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Juliet

Misunderstood

Copyright, Juliet

No one understands why I cut. They say “you’re just upset about your family”, “it’s because you were raped and beaten up twice”, “it’s because your brother’s gone and he was the only love you ever had”, “it’s because you’re depressed about your weight”, “it’s because your dad’s in jail”, “your mom’s never home” everyone tells me why I cut but they won’t listen to the truth.

Sure that is all true and it’s all stuff that gets me down but I cut before all that. I cut before the rapes, before my brother dropped out of school to join the army, before my dad went to jail, and before my mom started working full time. I started cutting back in eighth grade before any of this shit started happening.

Here’s why I cut. Because sometimes the noise in my head is deafening and I need that moment of silence, that release, just to keep my sanity. There’s a moment right when the blade slices your skin open when you just sit there watching, holding your breath and waiting for it to start bleeding. I need that moment. That instant that seems to last forever when my mind is silent and all my anxieties can shut up just long enough for the blood to start flowing. And once it does I let that breath out and there’s a sick sense of calm. “See? I am human, I do feel, I bleed”.

They all think I want to kill myself but I don’t. They won’t listen though. They tell me to talk to a suicide hotline to get help but I don’t want to die. I just need to cut to get through sometimes, I just need that feeling. That rush of life sometimes. That instant when I know I’m alive, when all the voices are quiet. That moment when I can feel like I’m a real human being and that these feelings are valid. That I’m not some creature. In that moment I feel human. I can’t understand why no one cares about me in reality, why I can walk around bleeding and no one sees but at least I know I’m alive, I’m not a ghost, I’m real.

See? I’m bleeding, that makes me real, and see? These tears, they make me human.

 

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