The First Time I Went Crazy. Pt 1

Speaking of Girl, Interrupted, the first time I went crazy was in high school. Now, before the collective groan of another stereotypical crazy emo high school story, let me just say I was always crazy and that it just became too hard to ignore then.

It happened sophomore year. I avoid difficult things at all costs; if I can’t figure it out on my own I don’t acknowledge it because I do not like to fail. I distract myself to no end just so I do not have to deal with the difficult things that I cannot fix myself or find the answers for. I remember freaking out because I had run out of things to do/distract myself. I ran out of crafts to do, movies to watch, and books to read. The last book I read was Girl, Interrupted and in it the author described her experience in the loony bin and the loonys she was with. I knew that I didn’t want to go to one, and so I told Mommy Dearest I needed help. It was more of a hysterical breakdown with me crying and pleading to her that I needed something to do/that I had ran out of things to do to distract myself – she brushed it off as me being spoiled and wanting something.

My theory of high school was that it was like a full time job, and with full time jobs comes vacation days. Each semester we had five excused days, so when we were given a school planner at the beginning of every year I would go through mine and circle my 5 days per semester, or as I liked to call them – my vacation days. I was taking one of my vacation days when a friend of mine turned my name into the counselor’s office. She was worried I wasn’t at school and knew I was having some - issues. The next day I came back, I was called up there and was met by my parents and the counselor in her office. The counselor asked if I needed help. Uh, duh. The ‘rents broke down and agreed to get me help.

At the time I was also scraping (I call it scraping, not cutting) myself. I remember I would get into these moods or something would just trigger me and I would scrape myself with any tool I could fashion. One time I was sitting in the middle of science and used the wire spiral from a notebook to scrape my arm. I used knives, cuticle cutters, a razor, and any other objects with sharp edges that could scrape. I remember the sting and how it wasn’t a bad feeling sting but a good feeling. Crazy, no?

I didn’t tell my friends at first,they had their own problems, but I told when I was found out. I was in the bathroom one day, in a stall, re-doing the ace bandage around my scraped up arm (the Neosporin combination with the cloth made it difficult for a tight wrap) when a friend barged in for some lip gloss - a very 90210 moment I remember. This girl was a blabber, so I knew I had to tell before she did or who knows what all details she would have added.