I went through a phase. When I refer to my 'emo' years, I refer mainly just to the time between meeting the boys in the summer of 05 until about a year later, when I toned down the fringe and hanging out in various boy's homes. But the real thing that made me 'emo', more so than a long face-hiding fringe, a music preference and befriending a group of skinny boys in skinny jeans that were highly sexually active, some too much so, some in a bisexual way (and then straight-edge and scene started happening and I fell off the bandwagon and just kind of became myself). The real defining moment for me was one morning, I was walking out of assembly and I saw something that really got to me. I went and sat in the downstairs toilets, the cubicle at the very end, and sat on the floor reflecting on how shit things were. I had messed many things up; I had pissed off my best friend, who was going through a break-up from hell, I had blamed a friend for telling everyone my secret, and she was pissed off, these two friends were finding solace in the one girl I couldn't trust for most of our 'friendship' of six years, and that really wound me up, and I tried to turn to my old friends but they didn't know me anymore, because I thought I'd changed too much and they didn't understand my life anymore.
I sat there for almost an hour feeling pretty pathetic, and very alone, and I just kept thinking 'they're happier without me'. I didn't want to keep upsetting the people I cared about. I didn't want to be this pain and anger and rage anymore. I got a paperclip out of my bag and slowly but surely pulled off a scab my guinea-pig had left on my left forearm: they would lightly scrape a small red line, no longer than an inch, when I tried to move them from run to hutch. I pulled this tiny scabbed area up until it started to bleed again, and I kept digging. It wasn't deep, and it wasn't very big, but it sure as hell stung. And that's why I did it - to cause myself some pain. To feel the shit I was making others feel, and with that ounce of empathy actually become a good friend again, and a normal human being, instead of this over-dramatic whiney little girl who hated it when things happened out of her control. I sat there for so long that Lucy came to find me. She knew, as soon as she walked in, that the lump on the floor of the cubicle was me, and we chatted a bit, and she got me to open the door, and the Mrs McCourt, the teacher whose lesson I was missing (chemistry, who cares), had sent the nurse down to check on me. The nurse realised what I had done, and asked me into her office, to discuss the issues.
Ironically I had already asked the nurse a few weeks previously about self-harming, because I could see Emma's scars and bloody arms and I wanted to help her but didn't know how, and so she explained some of the reasons for self harm, the most common of which is for attention. So when she took me into her office that day, I pretended that I'd done it for attention, and I was just looking for some help because I was lost in a sea of homework and parents being called into school because I'm failing, etc etc. She believed me and turfed me out, saying she would pass this on to Mr Jepson aka Jeppo, as he was the one who would be talking to my parents. He heard, and never resorted to asking my parents in again, so they never found out.
A few days after this, however, the bad-break-up had gotten worse, and the two best friends of mine who had broken up were going through some shit. He told her that he'd kill himself if she left, and she didn't like him anymore, so had to leave, but felt horrific for it, so she when I next saw her she had some bright red words etched into her arm: Hurt me / hate me. We had both been idiots, and we took solace in the fact that we could therefore pull each other out of it. I did have to pull her drunken body out of a road once, but apart from that, we rose steadily back to normality.
It was about six months later, when my parents were having some kind of party in the summer, and Sam and I stood chatting to my aunt, the mother of my favourite cousin, who is friends with the ex that she still felt guilty about. Lisa, my aunt, saw the scar on Sam's arm, and asked her about it. Sam got embarrassed, and told her the brief awkward story, which Lisa had only heard from the boy's perspective. Lisa understood, to a certain extent, but told Sam (and myself, but not quite as strongly), that hurting yourself doesn't solve anything at all. If anything, it just causes others to worry more. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday; standing slightly tipsy on the field, chatting with Lisa, worried that my parents might be able to hear the conversation. Looking back, I'm so glad it was Lisa that spoke to us, and noticed Sam's arm: she's one of the only people I knew at the time that I both respected, looked up to, and felt understood me and my wants and needs, so I actually listened to her, and I still have a very faint scar to prove that I only did it once.
I'm not entirely sure of the point of this entry. They say 'you have to hit rock bottom before you get back up', and in some cases, like for me back then, it's very true. But I think you only have to hit rock bottom once, and know that if you ever get into a rut again, you know how bad it gets, so can help yourself get out before it gets worse. That's why I've never done it since: twice I have been tempted to, and been very close to doing so, but something in my memory, the teenage girl that hated who she had become, resurfaces and sobers my mind, controls my rage, anger and anguish, and lets me find solace some place else, usually drink.
Some parts of my teenage years, I don't recognise myself at all. Other times, I see myself far too clearly, and it scares the hell out of me. I know who I am, and what I am capable of, good and bad. I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I get very scared of the potential damage I could do if that girl gets out again.