Have you ever been in situation when you suddenly realize that you just screwed yourself? And there's not a thing you can do about it, because it's already too late? Ever felt that adrenaline rush caused by the fear that some people find exciting? The special fear that involves your whole body; brain, nerves, lungs, heart and muscles are all in total sync, have the same goal. To protect you. In those moments, your brain automatically goes into high gear, whether it's verbally or physically. It's the instinct of survival and no matter how much you might want to; you just can't fight it. If you stumble and are about to do a face plant on the pavement, your arms will stretch out to save you. If you're getting a real bad scolding, you either show submission to soothe it or you talk back, depending on who's scolding you. And if you're free falling, your brain searches for something – anything – to cling onto.
I bet you've only found yourself in that situation when you fell down from a tree, crashed with your bike or something as simple as that. And I know that you're probably laughing at those accidents, at your clumsiness now.
I don't.
Hiding scars is hard, especially when it's hot outside and you're wearing long-sleeved shirts, your mom would ask what's up with that and you'd say you're cold, which is clearly unbelievable, but she'll just nod it off and the adrenaline rush will still be beating up and down your veins but not that hard anymore, you knew that there was a small chance to get found out.
After a few years of hiding scars you think that no one can find out now, so you lower your guard abd shrug the long-sleeved shirts off, thinking they aren't needed anymore because no one has ever found out.
Wrong.
They will find out if you're not cautious and that was my fall. My brother found out and told my mom one day this year when I came back to school and I had done sixteen new cuts on to my left arm. My mom freaked out, but I told her this was my first time doing it, that I had unconsciously done it. I promised that it would never happen again. Wrong. Again.
On May 12, someone took my cat, she hasn't come back since then, I would get into something more detailed but this is another chapter in the book of my life. That day, well, on Monday 14, around 3am I cut again. Deeper this time. And had an anxiety break, wrote all over my walls, confesed my deepest secrets on them. Things my family had never known, and when they read them, I felt the adrenaline when you're about to fall, and you try to hold on to something, I didn't want them to read but at the same time, I wanted them to read, I wanted them to know how my cat had saved my life when no one else hadn't. I wanted to know why she was so important to me, why I wanted to kill and tear appart the man whose dog attacked my cat just a week before she disappeared.
The thing is, I didn't get find out. I haven't gotten found out since, and I try to keep it that way.
Sincerely,
the child who survived.
