Mum asked me today, rather out of the blue, if I'd been cutting lately. The answer was 'no', and it was the truth. It's been some time (the exact details of said time I cannot recount) since I last did that. It didn't bother me that she asked. The fact that she asked is particularly inconsequential, because I wouldn't have answered truthfully had I been going through a cycle, but it was more the ideas that stemmed from it. Specifically the circumstances in which I do get sucked into a cycle. It always struck me as odd, my reasons for it. Physical things, such as ongoing doctor appointments or knee pain, never drew such a reaction. It was the emotional distress that always inevitably threw me off. I couldn't deal with it when I first started cutting. And over time as I've better learnt to deal and compartmentalise, I've better been able to cope. And consequently, my desire to cut has backed off. Sometimes I think I'll be free of it forever, but I've learnt over time how ridiculous a hope that is. Addiction is not so easily shed. This one is here for the long haul. As long as I am suffering I will inevitably relapse.
I recently experienced two emotional events that, had they happened earlier in my life, would have all but killed me. I have definitely lost one friend and almost certainly lost another. Neither of which I am particularly vexed about. The first, who is definitively gone, was very dear to me and had been there for me for a long time. He then disappeared without warning. He literally cut me off, deleting my from every avenue we'd previously used to communicate. So I made a friendly attempt at conversation - which was ignored - and then sent a far less friendly note basically telling him he was a dick. And that was that. I'm not even really all that upset about this. I was angry for about two days (hence the angry letter), but that's it. I properly let go. Damn, I've got to properly let go of things more often. But the latter friend, that's weird. I pined for his friendship when he left me at first, a long time ago. I really pined. And then, after a ridiculously long time, I let go. Not even worried anymore. I'm even less worried now that he's all but declared his undying love for me. I still cringe and shudder when I reflect on that conversation we were having a week ago today, at this time. God. It was dramatic and awkward and just cannot be unseen. Ever. It's the teen drama I thought I'd escaped unscathed from.
I will not be disappointed if he fails to come back into my life. I won't miss him this time
Something I am missing terribly, today more than ever, is the horses. May doesn't seem all that long ago, but it's been two months since I quit my job. Two months since I had contact with the horses that I adored and who (mostly) adored me in return. It's fine to spend a few minutes greeting our horse at the races, or visiting the horses a friend works with briefly, but its another to work with them and know they know you. I was working a long time and I miss them. I miss that they don't judge. I miss the way the communicated. I miss the way they talked to me. I miss the contact. I just miss them. I've sat in my room for long afternoons facing, inadvertently, the wall filled with photos of the horses I've worked with and it kind of kills me inside to have had to let all that go. I want it back now more than ever. I spend much of my spare time looking for a horse of my own and I don't know. They're something I'm starting to really pine for. Worthy of tears now. And it takes something big to dissolve me into tears.
I just miss them so much.
One thing I haven't missed is school. I hate what school life does to me. The battle with sleep that I can't rectify by sleeping through the morning. The stress of trying to constantly achieve a level of unattainable perfection. Perfection that is not normally required only by yourself, but those around you. Those who don't understand the consequences of the chase. The way I'm pitted against my classmates only to see who is the best. The way I'm pressured in ways I will never be pressured in again. And for what? I don't understand what they set out to achieve, what they are trying to teach us. Are they trying to break me? Is that it? They want to break my spirit and send me out into the world completely unprepared for future struggles that require the spirit and resolve they so callously shattered? I find it hard to reconcile these things. School is three quarters of my grief at this time of my life. I'm am never so stressed as when I am at school. I am never so sullen, lost, agitated, aggravated, and many more things than when I am at school. Outside of school life never brought these things out in me. But school, school saps my strength. Makes me struggle. Forces me to do things I would not otherwise push myself to do. Causes me physical pain I do not feel in any other aspect of my life.
School is a bad place. I don't miss it when I'm not there. I don't miss the crush of people. The whisper of their judgements. I don't miss the work. The given deadlines I continuously ignore. I don't miss the expectations. The belief that I'm the next Einstein. The struggle to meet the expectations so carelessly placed upon me. School is rigid and tough. It doesn't care about who you are. You learn that as soon as your given you're number. A number. That's all you are. Not a person, a number. And in the end, at the end of all that torture that teaches you nothing in life skills; in the end you're merely a statistic.
As the holidays have erased my general school anxieties I have cared less about the medical afflictions. The right heart catheterisation spun me out dramatically. I could not get my head around it. I probably blew it out of proportion because it sounded so awful and traumatising and scary. It wasn't so bad when I averted my gaze. Repeated to myself that the tube up my arm did not in fact hurt. Of course my arm is still sore three, four days later. But really, that's okay. And now that I've passed that traumatic event, I don't care. There is no feeling left for what these doctors, all of them, have done to me. I am not angry, I am not upset. I wouldn't say I'm accepting though either. I am though, quite indifferent at this tranquil time. I've come to realise that not all that much hangs on Friday's appointment. I have been conditioned to accept the possibility of having this condition for well over a year now. Telling me I definitively have it is of little consequence to me now. It's annoying, sure. But I can't change that now. If they tell me I don't have it, then great. I'll be blasé, but pleased. And predictably, my life will go on, as it would have had I been sick.
It's a bit cruel really, how the world refuses to stop for you when you want a break. When I want to curl up in a ball and for everything to end I expect it to stop, but it does not. It doesn't allow for that. It expects you to man up and keep going. All I can ask is how?
It's fine to be nonchalant outwardly, but the raging internal monologue of doom doesn't cease. It numbs me to certain things while killing me with others. Nonchalance only covers the scent of destruction.
- Sky
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