Hallo, hallo. I've always been very adament that I didn't want to be this sort of writer, but hey ho, when do I ever keep to these things?! Anyway. This is the start of something, I guess. I don't know what or where it will go or if it's any good. So yeah, opinions needed! It's untitled at the moment, but I sort of like Gridlock, so I might go with that for now...
It is potentially triggering, so do be careful and all that.
Gridlock
There is something narcissistically addictive about curling up on the floor, broken, crying and bleeding. It feels like the world is ending and you can never be whole or happy again. The music playing on your computer loops relentlessly, taunting you with bitter, ironic lyrics. In the beginning they were comforting; there was something in the world that came close to expressing the pit of despair bubbling up inside you and now they just seem to laugh at your pain.
After a while, the tears dry up and your throat hurts from the exertion. Everything about your body aches. You stretch out and your limbs crackle with dried blood, your hands brush bloodied, discarded tissues and there is a sharp pain as a cut gets pulled open. Slowly sitting upright, your head feels strangely disconnected to your body and you look around, suddenly ashamed and sickened by your weakness.
This is where I found myself one night, just past midnight. It was an all too familiar situation for me and I had had enough. I cleaned up, careful not to make too much noise, before creeping across the landing to flush the used tissues down the loo. I found some cotton wool balls and gently cleaned my arms up, too, silently berating myself for my stupidity. The mirror caught my eye and I reluctantly brought my face up. Swollen eyes, puffy cheeks and a deep crimson spread across my face – I’d looked better. I felt the tears welling up again as I thought about how futile my life was.
Something, I thought, as the tears escaped and made fresh marks down my face, had to give. But what, and more importantly, when?
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Moarrr. I'm not sure about the next bit, but hey, whatcha gunna do?! Is it worth continuing?
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I went to bed and cried myself into a dreamless sleep, waking in the morning to find that my entire body had been filled with a melancholy lethargy. My arm was heavy as I reached across to switch off my insistent alarm and my legs protested feebly as I slowly swung them out of bed and pulled myself into a standing position. I shook my head, trying to rid it of the muggy feeling I had begun to associate with waking up. It didn’t work. I grabbed my towels and made it to the bathroom to get in the shower, deliberately avoiding the mirror. The rest of my house came alive as I stood under the pouring water, wondering what it would be like to drown. Would it be peaceful, painless? Would the world stop spinning and allow me to just be in the last few moments of my life? I didn’t realize I was crying until I turned the water off.
Time had started to do strange things; it would jump, slow and go backwards, taking me by surprise every time. I’d just got on the bus and closed my eyes for a second; I opened them as we were pulling up the school drive and wondered where the last thirty minutes of my life had gone. I waited on the bus until everyone had got off before making my way slowly to my homeroom. The walk seemed to take forever, but when I checked the clock as I dropped into a seat, it had hardly been five minutes. I put on my music and buried my head in my arms on the desk, shutting out the world as best as I could.
Had I known then that those days of school and exams would be the more preferable of my life, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so apathetic and miserable about it all. Hindsight is just about the worst gift we get in life. It gives you an unwanted perspective on the past, and does nothing to assuage the emotions in the present.
Uhm. So, I realize no one's probably reading this...but if you are, I'll keep updating it. I'd really appreciate any form of feedback. This type of writing is completely out of my comfort zone, I usually keep my emo to poems and humour to my prose and fiction, so, yup.
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‘Max.’ What was that? That was my name. Wait, where am I again? Oh yes, school, who was saying my name?
‘Max?’ Mr Hall, of course it was, he was doing the register. I pull out one of my earphones, not realizing that I can not only hear over the music, but that I don’t need to hear to answer. I mumble a late ‘yes, sir’ and sit up a bit to appear more awake. Looking round I spot Elle and Fran, huddled up together at a table in the corner, away from me. That’s my own fault, I realize, for falling asleep instead of waiting for them to come in. I found that I wasn’t particularly bothered by the fact that my two closest friends were becoming more distant as the days went by. The earphone went back in, my head dropped to my arms and I closed my eyes once again, waiting for the bell.
