Old Yellow Pages ✓

27. cutting

trigger warning: self-harm.
If you have any issue with this content, kindly contact me and ask me to remove it instead of reporting the story. 

1st january, tuesday, 2019

dear diary,

I was 14 when I first considered suicide seriously. Before I met Kush, of course. Things weren't going well. My parents were putting pressure on me to get good marks and to keep good company, to abandon Shona, Vedha and Gulli, because they had different goals than I did. They weren't as focussed on studies as I was.

Chetna was doing the same. She fought with me over little things, like me choosing the other girls over her, my supposed "best friend" back in class 8. My teachers wanted me to behave properly. They threatened to suspend me. And my three friends wanted nothing, they were very supportive of everything I did. They helped me figure stuff out. They listened. But they were of no help at all, and it wasn't their fault.

I was too naïve then to say anything to anyone.

It got too much for me.

I locked myself in the bathroom and sat on the floor with a paper cutter, the only sharp thing I could manage to find. I remember I cried. I remember wishing that there was some other way. I thought, isn't there something else I can do? 

Usually, what stops people from taking such a step is just one look at the faces of their loved ones. They don't want to break the people who love them. But it was different for me. Imagining the look on my parents' faces was what drove me forward. I thought of it as a little revenge.

I began by slicing a cut into my thumb. It hurt. I needed spirit to numb the pain. But where could I get that from? Man, I didn't want to do it this way. It was going to pain. If such a tiny cut hurt, then how was I gonna slice my wrists?

I continued anyway. I didn't know what I was doing. But for whatever reason, I avoided that particular vein. It was at that moment that I realized I didn't want to die.

Why was I cutting myself then?

Maybe I wanted to see if it actually did make things better.

Or maybe I wanted attention. I knew I did. It is easier for people to understand physical pain than to understand the emotional one. People take you seriously when they see these cuts. And the depth of these cuts is a measure of your pain. It was an effort to show what was happening inside me on the outside of my body.

I didn't want to die. I wanted help. I wanted everyone to know I was hurting.

But winter was just coming around, and I started wearing full-sleeved t-shirts to hide it from my parents. They weren't people who could understand. They would have slapped me and taken away all my gadgets.

I only told my three friends. They understood, they cried for me.

I haven't even told Sherry yet. And honestly, I don't intend to, ever. I feel stupid now. Plus, he and I have discussed self-harm. One of his friends, Nikita, cut herself once, and his first response was to think that she was an attention seeker. How can I share my story with someone like that?

I want to leave this all behind and bury it and pretend it didn't happen. It doesn't hurt anymore. It's not like I'm carrying a scar that is stopping me from living life, so it's gonna be pretty easy to brush it aside. I don't even think about it anymore. But I guess till now I have carried the thought that someone who doesn't know this side of me doesn't really know me. I probably shouldn't do that anymore. I'm gonna bury it and NOT feel as if I'm holding something back from my friends and NOT feel that they don't know me.

I recently read a quote, that half of the people who attempt suicide don't want their lives to end. They just want their lives, as they know it, to end. And there's a huge difference. That was exactly what I wanted, but I couldn't pinpoint it at that time.

There was a newspaper article recently about why people cut themselves. They say it has a soothing effect and most of them do it at a place where it won't even be visible, so it's not done for attention. I know someone personally who cuts herself regularly. But cutting never had that kind of effect on me, that's why I never did it again. In fact, it only hurt more.

Nightfall was what got me through it. I remember thinking, "I can't die without finishing writing that novel." That's how much I believed in it. I had finally found something worth living for. If I didn't have this at that time...but let's save that for another day.

Gulli cried when she saw the cut. I stood in front of her, unmoved, unaffected. I didn't care, and it's very selfish of me to say this, but even today, I don't.

I've learnt that it's not enough for me to be loved by people. It never has any effect on me. There are so many of them, but somehow, their love never seems to seep through my thick skin. I never think of what will happen to them if I go. If anything, I feel happy. It will be a good punishment for my parents, for instance, for giving birth to me. I didn't want to be born. What is there to live for? Nothing at all. 

The more people love me, the more I feel like I don't deserve it. And it's true, I don't. I don't deserve a family. I know how much they do for me, and how little I do for them. But how can I force myself to feel gratitude? I never care for people as much as they care about me. I don't feel any gratitude. I hate the fact that they waste their time on a person who is not affected by their love at all. If anything, I feel suffocated.

What matters, in my opinion, is to be loved by someone you love, rather than being loved by a bunch of insignificant nobodies.

It's irritating when mom repeatedly enters my room and asks me what I want to eat, especially when I'm working. She wants to show her love, but that is not how I perceive it. I think this is something very important when it comes to love — something that is love for one person might not be so for another. It's a common error that most lovers make. If you want to love someone, you must love them how they want to be loved.

I want to be loved like how the beach is loved by the ocean— in waves. Intense one minute, drowning in emotion, and dry the next— a brief interlude, a period of solitude.

I need that because when I'm vexed, I need to be left alone. I need my time to recover. I don't like my period of anger being cut short by someone making me laugh. I can't suddenly jump between two emotions. I need my time with anger.

I've learnt that what suits me better is for me to love someone, regardless of whether that person loves me back or not. That has always given me more happiness than being loved. It gives me something to live for. It brings out the best in me.

Even if it's pain and heartbreak, I want it, because I want to feel something. It has been too long since I felt anything apart from monotony and loneliness. I like giving more than taking because I like knowing that I made someone's life better.

I still think about suicide frequently, even though, rationally, I know that it will just create more complications. It's always there, the thought, sitting on my shoulder, whispering into my ear: why don't I kill myself? Always, everywhere, the solution to every problem: death. 

Even today, with the pressure of board exams crushing me, the thought of death doesn't leave me. Even today, I would choose death over everything else. I suppose once you go down that road, it always stays with you. It becomes an attitude.

I wonder what it feels like to be happy? I don't remember.

❄