06/30/2023

Got snakebites today. Been meaning to do that for a while.

I can't seem to leave the apartment without wanting to kill myself on the way back. It's not that there's anything wrong with my apartment... or maybe there is, I don't know. It's just that everything outside of it is so stressful. I'm safe here. I don't feel particularly human right now because of it. I don't know what to do.
I know I have to leave eventually. I can't just stay here.

I think I first started cutting sometime around 2008? 2009? I was eleven or twelve. I don't even know what gave me the idea. I think I was passively aware of it, as a phenomenon, because I'd seen a meme about 'emo kids' or something. Anyways, I remember testing the waters a little beforehand. I remember I scratched the fuck out of my arm at one point, like really dug my nails in. Left this really gnarly scab on my wrist haha. My mom noticed it basically immediately and I made up some lie about scraping my arm or something, and I decided I didn't want to do anything visible like that.

I think I started like that because I was scared, of how... I don't know, 'final' actually cutting myself felt. I never cut super deep. I was deeply suicidal back then, and I still am now, but back then the cutting was an act of punishment. I was ridden with guilt and shame as a kid, and I guess that, too, has followed me now. The routine was that I'd get home from school, and just before bed, I'd get out some shitty pencil sharpener and unscrew the blade, and I'd tally the faults from the day, and the reasons I had to feel bad, into my leg. I think E coincidentally showed up around this time, too. I can no longer remember exactly where he came from. A, I think, originally was intended as some sort of tulpa-esque thing, but she stuck around and was formed shortly after, too.

I don't know where I was going with this. I have a lot of thoughts. Cutting turned into something more akin to an emotion management technique, but I haven't done that for a very long time. I guess I started writing this because I wished it were as easy as that still.