Tortured Euphoria

I woke up in the warm cozy euphoria still lingering from last night.

I opened my eyes and gently caressed the bandaged wound on my arm, comforted in the knowledge that underneath lay the exploits of a night filled with tears, pain….

… and then relief.

My mind drifted back to the sequence of events that led me to feeling comforted and safe, snuggled in my massive feather quilt, basking in this indescribable glow of warmth and sunshine…

Then it hits me again!

I immediately started feeling my heart racing, my body started to radiate heat as adrenalin raced through my toes up to my burning face.

The tears, they spilled down my cheeks, scalding.

I didn’t hear a thing he said; all I could focus on was that he had called after months and months of nothing,

Torture for me as I tried to get over him.

I hated that I still cared. Breaking up with him was the hardest thing I’d done but when it’s a choice between HIM and your supports, well, is that even a choice?  

My family and friends hated him for his addictions, I just hated that I couldn’t get over him.

Images of bright red threads dripping down my arm came into my mind,

I rummaged through my drawer looking for my ‘emergency’ blade.

Suddenly my heart was racing for an entirely different reason.

Calmness overtook me as my fingers closed over the blade, not caring if it nicked my fingers.

I dropped the phone unknowing if I hung up or not. I brought the blade to my arm; the delicious sting as it pierced my skin. Beads slowly rose from my arm eventually oozing to make bright red trails down my wrist.

I went over the scratch a little deeper until I hit a major vein.  

Suddenly the flood came; deep, dark, rich. It spread its loving embrace around me coating my skin as it grew and eventually engulfed me.

Like a surge of euphoria, the waves kissed my hair as it swam throughout my room and suddenly I was in a dark garden full of shadows and dead trees.

I swam to the bank of the river and pulled myself up onto murky black sludge that edged the thick red syrupy stream.

Exhausted I lay, trying to catch my breath. Scarlet ribbons dripped down off my hair and began to dry on my skin changing into a deep blackish rust that cracked when I moved.

I looked around me trying to find a familiar landmark. I’d been to this place before, many times; but there was never anything identifiable. I didn’t even know what it was called.

All I could see was endless dark navy blue hues in the sky; blue smudged with the black and grey of storm clouds rising to greet my entrance into this world.

The dry dead grasses, as long as my hip, crunched as I gingerly walked through them, grass seeds catching my skirt.

I searched for something that showed life, but all that surrounded me were endless grey trunks, leafless, burnt out like some fiery word had spoken death to this strange land.

I moved through a thick mist and heard voices whispering. I spun around looking for a form in the murky fog but could see nothing. All I heard were the voices. They faded in and out as they screamed at me.

“Pathetic”

“No good”

“Lost”

“Evil”

“Hopeless”

“Loser”

“Unlovable”

I shivered violently as they kept screaming at me, hammering away in my head.

It ached with truth that rang truer than anything in my life. They’d convinced me I would never escape and the thought of it had me clutching at my throat trying to breathe.

I couldn’t breathe.

I continued on, spinning around, left and right as the words, the voices, kept taunting at me.

I knew I had to get out of here but how? I stumbled and tripped over dead branches and craters in the ground.

Barely able to stay upright, I turned in a direction that I guessed was the only thing that had colour or pulse in this dark dreary life sucking world - the river of pain that was my heart.

I could smell it before I saw it.

The strong metallic coppery scent was so full of life, that it drew me like a magnet amongst the death in this realm.

I began to run, run as fast as my feet would go and plunged into the warm liquid letting it run over my head in relief as I inhaled it into me.

Life giving; rejuvenating; healing; liquid!

I could feel the voices fade away as I drank it in through my pores and as I let it drown me in the truth it spoke.

When I couldn’t bare the truth any longer for fear it would wilt and kill me, I came up gasping for air…

…and found I was in a hospital bed with a bright light shining into my eyes. I winced and pulled back as the doctor asked me too many questions.

Everything was acutely clear. I was suddenly aware of every sound, every movement in my cubicle and in the emergency room.

I could hear the paramedics talking about how they had found me. I looked down and saw staples in my blood soaked leg.

What had happened?

I struggled to recall the last few hours when all I could feel was the sting of a needle in my arm: sutures.

I watched, entranced and numb as the doctor began. I guessed at least 28 stitches this time.

I knew I’d be here till morning; without meds I was in for a rough night.

I woke up; the cleaning lady was changing the rubbish bags in my room. Couldn’t they ever do it quietly? But she was a sign of the time. With her entrance I knew it must be nearly breakfast.

How had I managed to sleep through the early morning hours given how noisy the ED was? They brought a tray in with my food and I looked under the lids in distaste. Cold toast, luke warm water for a hot drink, never enough milk for my cereal or my tea cup.

Frustrated and ravenous, I’m always starving after a night of cutting.

Before I knew it, the psych team was here.

Interviewing me about the events that brought me to this point. What could I say that was new? How could I explain to them the same old story? The anxiety? The desperation? The fact that none of my other strategies actually work when I’m that emotional?

I loved my cutting. I owned it, it WAS me! It was the most precious and personal relationship in my life. Cutting listened to me, got the horrible feelings out; it bled away the badness inside.

Why couldn’t people understand that? And mostly, how could they possibly ask me to give it up?

I found myself on a bus going home. It was 10am and all I wanted was to eat a decent breakfast and then sink into oblivion.

Drained.

My heart pounding so hard from sheer exhaustion.

And I was home.

The relief was tangible. I had my bag of take away breakfast; I washed my red legs, changed my clothes, put my phone on charge and tucked myself into bed.

My bed with the two-sizes-too-big quilt that made me feel I was lying in the clouds; my quilt that cradled my skin in its comforting safe embrace.

No matter how I lay, I felt like I was being held close and comforted, almost as if my bed knew the journey to that dark realm I had again visited the night before.

And as I lay nibbling the food that would never get eaten, I could feel my heavy eyes closing as I cradled my injured arm in the loving caresses of my quilt and drifted into unconsciousness knowing all the time that this is the kind of homecoming that is the safest and sweetest for a tortured mind.