Ask Me Why [April 2003]

You call me strange, you pity me as concern knits your brow and worry lines your face. True concern? True worry? Or just your learned sensitivities whispering to the subconscious that you should feel pity, and concern, and sympathy - this is the appropriate reaction. I am - pitiable. Pitiful.

So you tell me, perhaps not in words but with saddened eyes and a shocked round 'o' of the mouth as you hear the dreadful news. Then it's listen to the crazy person, and send cards of sympathy, and offer advice about something you have never known or touched or felt and something you can never understand.

Stare at the staggered row of fading marks on a death-pale forearm. Ask why, why would I do such a thing, why hurt myself, why mark myself like this? Why? And my answer is sharp with frustration, harsh with guilt and self-hate.

Why? If I knew why, maybe I could fix myself. If I knew why, maybe I could keep from injuring myself. If I knew... maybe I wouldn't be like this. Messed up. Depressed.

But surely there's a reason. Surely there's something that makes me go to my room, arms throbbing for the touch of pain. That makes me reach for a shard of broken glass, jagged and sharp and near to invisible in the dim light of evening. Surely there's some reason for the whirling fog of thought and emotion and shadow, indefinable and incoherent, expanding within until it has to explode in tears or rage...or if neither are possible, then in the tiny glass shard held tight between forefinger and thumb, in the pressure applied to skin, in the steady-sharp slash. All attention focusing on the act, the burn of pain, relieving the internal storm bit by bit, scrape by scrape, drop by scarlet drop. Until finally the inner pressure lowers to a bearable level, until the chaos retreats to the shadows, until I can close my eyes and rest even as I curse myself for giving in yet again.

But the pressure never leaves completely. I always stop when the hissing thoughts and whirling emotions subside enough to let me but it's still there, bringing tension to already knotted muscle, dragging me lower and lower as time blurs onward. I always stop before I end the storm completely, because there's only one way to do that, and I can't take that dead-end road. Not brave enough or not cowardly enough - I don't know.

And now you try to help, to advise, to offer useless platitudes and condescending admonishments and theoretical solutions about something you know nothing about. Thinking you have to do something. Thinking you know enough about life. Thinking it's your duty to help, your obligation to try and fix the broken fool...

"It'll be okay." Will it now? When? What do you think is okay? The only part of my life that's not "okay" is the chemical imbalance in my brain. Everything else is not bad at all - so ask me why. Ask me why I'm depressed if I have a pretty good home life. Ask me why I'm depressed if I don't have any enemies. Ask me why I'm depressed if I have a horse, which I've always wanted, and a truck, and my other pets, and pretty good parents, and friends, and a flair for writing, and decent grades, and...

Ask me why. God knows I've asked myself the question over, and over, and over again, beat my head against it countless times, seen others with completely messed up lives and told myself they have so much more right to be depressed than I, that I have no right to be like this, I shouldn't be like this, there's no reason why I'm like this!

Psychiatrists say it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. Not enough or too much serotonin - I forget which. That's mostly what depression is, right? Oh, you didn't know that? Neither did I. And while my mind knows it now...I've learned too many times that my mind has no control over my emotions. Logic and emotion are completely disconnected, and emotion can be completely out of proportion or completely incomprehensible and I can feel things for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

And so while I know intellectually that this is all a chemical imbalance, I can't believe it. I still think that I have no right to be depressed. That I'm an overreactive, selfish, self-centered, whining, complaining, idiotic ingrate. That my life is one mistake after another. That everything I do is for my own benefit. That no one sincerely cares. That no one ever will care. That I'll lose everyone I care about and so I shouldn't get close to anyone. That I'll never get better. That I don't want to get better. That I deserve this...

And on, and on, a whole litany of attacks on my self. And no way of knowing what's true, what's false, what's deception, what's half-truth.

So why do I cut myself? It started out as curiosity mingled with boredom and anger at myself...escalated to self-hate...twisted into addiction...became a way to feel something close to emotion when all feeling disappeared for a time...and now? A mixture of all those things and a tangle of others that only my subconscious knows, perhaps. I don't know anymore. Sometimes I think I don't know anything.

And I'm dry of words, and you still don't understand. It doesn't matter. Maybe it never did...