What Keeps You Sane ✔

[-2] Physical Pain

After that night of doing nothing but sit in my room and stare at the wall, I was prepared for an awful day at school. And of course that's what I got.

Lunch came and I was seated all alone. Not even the creep wanted to sit with me anymore.  My friends were nowhere to be seen. Eventually, the whole half hour had passed and I was getting desperate. My texts hadn't been answered, my calls had been rejected, and anyone I asked about my friends had simply shrugged their shoulders.

The bell rang for my next class but I ignored it, searching the halls for any sign of them. I gave up after seeing Killian through the window of her class. They were probably all being good students and going to class, unlike me. I felt like such like such a piece of shit.

I slunk my way to my sixth hour class and entered it. My teacher screamed at me, demanding a pass or an excuse for being late, but I had nothing. She told me how much of a failure I was (it made sense because I was actually failing her class) and how I didn't deserve anything.

Then she marked me tardy and moved on with her day. On the other hand, I felt horrible.

~~~~

I got home that day and decided that it was probably time to eat something. I raided my pantry, stuffing myself with anything and everything. Then I felt so fat and gross that I continued my routine of throwing it all up.

The pain burning in my throat was nothing compared to what I felt inside.

But I loved it. And I felt like I deserved it. I needed more pain. So I grabbed a small kitchen knife and dashed up to my room, not knowing when my mom would come home. I stripped my bed of all of it's sheets and covers to be sure that no blood would get on it. I sat down and gripped the knife, truly thinking about what I was going to do for the first time.

I tested the sharpness of the blade on my finger, resulting in already a small amount of blood coming out of me. I felt nothing. I decided I would be fine and started hurting myself worse, being sure to keep it light enough to not cause extreme damage. I sucked in a breath, gasping and clutching my arm. The knife had been dropped to the floor. When I let go of my arm, blood was stained on my right hand.

After I quit thinking about it, the pain went away. So I did it again. The blade stung my skin and I hissed but did it again and again and again. I loved the pain almost as much as I hated myself.

I moved to my leg instead. After what felt like forever, I heard the garage door open underneath my room. I knew my mom was home. I continued ripping open my skin, yelling at a particularly deep cut. Everything inside me was going against itself, screaming to stop, but when I did I felt the need to keep going.

My mom had heard my yell, and she called out, "Are you alright Maya?"

I slit my leg one last time before replying with a strained, "I'm fine." That's when I finally chose to stop.

~~~~

The next day I had no breakfast and no lunch again. It felt nice to have an empty stomach, reassuring me that I wasn't getting fatter. When I got home from school, though, my hunger became almost unbearable and I felt the need to do something about it.

I searched my pantry, pulling out pudding and cookies and chips and everything else that tasted remotely good. I shoved food into my mouth in handfuls, feeding my hunger only to throw it back up again later.

Not twenty minutes after I had stuffed my stomach full with everything fatty, I entered the bathroom and hunched over the toilet. Toothbrush in hand, I forced myself to puke out all of my insides, no matter how badly my body needed it.

What I didn't hear was my mother coming home from work early and entering the house. I had left the bathroom door open. Her shriek was enough to break me from my stupor and look up from the toilet.

"Please tell me you're sick in your stomach and thats why you're throwing up," She whispered, kneeling on the floor next to me. She wanted to deny it, but my mother knew what I was doing to myself. Tears streamed down my face and I shook my head.

"I can't," Crying, my mom pulled me into a hug and uttered things in my ear about how bad that was for me and how I didn't need to do that. She told me I was perfect but I didn't believe her.

I was a mess.

~~~~

Despite her acting weird with me after finding put what I'd been doing, when I told my mother about the discomfort that was going on in my lower regions, she did something about it. I described to her just what I had been feeling (which was nothing good). The result of that was her insisting that I get it checked out. It felt weird to have someone care about me, no matter what her intentions were. 

After having some nurse at a hospital (that I had never been to) do some random check ups, she left my mother and I in the room alone. 

"Are you feeling better after earlier?" She whispered. I looked over at my mom, her dull brown eyes boring into my matching ones. I nodded slowly, though the truth was that I hadn't eaten at all since. She opened her mouth to say more, when the doctor lady entered the room once again. 

Nervousness pooled into my stomach. She sat down next to my mother and I, taking a breath before speaking out her results. "You have HPV, also known as genital warts. There is no cure, but it will go away on it's own. You'll be in discomfort for a while, though. There's no need to worry because this STI is common among sexually active women."  

Her voice was monotonous and lifeless. She offered no treatment or further information, sending my mother and I on our way. My mom told me the story of her having the same thing when she was younger, but I couldn't focus on her words.

I felt so disgusting in my own skin. It was even worse that I didn't know who had given that shit to me. I felt like a dirty whore.