Nah, I never really did get around to offing myself, and you weren't expecting that, were you? (Yeah, I know you don't exist, Three Constant Readers. If you did, I'd never ever bother with the pathetic self-stroking egotism of blogs. And before I come to A Point, which I intend to sometime a few paragraphs down, let me just say this: Twitter sucks, and Facebook sucks, and I can't be the only one out there who tries to lose followers. Right?)
Anyway, a not at all funny thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago, the kind of thing that gives you every reason in the world to start carving up your own flesh, burning the cuts with cigarettes, and planning your own suicide.
I guess a few years ago, if someone I trusted had raped me in every possible sense of the word, my answer would have been to reclaim my personal power by (you know this one already) making myself bleed. Marveling over shiny new mat cutter blades I probably would have stolen from the craft store instead of paying for them (because reclaiming power), testing their sharpness with tentative, light little grazes over my ankles and my thighs (and fuck knows where else, given the stressor), watching those little lines of blood appear and pool up and waiting for the pain with a kind of detached religious euphoria.
That didn't happen, though. I don't know why it didn't happen. I don't know why I'm acting halfway sane. (Could I be halfway...nah, let's not go overboard here.)
No, I'm not halfway sane, not by any stretch. It was two weeks before I slept a whole night, and now I've done that three times. Every time I wake there's another horrific detail I'd shut out. Do you know how fucked up it is that I can count on one hand how many of you know who I am, and I can't even bring myself to type those things? That I'm shaking just thinking about typing them into existence? It's easier to say out loud, really. Spoken words just disappear into the air. Words on paper can be burned. But this...no, it feels like an official statement. The one I didn't make. (You wouldn't have either, in my position. Maybe I'll be able to say more about that later.)
I was kind of okay Sunday, though. See, there's someone in my life who's just the opposite of rapist dude, who makes me feel bigger than I really am. I decided to think about him when I woke up with the residue of another horrible moment of a late Thursday night when I should have just driven home drunk. (Did it really last for hours? It seemed interminable, but it couldn't have been as long as it felt. You go somewhere else, you know--that part is true. You really decide you can't stand to be in your body, in that moment, in that actual hell, and you go somewhere else in your head and wait. It is the longest I've ever waited, even though I've been to the Public Aid office before.)
Then it got dark out, and I realized I couldn't put off going to the grocery store any longer. And it had been an okay day, sort of normal, tweeting in my pajamas and doing laundry. I grabbed my phone, my wallet, my keys, my glasses, my lip balm (shout out to Zum Kiss, always), my Xanax, and my lavender oil.
I glanced at the little green shoulder bag I'd been carrying with me lately, saw a makeup brush sticking out of it, and couldn't think of any reason in the world I'd need makeup.
Here's the thing: rapist dude lives between my house and the grocery store. For about three days once, we thought this might be cool, before I realized I'd completely outgrown him and he realized I'd realized that and that he was going to resort to drastic measures. Of course, he's such an exceptional con artist that he believes his own bullshit, so as I type this, he's probably thinking that everything is just fine. Or maybe that I'm a little annoyed still, even though he did apologize for hurting me. (I wish I could say I was shitting you there, Imaginary Constant Reader, but he texted me like everything was normal the day after HE SAID HE WAS SORRY FOR RAPING ME IN THE ASS.)
This is pretty diffused, I know, and I'd apologize for that, but no, fuck that. I haven't missed a day of work, and I haven't broken down crying to my either of my parents or even my sister...or whatever she is.
My knife is in the little green shoulder bag. I didn't remember that until I was close to his place, of course, and that's when the sick panic set in. I locked my doors, even though I was going 45 mph. (I don't even know how much good the knife would do me, though I do know at least one person who's alive today because a knife was within his reach when he was attacked by a small, crazy Irish-American dude he thought he could trust.) It's just the idea of the knife. I walk different when it's with me, just like you walk different in a black leather jacket and Docs.
In a t-shirt and capri jeans and FUCKING CONVERSE, I was just that same girl who should never have thought that refusing to take off her dress would save her from any indignities. Since my brain is almost never pragmatic, I tried to reach the wonderful someone. It's always helpful to get in touch with someone who's 15 hours away if you fear for your safety. Good job, me. Scare the shit out of the nice man you like.
Oh, but wait, me! The guy you trust the most in the world, who happens to be kind of big and pretty buff, lives half a block from you. This is what I've come to: I won't be afraid to go to the grocery store alone after dark, so my friend has to talk me from the doors til I'm safely locked in my truck and I've checked the back.
He was waiting outside my house for me when I got home to put my groceries away. I did that, then grabbed a beer from the fridge and went outside to join him, where I could sit and visibly shake and sweat.
I think I might have just figured out why sharp objects don't serve the same purpose they used to for me, and it doesn't have much at all to do with me alone.
