cutting, and it's become a substitute for b/p-ing. I want to be skinny, and scarred. At least, that's how it seems lately.

cutting

I cut last night, so deeply that blood was gushing in rivulets down my leg. It was criss-crossed and in the shape of an umbrella. Cutting over healed keloids is my niche, and the scars on my legs represent the emotional up and downs I've dealt with. I've been trying not to give in, but last night was terrible. D invited Gary to dinner, which I didn't eat any of, thank god, and he was so much more supportive of me than my aunt was. Prior to my coming over, she had disclosed to him my bulimia, and how my b/p-ing was escalating, my bipolar disorder, and essentially everything I've ever decided to confide in her. I was completely humiliated, but Gary tried to reassure me everything was alright, and nothing was going to change between us, which obviously made me feel worse, since I'm in love with him. But I could tell he saw me differently, and that was devastating. I still have to go to D's every weekend, as well. I just can't handle this. I want it to end.

And now, despite everything I've ever loved going to hell in a hand basket, I am driven by the same desire to starve - to wither away into nothing but bones. I have completely dedicated myself to restricting, and I am already in love with the exhilarating high. I want to go as low as possible, or as low as it is possible for me to go, which may not be the same thing, in the long run. The lowest I've ever been was 105lbs, and that was a 00 - do I want to get lower than that? How do I expect to survive at 100lbs? I would be living a strange half-life, and I can imagine it wouldn't be a trip. I have found a control that I hadn't thought I could ever achieve again, and all because I am upset by how my life has gotten to be shit. I never expected this, and I expect I am a disappointment to everyone I've ever known - by golly gee, this girl is 18 and still in the 10th grade. I want to cry. I need warm arms around me. I need, I want, everything I cannot have.

I am angry at my body for not losing weight. I cut the flesh, and it does not tighten. I have hit bottom, and that scares me. I feel like I'm just floating along, drifting through life without capturing a moment. As sick as this may sound, when I cut, I always long for another to be with me, even cutting me instead. It is a connection that I have always dreamt of, and I understand how crazy it sounds. I want Gary to cut me, to love me, to understand me.