Saturday.
I think he’d chalked me up as being some kind of text-book-case hysterical attention-whoring female and nothing I cold say was going to change his mind. He was convinced I was having panic attacks and looked at me like I was lying every time I tried to tell him I didn’t. (And really I didn’t, I just had depression in fucking spades.)
(I did have one panic attack later, I think my neurons were curious to try it out. Y’know, ‘Oh, is this what we’re meant to be doing? Okay, let’s pretend we get freaked by absolutely everything and everyone but know we can’t run away from it because we’ll always be covered by the same sky… wheeeee we can’t breathe... Pfft. Let’s not bother with those again, okay?’)
He was also convinced that all my unhappiness was because of my boyfriend who must have been mistreating me. Or possibly it was my father... What, a girl can’t look at the world and her life and be miserable all on her own? His misplaced Freudian theories irritated me quite a lot.
One time before I had an appointment, I’d painted my nails. I think I’d done it because I’d been tidying my room and had found a little pot of varnish and put it on out of boredom. The same way as when I’m tidying I will stop to read books I’m meant to be putting away. (I paint my nails rarely. Usually the reason is pure whim.) He thought it was a sign that I was trying t make myself attractive to the opposite sex. That I had a deep-rooted desire to reproduce - and this was wonderful - because it meant I couldn’t be that serious about trying to kill myself.
I looked at him funny. He’s never seen a suicide with nail varnish? He must never have met a goth or an art student before...
Lastly he asked me if I ever cut at my breasts or between my legs or my face. When I told him ‘no’ he was very enthusiastic. But not marring by face or my sexual organs I was showing I still wished to live. I hadn’t given up on myself by denying myself the right to biological immortality (as it were). Teh S3X is teh L1F3 or something.
But he phrased it quite well and I thought, ‘Maybe he has a point? Maybe I don’t want to die like those women he says he’s seen with scars all over their bodies?’ And then as I was walking home and pondering his words further I had a different thought.
There is a very good reason why I lay waste to my wrists. It has nothing to do with sex. It has everything to do with the fact that on my wrists veins and arteries shine bruise-blue scant millimetres below my fucking skin and appear easy to reach. I don’t remember ever looking at myself in the mirror and seeing major blood-lines pulse through my face or my tits...
About a year after that I tried to jugulate myself in a friend’s back-garden. And while I was at it I made a cut across my cheek bone, high up and rather like a duelling scar. There was no purpose to it, other than to stick up two fingers at the headscanner who was a blind idiot. I lost maybe a pint of blood but got cold, bored, tired and freaked before I hacked my jugular since I could only slice at it and not stab the scalpel blade straight in as would have been expedient.
I still can’t bring myself to stab straight into my jugular as I ought when I’m that miserable. But I sometimes re-open that duelling scar on my cheek, out of perversity I think.
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Today I have had tea and half a bottle of wine. Oh, and a biscuit. The biscuit’s important. Actually the biscuit isn’t important, I ate spring rolls last night... Although I have no milk for tea now and no more alcohol. Those facts are significant with or without the spring rolls.
I ought to buy food. Ought to do the washing up and take out the bin so the kitchen stops smelling mouldy. But I still don’t really see the point, because I can’t believe it will matter come Monday.
I know what I want.
But I don’t see it happening.
So I edge towards plan B, dragging my feet... Because plan B isn’t what I want.
It just seems to be what I’ve got. And my only choice will be to execute it with dignity... or aplomb...