That day passed the same as the one before, and the one after. I spent my free periods curled up in the corner of the common room, ignoring the work I needed to do for the next lesson and then spent my lessons in a daze. I was generally unaware of anything happening around me, nor did I care enough to make the effort to stay focused. Occasionally one of my teachers would make a half hearted attempt to determine whether something was wrong, but they were usually satisfied by a mumbled explanation of lack of sleep. Looking back, perhaps they could have tried harder to see why a relatively intelligent and enthusiastic student had slipped so badly, but my failures from those days were ultimately of my own doing.
As the year progressed, I started finding it harder and harder to summon up the will to get out of bed, let alone be motivated enough to complete my work. I’d been sinking slowly and suddenly found myself drowning in reams of late and badly written scraps of coursework. I had thought - the first time I cried myself to sleep - that that was it. I thought I’d hit rock bottom and things could only get better. I was miserably wrong. The ‘episodes’, as they were, started increasing in frequency and things eventually slipped completely out of my control just before Christmas.
Oh. I also feel that I should point out that it is NOT an autobiography. Obviously some of the things I'm writing about, emotions and things, are stuff that I have experienced...but this is purely fictional.
Hum hum hum. It really does seem to be getting worse with every update. I shall probably go back and edit at some point, perhaps. But for now..the next bit.
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Often in the midst of insanity, there is a brief moment of clarity that makes you take a step back from what you’re doing and ask why. For a second, the whole thing seems ludicrous – you think about what you’re doing to yourself and it just makes no sense at all. You think back on all the wasted hours you’ve spent hidden away, destroying your body and in turn, destroying your mind. Each cut then turned into a scar on your body, each scar marking another failure on your part, another reason to be ashamed of yourself. In that moment, when you realize these things, it’s almost enough to have you say no more. That’s enough. Stop now before it gets even worse. Then you find yourself sitting on the floor in a daze, holding a fraying tissue to your arm, leg, stomach, hip, wherever, and watch as it slowly turns crimson. You sit there indefinitely; the wet tissues dry into solid brown lumps and the blood congeals repulsively on your body.
It didn’t always end that way. It was the middle of December and I had deadlines looming and nothing to show for them. It was one of the few times I had a peaceful house to myself. My parents were out for the evening and my brother had vanished off to a friend’s house. Instead of watching TV, undisturbed, or playing loud music to have a sing along to, I instead went straight to the kitchen. There was nothing in the fridge, nothing interesting in the cupboards, nothing in particular that took my fancy at all. After checking everything 2 or 3 times and finding nothing to cure my boredom I went back to my room. Out came the box, the tissues and a towel to protect the bed. It became a clinical, routine procedure. There was no emotion in it, no release.
That day I didn’t feel the pressure, or the parting of my skin. I was hardly paying attention until what I felt didn’t mimic the small trickling I had become accustomed to. Instead my arm offered me a rush of warm liquid and a stab of fear as it took me by surprise. This wasn’t control. This was a complete lack of control and a deficit of compassion for myself. How could I ever have craved this? How could I ever have thought this was a solution? I clutched the towel closer to my arm and I could feel the blood seeping slowly through, its warmth turning my stomach as I fully understood what I had just done. I had crossed instinctive boundaries one is so rarely aware of. We’re supposed to protect ourselves from harm; pain is supposed to be a signal that the body is injured and needs tending to. I, instead, had been harming myself. I had been deliberately harming myself.
The bleeding stopped eventually, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do next. I eventually made it to the walk in centre and received my first lot of stitches. It hurt, that's what I can remember of that experience, everything about it hurt physically and emotionally. The scar is a badge of shame that will forever be on my body and my medical records for everyone to see.
Something changed that night, but I was never able to work out what. The world seemed to have tilted slightly and had thrown everything off balance. I was lost, tired and a little bit afraid of myself - of what I may be capable of. Suddenly a whole new world of possibility had opened up to me. My fantasies were a little more real, my dreams that little bit more achievable.
