This Given Line

I don’t want to cut anymore. I have been looking for an evening dress to wear for singing, and I’m sick of being limited to something full length because I’ve messed up my calves. I have been swimming once in two years, and that was in the sea on the hottest day of the year. I was extremely embarrassed and covered up my legs as soon as I got back on the beach. I don’t know if these are good enough reasons to stop something like self harm, I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Something that gives me hope: my arms. I started cutting my legs two years ago when I decided my arms were more likely to be on show in the summer. They used to have hundreds, literally hundreds, of cuts covering them. Of these, quite a lot stuck around for a while, forming scars, I guess, but a lot of these have now faded. Of those still left, and there are still quite a few, I expect (hope?) about half will continue to fade. Some will be there even if I live to a hundred, as I’m sure there will still be scars on my legs then, but the fact that I don’t care if anyone sees these scars and that, well, I’m not proud of them as such, but I’m not ashamed of them either, they’re just part of me.

It’s odd, I think, how people don’t notice scars and even cuts sometimes until you point them out. I assume that people know about my self harm, even if they only know about it in the past tense. I sometimes just start talking about something under the assumption that the person I’m talking to knows everything I know about me, and I’m sure this has confused quite a few people in the past. Someone I’ve known for quite a long time but haven’t really gotten to know until recently (Sarah) was staying at my house with someone I’ve known for a very long time and have always been almost close to but not quite (Sara, confusing, yes) and we were all a little tipsy. I don’t know why, but we were talking about self harm and I said how I used to cut and me and Sara started talking about it. Turns out Sarah didn’t know… I could’ve sworn I’d already told her, but maybe not. I lose track, I guess. I don’t really mind who knows, just so long as they think it’s something that used to happen, rather then something that still is happening.

Anyway, she seemed completely shocked by it (Sarah, this is). Apparently she never would have guessed that I’d be the sort of person to cut myself. Other peoples perceptions of me amuse me sometimes. I’ve always thought that anyone who’s ever even glanced at my arms would automatically know everything, the cuts are quite clear. I suppose I know they’re there, though. And how often do you stare at someones arm for long enough to deduce every fluctuation in their tone and texture of skin? Untrained eye thing, I think. Luckily for me all of my friends are extremely mature when it comes to important things, and I’ve not had anyone shouting at me or getting particularly upset about it since year 7 or 8. Maybe I should be offended by that, actually. No one seems to ever care what I do… *emo*

I think only two of my friends know that I still cut. Sophie and Rachel, that is.  I think out of everyone, they’re the people I trust the most. And I know how they’ll both react to things. Sophie will tell me that I will get through it because I can, Rachel tells me I will because I have to. It is actually like good cop bad cop, it could be quite funny if I weren’t so emotionally involved.

Sophie is constantly telling me how much she cares about me and how she believes in me. Rachel, I don’t know what Rachel says. With her it’s more a case of a mutual respect and understanding. I tell her my problems, she tells me hers, there’s no crying, no hugs, no emotional attachment to them. Sometimes at the end I get a hug or she’ll say "aww, love you Ruby," and will laugh. She screws up her face when she does that, and will usually move away pretty quickly afterwards. Or else she’ll look me in the eye and really tell it to me, then repeat it to make sure I know she’s not just saying it, she actually means it. She hates it when people say they love someone for no reason. I like it when she says it like that, I guess, I know I can trust her. They’re both very serious people, in a way, and although they appear very different on the surface, they actually think the same way about a lot of things, and come to the same conclusion, even if they go about it in different ways.

Also, to people who don’t know them, they seem like very tough, hard to hurt people. I’m often the one who looks after Sophie when someone hurts her. I forget that other people can’t see when they’ve hurt her, sometimes. They’re always joking, or usually joking, but they assume that it’s ok because she doesn’t show when it’s affecting her.

I haven’t known Rachel for long enough to always be able to tell if something’s upset her, though I know she usually translates it into anger. She sees crying as a sign of weakness. So does Sophie, actually. Rachel went out with this guy called Sam. He’s actually a pretty decent guy, a bit wimpy. Rachel got bored of him pretty quickly, I guess, I don’t know what it was, she just wanted someone more… dangerous. Anyway, he was quite clingy and if he, for whatever reason, ignored her, she would probably celebrate. She really didn’t care about him. That’s why I knew that she really cared about the guy she’d going out with at the moment, James. A lot of people have insulted this pairing, mainly because most of us met James through Rachels younger sister who is obsessed with him, and he greeted us by insulting us. Anyway, he is a pretty nice guy, I think, or at least he’s not a not nice guy, if you get my drift.

So Rachel was saying goodbye to him before adventuring off to a bonfire a couple of miles away, and he just said "yeah, whatever". Seriously, Rachel was in a bad mood for the rest of the night. I thought she was going to punch someone, or something, which is more likely. Rachel drinks quite a bit but she didnt get drunk this night. She spent the entire night making out with some guy we’d met at the bonfire. Barely anyone saw her, or anyone who did either forgot or has enough sense not to go shooting their mouths off about it. Maybe I should have told her then that that was not the best way to go about getting back at James. In fact, I probably did, it didn’t help much.

So yes, that’s how Rachel shows her emotions: through anger. She gets back at people, she gets back at herself. Mainly she gets back at herself. She drinks daily, smokes depending on the situation, cuts, punches walls, makes herself throw up, starves herself… that’s just the stuff I know, I expect theres more she hasn’t told me.

Sophie isn’t much better  either, if it’s any conselation though, she’d just beginning to get into this sort of stuff. She drinks too much, cuts, doesn’t eat and the little she does eat, she throws up. She’s lost three stone in a matter of months. We’re having a talk tomorrow night, I think. I’m going to be wrecked hopefully, haven’t even smelt alcohol in about two weeks. Far too long, if you ask me.

-x-