Читать книгу Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny - Limmy - Страница 24

I maybe should have spoken to that counsellor more, that one from when I slashed my wrist, because I started cutting myself up. I’d get a wee bit of glass, or I’d fold an empty can of lager in half so that it was pointy at the sides, and I’d cut up my forearm. Nothing too deep, but I’d cut it enough to hurt and make a mess.

I really can’t say why I did it, exactly. It was a mix of things. I had these feelings that I couldn’t express. I hated who I was, I was pathetic, I was this incomplete person, something wasn’t right with me, everybody else seemed to take things in their stride but it felt harder for me, I wanted to send a message to people, I wanted to send a message to myself, I wanted somebody to help me, I wanted me to help me, but there was no reason for me to get special treatment and I was sorry for everything and I was angry, angry at myself and angry with people and angry with how things were, but it wasn’t normal anger, it was something else, it was a sad type of anger. I didn’t know what it was.

So I’d cut up my arm.

By doing that, it was like I didn’t have to put my feelings into words. I didn’t have to write it down in a diary, or write a letter to somebody and somehow find the words for what I was feeling, because fuck knows how I would begin to do that. So I’d cut my arm. It would be sore, and I’d like it. It was a relief. I’d see the cuts and the blood, I’d see this horrible thing I was doing to myself, and it just made sense. That there, that mess I was making of myself, that’s how I felt.

I don’t know why I was like that, I don’t know why I’ve always been a bit like that. All bottled up. I remember being like that in primary school. I remember this one wee incident in particular.

I was in primary one or two, sitting at my desk, doing a drawing. It was around Christmastime, so we were all doing drawings of Santa and things like that, while the teacher put tinsel up.

I was drawing away, when the teacher walked up to me and put some tinsel around my neck. I didn’t know what she was doing to begin with, then I saw what it was. She was smiling, she was a good teacher, maybe my favourite. But I didn’t like it.

Everybody turned around and looked at me, and some of them started laughing. They weren’t all pointing and pissing themselves, but they thought it was funny. And my face went bright fucking red. I didn’t know what to do.

I pulled at it to get it off, but my teacher had tied it in a double knot. I tried pulling it over my head, but it was too tight. And the class was laughing.

I pulled it really hard against my neck to try and snap it, till it started to hurt. I saw that the teacher looked concerned. So I kept pulling it against my neck to show her I was hurting myself, to show her how much I didn’t like it.

I didn’t know how to just ask her to take it off, or how to handle any of it. She rushed over and cut it off with scissors, and asked if I was alright. But I just went back to my drawing, embarrassed.

That was like my first instance of self-harm, if you like. Maybe I’ve always been like that, or maybe the tinsel incident planted a seed, fuck knows.

I remember my last instance. I remember when I stopped.

I stopped because there was this lassie I was going out with for a few weeks in school, a while after breaking up with that lassie I moved school for. One day she asked me back to her house during lunchtime, because it would be empty, and I was scared that she wanted me to shag her or something. I went back with her, though, but we just talked. I didn’t even get off with her, just in case it led anywhere. I was scared of being intimate. I just couldn’t shake off that feeling from earlier in secondary school, that low self-confidence, and that feeling that went all the way back to primary school where I felt out of my depth. I just couldn’t break through that barrier, as much as I wanted to. If I was drunk I could have a go at it, but not when I was sober, no way.

So I started cutting up my hand. I didn’t do it there and then or anything, but later in the week. It was partly for self-loathing reasons, but partly because I wanted her to spot it. She did spot it, and asked why I did it. I don’t know if I said why. I probably didn’t even know myself at the time. It was maybe a way to get some intimacy, through her worrying and talking to me. Maybe she could work everything out.

One night, she said she wanted to show me something. She took off her glove, and she’d cut up her hand. It was all scratched, like mine.

And I just fucking stopped.