Oh I really really love the way you write. I can't believe I've only just seen this. I look forward to more. Considering it's out of your comfort zone you've done an amazing job of it.
The only time you will find real light is when you're searching in the dark..
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
So, I think the last bit of this update needs some work, so I'll possibly do that tomorrow. I'm not even sure I want to talk about that experience in it. I'm not sure. Does it fit in with the piece? I don't want this to come anywhere near glamourising self harm or explaining it, or trying to justify it. I just want it as an account, does that make sense? Argh I don't know, it's stupid late for me (tireddd) and probably makes no sense anyway. Lalala.
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I found myself at my most confused in the mornings following such episodes. My alarm would go off and I’d reach over to shut it up and curl back up under my covers, content. Then the night before would start seeping back into my conscious. A twinge of pain from my abused limb, the stiffness of an itchy bandage, the flash of panic that I had left a beacon out for my parents to see, followed by my jumping out of bed to check my room for any loose blades, a scrap of tissue or blood stain on the floor. The paranoia that slowly sneaks up on you as you tumble head first down an increasingly violent slope of self harm is, in some ways, worse than the act itself. I stopped letting people into my room; every time one of my parents knocked on my door I would jump and then scan the room for evidence. I started keeping a jumper on the back of my chair, ready to throw on when someone wanted to talk to me. It became a wholly miserable, self contained existence.
Things were no different on that December morning. I woke up feeling confused and disorientated; surely I had only just closed my eyes? I hadn’t got in from the walk in centre until about 5am. I’d been lucky to get the 2hrs of sleep that I had managed. Shame washed over me, once again, as I thought back on it. The waiting room had been completely empty when I had arrived, eerie and uninviting. Not long after I had taken a seat, a young couple had turned up with their baby. She wasn’t crying, but her face and glazed eyes indicated that she had been. Not long after they’d sat a Doctor came through and said my name, surprising me, I looked up at him and realized he was talking and I hadn’t heard. Sorry, would he repeat that please?
‘I was just wondering if it would be ok for me to see the little girl before you.’ He indicated vaguely towards the baby and her parents.
Would it be ok for him to see that helpless, sick child before me? I nodded numbly. The young couple thanked me, grateful and concerned. They were treating me like I was doing them a favour. I felt fraudulent and dirty. What was I doing there? I was wasting their time and resources that could be used for other people. Other people more worthy of their help. I checked the clock and realized that time was playing tricks on me again. Somehow an hour had passed and I was still sat there, waiting. I stood up and had made it to the doors when the Doctor came out again. Where had the young couple and their baby gone? I hadn’t seen them leave, I hope she was ok.
‘Maxine?’
I was ok, honest, I realized I didn’t need to be there and just wanted to get home, to sleep and pretend the whole thing was just a figment of my imagination. I blinked. The room was a dull sort of blue, not unfriendly, but not warm. A barrage of questions was thrown my way, I answered as best as I could. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see it. That was my cue and I missed it, better late than never, he did want to see it after all. I pulled up my sleeve and noticed that my hands were trembling. He prodded and poked and pulled at me, my flesh; my secret. Why was he being so nice to me? Did he not know that I was a terrible person, could he not see it in my face, feel it in my blood? I saw the needle and grew apprehensive; I was suddenly tired, weary of the whole ordeal. The anaesthetic hurt - a small scratch and then a burning in my arm. After a few stabs it was numb and ready to be pulled together and mended like a hole in a sock.
Somehow I made it home, returning the car I had borrowed from my mother to its place on the driveway. I guiltily checked for stains, cursing as I found a speck on the passenger seat. I snuck into the house, praying that no one would wake up and went looking for something to clean with. What on earth did I use to clean a car seat? I could find nothing but makeup wipes in the house, so I grabbed them and snuck back out again. Hot tears flooded my face as I scrubbed frantically at the seat. What was I doing? No really, what was I doing?
