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Life goes on around me
Written by Sean on Friday, June 20, 2008
I walked to the kitchen. Picked up a paring knife. Put it against my spine. Stood there in the cold (it’s 10C in the kitchen) and just stood there. I wished I could cry. I finished popping the corn and came back to the lounge and watched TV. Like nothing had happened. Like nothing is happening.
I walked to the kitchen. I walked to the kitchen. Walked. It’s so wrong.
My wheelchair is nearby. I do not use it much inside. It feels wrong not to. It is wrong. So wrong.
I was not headed that way to do anything about self-injury. I was headed to make an impromptu snack of popcorn in the microwave. "Extra butter" if you please. Mundane task. I went to the cupboard. Retrieved a packet of popcorn. Back to the counter where the microwave lives. Put the packet in the microwave. Stopped that task.
I don’t know why. I don’t know what prompted me to do this. But I went to the cuttlery drawer. Picked up the sharpest paring knife I could find. Put the tip of the knife approximately between L1 and L2. Had an odd thought about remembering some action novel or other where the author describes the training of a commando, and saying that piercing human skin with a knife is harder than one thinks. But I’ve worked with enough animal carcasses it would not be a surprise, I don’t think.
I’m not sure how long I was there, between the cuttlery drawer and the microwave, with the tip of a knife against my spine, wishing I was paralysed, wondering if I could actualy hit the spinal cord properly if I were to stab myself. I know it was cold. Barefoot and barehand. Thinking "I wouldn’t have cold feet if I were a para".
But I did get cold feet, standing there. Literaly and figuratively. I did not do it. I returned the innocent knife to its rightful place, unblooded. I hit the timer on the microwave. The corn went "pop-pop-pop". I put it in a bowl. I went back to the living room.
I sat and watched tv. Something or other. It doesn’t matter. Escapism.
The show ended. BIID did not. It’s there, strong as ever.
The tears ended. They ended a long time ago. I wish I could cry. Perhaps it would be self-pity, I am not sure. But I don’t even have that release, that ability to go. Dried up years ago. Louise was told "the more you cry, the less you piss". I wonder if the opposite is true, because I need to pee like a racehorse.
Pointless ramble, life goes on around me. It’s so mundane. It seems so inconsequetial. Does it matter what we have for dinner? Does it matter that the price of gas keeps going up? What does it all matter, when you can’t fix what’s broken inside? I am not paralysed. I am walking. I am hurting. I am depressed. I am… I dunno…
Brave face, just put a brave face on and keep trudging. Most people will never know the black hole that inhabits my inner core.
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Tags: BIID, Depression, Paralysed, Walking, Wheelchair
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2 Comments
I understand these types of feelings, as I deal with similar ones myself, although I admit mine are not so intense as yours. For reasons I can’t completely understand, I’ve always been drawn to disability….most intensely to paraplegia, and find myself imagining what it would be like to have that condition myself. Why does it seem so appealing? I feel guilty for not fully appreciating the healthy legs that I have, when so many would give almost anything to have them. I feel that it gets worse the more that I feed these thoughts, so I have been trying to appreciate the fact that I am able bodied, and embrace it by regularly using my legs to work out, dance, run, etc. God has given me strong, healthy legs, at least for this moment, and I need to be thankful for that! I imagine I would miss having the abilities that I have were I to lose them. I imagine that I would be kicking myself for not using them to the fullest. My body image does begin to shift when I feel myself growing stronger through activity, etc. It is so draining to be constantly longing for something out of reach.
These are just some thoughts that have been going through my head. It has been only recently that I have realized that there are others out there with the same strange draw to being disabled. It has always been something I’ve kept hidden, feeling that I must be the only one.
Thank you for providing an outlet to talk about this.
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1 On 20 June, 2008, Chloe said:
I cry for you Sean. I cry every day. I like crying. It’s not a bad thing. It keeps me sane. I’m just an emotional chick. My tears aren’t going to help you though.
My most beautiful fantasy is that I would find someone with paraplegia who is really hating it, and magically transfer her paraplegia to myself. I would love that. But I can’t help her like that either.
All I can say, Sean, is that I understand; in so much as anyone can understand another.