Five Years Ago

I was angry.

Five years ago I cut for the first time because I was angry and I think I did it because I didn’t know what else to do with this anger. I’d never been one for anger. All my energy in school went on getting attention from people by being loud and hyper, but from about sixteen onwards I calmed down, grew up and my energy started to wane as depression kicked in.

So I was depressed and angry and I never really got angry. Annoyed, hyper, but the last time I remember being really angry was when I was eleven and I hit my sister who was eight at the time. Which I regret deeply but since then nothing. I never argued with my mum, argued with my sister but nothing really too intense. Never said anything out of line to my dad (I didn’t dare).

So I’m angry, depressed and hurting so what do I do?

I go and get a knife from the kitchen draw, just a crappy dinner knife and cut myself. Just scratches mainly on my arms, standing there over an open draw. Once I’d done it I dropped the knife back in the draw and shut it before sitting back down again.

I remember it all very clearly. Which is surprising really because I have trouble remembering what day it is, or how old my sister is, or anything before the age of seven. But I remember that evening very clearly.

I was angry. I remember that. I was sitting in the house alone because everyone had gone home for half term and I was along, by choice because I could’ve just gotten up and gone next door where my friends lived. I was writing, a short story about me and my dad and my life. The names were different but it was me. I was watching the lottery with Eamon Holmes. Which reminds me that it was a Wednesday.

I was angry at my dad, and I had lied to him again, telling him I couldn’t see him because I didn’t get half term. I didn’t get any time off uni and I was writing this story and thinking about a debate (argument) my sister and I had had about Eminem being a bad influence and I remembered Stan and the words in that and I just got up and got that knife.

I remember afterwards, the lottery on the television and it all seeming really surreal and now I feel like there should’ve been something else going on, something more depressing or cliché than one eighteen year old student watching the BBC. But there wasn’t and that was just it, just me and Eamon and thinking ‘Damn Sian was right, Eminem does encourage people to cut.’

I remember dropping that knife back in the draw so clearly. I remember not being angry anymore but being confused. I remember sitting there on the sofa, looking back at the draw but I can’t remember what I was thinking. Doing it again? Regretting it.

Whatever it was it was cut short and my neighbours, my friends, were at the window, scaring the hell out of me and I was laughing, laughing, forcing it out when I still had one eye on that draw as they dragged me next door to watch films.

Five years this month. Last week actually. It had only occurred to me yesterday and I’m not even sure why I remembered it, why I thought of it. Five years and I haven’t really gotten very far. When I was thinking about writing this at half past six this morning, I was going to write more, say more about my cutting, other feelings, anger, numbness, sadness, elation, those early days, stopping and starting again, burning, bruising and everything I have ever done but this isn’t about any of that. This is about that first time, that first evening with a dinner knife and Eamon Holmes.