The only criticisms I can find (in the piece overall) is that you change tense at times which can be a tad confusing, and also in the more dramatic moments it might be worth varying the sentence structure a little more to emphasise certain bits, for example throwing in a few minor or simple sentences to break up the more wordy complex sentences.
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’ – Oscar Wilde
‘It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.’ Sydney Carter
The only criticisms I can find (in the piece overall) is that you change tense at times which can be a tad confusing.
This is sort of done deliberately, as it's supposed to be from the perspective of the character all grown up. There are only supposed to be two tenses though. Which bits in particular are confusing? It might be that I've done something unintentional with them, which is highly likely! I don't usually write in the first person because of this..!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Buttons.
Also in the more dramatic moments it might be worth varying the sentence structure a little more to emphasise certain bits, for example throwing in a few minor or simple sentences to break up the more wordy complex sentences.
Ahh, but I have! In fact, in writing it I was worried that I was chucking in too many short, thought sentences. =P
I do like your tense changes when it's clear sort of where present stops and past begins or visa versa it's just bits like this
Quote:
You think back on all the wasted hours you’ve spent hidden away, destroying your body and in turn, destroying your mind. Each cut then turned into a scar on your body, each scar marking another failure on your part, another reason to be ashamed of yourself.
which I think are a tad out of place as the whole of the rest of that paragraph and even the sentence is present tense. Maybe just try reading it to yourself with turns instead of turned to see if you agree?
Otherwise, I say again, really good :)
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’ – Oscar Wilde
‘It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.’ Sydney Carter
I thought I'd bump this as I've written a little bit more. =]
Oh and thanks, Katy, I did go and edit it in my version on my comp!
* * *
Mercifully the stain came out and I threw the red tinged wipes straight into the outside bin, hoping nobody would look too closely at its contents. I made my way to bed and collapsed into blissful unconsciousness. The following day passed in a blur, other than an argument I had with Mr Hall. In annoyance I had shouted at him that it had been 5am before I’d gotten to sleep before I had been silence by his asking why. The next week passed uneventfully, the visit to the walk in centre, though not forgotten, had been pushed aside. The day came, however, when I was to have a repeat of the same night.
It wasn’t too long until my visits to the walk in centre for stitches became a common occurrence. I had long since given up on the idea of a full nights sleep and instead rested fitfully on the nights I didn’t cut, barely resting at all on the nights I did. The new year had come and as the weeks past my mood plummeted. I never questioned what I was doing to myself, how could I? I was weak and vile, a complete waste of the planets resources. I decided that I had had enough and it was my time to go, but when? I couldn’t ruin my Elle’s birthday, but I didn’t want to live to mine. That gave me a month’s time frame. I had started to hoard paracetamol, which in my mind was bound to do the job, and one evening at the end of February I took the lot. I started off 2 at a time, but by the end I was taking 8 in one go. I went to bed feeling accomplished, satisfied by my decision and sure that I would never wake up again.
To my utter despair the next thing I was aware of was my mother knocking on my door to wake me up for school. What on earth had happened? I was supposed to be dead, supposed to be free of all the madness that had been haunting me for years. I sat up and immediately retched. I ran to the bathroom just in time to vomit and was disgusted to see that it was a green liquid. That, I imagined, was the after effect of the energy drink I had taken all the pills with. My mother had heard me throwing up and came in to investigate. It had been years since I had thrown up and it was obviously an indicator that all was not right with me. After a lot of questions and seeing the worry in her eyes I confessed to the overdose I had taken. Panic struck her face and she stared at me for a minute before saying we needed to go to the hospital. The rest is an ordeal best not thought about. My parents were disappointed in me, I was disappointed in me and the Drs were unimpressed with me. I was declared medically fit to go home after staying the night and despite being told I was still a danger to myself I was allowed to go home.
Where do you go after a failed attempt on your life? There is no consoling the survival afterwards. I was devastated, deeply ashamed and disappointed. I had been so sure. Even now, years after the fact, I regret that it hadn’t all ended that February evening.
