Browsing Tag

cutting

Guest Posts, Grief, self-loathing

From Cutter to Mother

August 16, 2019
writing

By Marni Berger

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy!
From “Letter to a Friend” by Fra Giovanni, 1513

When I was eighteen, my grief over the death of my grandmother, who was like a second mother to me, manifested in cutting. I began cutting my arms and legs and thinking of dying. I didn’t want to die, really, so I didn’t go too far, but I’d sit alone in my room and carve away with one of the dull steak knives we had in the drawer, or the Swiss Army Knife my oldest brother brought me from his first study abroad trip, whose adventures I remember made him so happy to retell. I’d watch the blood come out like beads, so small, but so clear that something was hurting me.

I had made friends, in high school and the summer after starting college, with other intense souls who did similar things to themselves, and we fell in love with each other in a friendship sort of way. There are two sweet friends who come to mind now, pale-faced, full of light. With one, I spent a summer drinking smoothies and iced coffee and imagining how the English language sounded to someone who didn’t speak it while cracking up on too much caffeine and dreaming of kissing boys; the other taught me to juggle with a few hacky sacks I kept in my room, and I dreamed of kissing him. No one understands me, we said to each other often. But you. They both died in the span of five years, one drowned, an accident. But I raged when my second friend died, when I found out she had hanged herself. I was living in New York City, not far from where her body had gone unnoticed for days, and bloodied myself worse than before, so now I have scars.

No one understands me, but you. Continue Reading…

Family, Guest Posts, motherhood

It Gets Cold in Florida.

January 24, 2015

beauty-hunting-jen-logo-black

By Victoria Fedden.

It gets cold in Florida. Most people don’t realize that, but around Thanksgiving the temperature predictably dips down into the 40s, at least at night, and shocks all the tourists. I should’ve known better. I’ve lived here for the past fifteen years, but this morning I’m not prepared for anything, least of all shivering in a prison yard, sockless, without a jacket.

I forgot everything: the zip-loc bag, the right amount of cash for the vending machines, quarters for a soda because when they have visitors is the only time they can get a cold can of diet coke and that’s a big treat. I remembered not to wear green. They’d already sent two people home for wearing the wrong color. One man stormed off on his Harley, livid. The other woman cried and said it was Thanksgiving weekend and she was wearing lime green, nothing like the inmates’ olive uniforms, but the guards told her she should know the rules by now and she had to leave. A three hour drive up and back all for nothing. I’d driven four hours, with a four year old, which made it seem like eight. Would they send us home too?

I’m so scared I’m sick, but when you have a child who looks to your cues, you have to hide your fears so she feels safe. I fail at this too often. I break down sometimes daily, in sobs on the bathroom floor. There are days when it feels like I may literally die from anxiety, grief, regret over what this has done to my marriage and how I am damaging my child the way I was damaged. I always said I would be the one to break the cycle, but here I am, right here on the hamster wheel and I am taking my child to visit her grandmother in jail, mad because this is not the life I imagined for my daughter or myself. Just last week at preschool drop-off I watched my daughter bound into her classroom and then brazenly announce to her classmates: “My mommy cried ALL day yesterday!”

Jen Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Join her in Tuscany for her annual Manifestation Retreat. Click the Tuscan hills above. No yoga experience required. Only requirement: Just be a human being.

Jen Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Join her in Tuscany for her annual Manifestation Retreat. Click the Tuscan hills above. No yoga experience required. Only requirement: Just be a human being.

Continue Reading…

courage, Guest Posts, healing

Still Breathing.

November 20, 2014

By Tara Allen.

I think I started cutting when I couldn’t write anymore. I stopped writing and harbored the demons within, trying in vain to keep them locked up. They crawl around inside me, lurking in the shadows, waiting to show themselves. I thought drinking would numb it, keep them at bay. But the demons had to escape somehow, and since I no longer let them flow out through words, I watched as they flowed out in my blood.** *Just gave away my guitar. Only I don’t think of it as mine, I think of it as his. How he played, how he loved to play. How he created songs for me. I’m sitting here, with a glass of wine nearby, tears streaming down my face. I am a mess. Does this get better? I want to bleed, I want to rage, and I want to do anything but feel this. Am I so fucked up that I am unlovable? Pretty enough to get the guy but not good enough to do what it takes to keep him? Pretty fades. It’s fading fast. I am toxic.

I choose to write my way out of this. To put it out there, how this shreds me. How I’d rather be physically in pain than emotionally.

I bring out the worst in men. I destroy people, I break them. They walk away so easily.
Time to put it on the page and leave it.

** *

“What are you here for?”
“I’m cut and I can’t stop the bleeding.”

Continue Reading…