The world is not always a nice place
Bad things can happen to good people
And they do .........
without fail, and
regularly
I am a cutter. When the pain gets too much for me to handle I purposfully inflict wounds on my skin. Usually I cut with a razor blade or whatever else is sharp and close but sometimes I burn myself. I have been known to cut with the spiral binding of my journal when I have been in hospital without any 'sharps'. This is a survival tactic of mine. It relieves the pressure that is building up inside me and you have to admit that inflicting superficial injuries on myself is a whole lot better than attempting suicide.
There is a part of me that is often on self destruct mode. It is the voice I hear when I am not doing well that says 'You should die, You do not deserve to live.' Sometimes this voice goes way out of control. This is when I end up in hospital, waiting for things to calm down so that I can get on with my life. I wish there were somewhere else safe that I could go to instead of a psych ward. The last thing I need when I am like this is to be manhandled by a system that is used to dealing with 'crazies'. I just need a place where I am safe, where there is someone else to look after me and where I can get some sleap.
I am not crazy. Would you believe that I am reacting normally, to an unnormal situation. When I have been hospitalised in the psych ward I have asked other patients, after I have got to know them a little, if they were sexually abused as a child. Almost always the answer has been yes. It isn't always a father, but statistics say that 90% of childhood sexual assualt is perpetrated by someone known by the child. Forget about 'Stranger Danger'.
Childhood sexual assualt is more common than you think: Statistics say that one in four girls have recieved unwanted sexual attention by the age of 18. For boys the figure is one in eight or nine. Try to make this real to yourself. The next time you are shopping look around you. Look at the face of every fourth woman and every ninth man you see, imagine the devastation that could have been caused to these people's lives.