Good morning and greetings and stuff like that there. Yes, it's morning on a weekend and I'm awake voluntarily. Amazing isn't it?

I was going through some new diaries last night and I found a few things which hit me kind of hard. There are a lot of them (yes, I know this is nothing new to most of you) which speak of seriously negative events as if they were common place.

There was one diary in particular where I was surprised at the degredation this individual endured because it "didn't matter".

I remember being there. I remember being so deep in that kind of quagmire that I just didn't care anymore. It hurts my heart to see that kind of ... *frowns* Pain isn't the right word.

When I was in that situation, I didn't feel pain. It took a hell of a lot to hurt me. I didn't feel.

How can someone have a relationship when they can't feel? How can someone have a life when all they want... when inside, all they want is for the fear, pain, hurt and rage to go away?

I remember sitting in my room after everyone else was in bed. I remember sitting there with the razor blades in my lap. I remember meticulously spreading the towel across my legs so I wouldn't get blood stains on the blankets. I remember picking up the razor blade and feeling it in my hand, feeling the weight, feeling the coldness of the metal, feeling how flimsy it really was.

I remember thinking about how easy it would be to just cut away the pain. I remember how easy I thought it would be to just escape. To truly escape. Just cut deep enough and maybe I would "accidentally" bleed to death.

On really cold days I can see the thin, hair-line scars running up and down both of my arms.

Daily, sometimes hourly, I can see the one time I meant to do it. The one time I really meant to do it. Get it over with.

I believed my God didn't want me. I believed I simply had nothing special. I believed I was nothing special. I believed I was useless.

And so I meant to end it that night. I meant to really do it. And I started to. Instead of cutting from side to side across my arm, I took that razor blade and followed the line of my vein.

I cut once. It hurt. A lot. I thought that maybe I didn't really want to end it. I looked around my room, heard my parents fighting again, shook my head as I closed my eyes.

I cut again. Deeper this time. And again. And then I cut cross-wise. Three, four, five times.

Then I cut along the line of my vein again, and again, and again. Until I lost track. There was a lot of blood. A whole lot of blood. That towel, a huge, beach towel, was filled with blood. It was pooling up. The towel couldn't absorb it as fast as it spilled.

There were no tears. After I started cutting, there were no thoughts.

Just blood and the temporary (very temporary as it didn't hurt after a little bit) sting of pain.

I'm not sure what happened then. I thought I passed out from blood loss, but I don't know. Maybe I just fell asleep. I don't know.

The point is, I woke up the next morning. That towel was heavy with blood.

Without thought. Without emotion. Without concern. I rolled up that towel, wrapped it in another, shoved them into a plastic bag and then shoved them into the back of my closet. On auto-pilot I moved through my life until I met Duncan.

I was happy and alive and bright and cheerful for about 9 months or so. Then the shit started again. Robyn pulled her bullshit routine, Duncan left on WestPac. I stayed home not having the foggiest idea what I was supposed to do.

I met Carol, learned, first hand, what it's like to be psychically attacked... That was a long six months.

I got married during the last stages of my down-slide.

I remember walking down the aisle toward Duncan with Dad at my side. I felt such an overwhelming sense of panic. I wanted nothing more than to run. I wanted to escape. I didn't want to be there.

I "knew" if I ran that there would be guards or something... that someone would come from out of nowhere and force me back to the altar. So, I listened to the minister. I tuned out the fear. I shut it down, turned it off, ignored it.

I listened to what the minister said and when it was time to make the promise, I made it. It was a choice. I chose to do everything I could to honor and respect my husband.

===I remember at the reception, Duncan, Carol, Eric and myself were having a blast dancing and singing to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. My Mom turned it off, looking at me in that "I'm your mother, that's why" kind of way and said it was time to cut the cake. No wonder Duncan thought my mother was controling me. *smirks*===

Anyway... After the wedding, we went back to the apartment. We were going to leave for the honeymoon the next day. On the way back to the apartment, Duncan wanted to pick up a six pack (dry campus, thus the hardest thing at the wedding was sparkling apple cider == And, the wedding took place in the Scandinavian Cultural Center at PLU in Tacoma. The reception was in Kris Knutsen Hall upstairs... thus, the whole campus thing)

It wasn't even six months before I was right back where I'd been when I'd been so heavy into cutting. I remember sitting in the chair, looking out the window. I remember wanting to go outside, get some fresh air, get a little motion going... but what if Duncan called?

He was so scared about whether or not I would be alive when he came home after a day at work. It wasn't like that while we were dating. It wasn't like that for the whole year before we got hitched. I was moving, out walking at least a mile a day (that's when I was weighing in at about 350 or so... I'm only 15 over that now... WOOHOO).

But, something happened when we got married. Duncan stopped being fun. He stopped being different. He started putting work first. He started putting all his attention into TV.

He would come home from work, smile at me and give some grunted greeting then shuck his coveralls and plop down on the chair before the TV. He would then spend anywhere from 1 to 4 hours in front of the TV. His coveralls stayed in a pile atop his boots until he needed his boots the next morning, then the coveralls were kicked out of the way.

For me to pick up.

I lived in that small apartment with a TV and a computer as my closest friends. They were my social interaction.

No wonder I relate to pixels better than I do people.

Anyway, the following three years were spent with me sitting in the chair day after day either watching TV or playing on my computer. I wrote a lot. Very, very sexual stuff. Very, very mean, sexual stuff. I had no idea that I was processing my anger with Duncan by putting him into characters.

Trust me, I was more oblivious than anyone else!

Regardless... (and for information sake, the sex between my characters was better by a million percent than the sex between Duncan and myself) three years passed with my sole function being to sit in the chair and atrophy. And I did that. I either sat before the idiot box or before the computer screen. I didn't work unless I had to. I didn't breathe unless I had to. And there were times when I think I stopped breathing.

I was not exactly a happy puppy.

I stopped feeling. I stopped thinking. I stopped caring. I was dead from the outside in. I had gained so much weight that it was virtually impossible for me to move without panting. Hell, going up one flight of stairs was so physically exhausting that I had to stop half-way up to catch my breath.

I was up to about 490 lbs or so... Of course, I didn't weigh myself after that cause I had to do so on the scale up at the Transfer Site (polite way of saying "the dump") where Duncan worked.

I didn't walk, I didn't talk, I didn't think, I didn't feel, I didn't live.

That's the condition I was in when we got in the wreck. (I really do need to find those pictures... You'd be absolutely amazed that ANYONE lived, let alone walked away.) I didn't care. I simply didn't care. I had the attitude which I saw so clearly exemplified in this person's diary. (remember the start of this long-ass entry?)

I know that the person who wrote that specific entry will probably never read this, but if, by some strange chance you do...

It gets better if you want it to. Someday. You might not care now... you might be in the flippant "It doesn't matter" stage now, but if you ever start to care in the future... it's okay to say that.

It's okay to cry. Crying doesn't make you weak. Crying doesn't make you wrong or small or less than human.

Honey, if you ever, ever, ever feel hurt in your future and you think you can't handle the pain.. I'll listen. I won't tell anyone else what you tell me. I won't gossip your secrets.

Breathe, dear heart, that's all I ask... just breathe.