I stole this idea from this entry by Heather. I have more scars than I could ever count.... even if you only count physical scars. These are the ones that I know exist, without looking. My left thumb... the first day of summer vacation after sixth grade, I must have been 11. I was into wilderness survival stuff that year... I'd read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen for school in fifth grade, and after that I went to the library and discovered that yes, it really is possible to live off wild plants. For the next two years I read everything about wilderness survival I could find. I never did figure out how to make a fire without matches, but I learned the names of every single plant on my family's property, plus a lot that were on my babysitter's yard. ...and I learned whether or not they can be eaten, and if they can, how. (There are a lot of plants on my property... besides the normal lawn plants, we have a creek and a woods. And I realize that paragraph is probably the worst thing I've ever written grammatically... I have a cold, and nothing sounds right.) Anyway, I'd actually found a book called "Surviving in the Wilderness" or something similar that went beyond what to eat and into how to build shelters and things... and of course everything I read said that if you're going in the wilderness, you need to bring a knife. And school had just ended, and my mom had asked me what I wanted for my traditional, "Good Report Card Present" (my mom made up excuses to buy me things the whole time I was growing up... when she couldn't think of any excuses, she generally bought things anyway. I still don't think she's figured out she can't buy me.) ...anyway, I told her I wanted a Swiss Army Knife. So we went to the brand-new wal-mart and I picked out a very cool $20 swiss army knife. It was real, with the symbol and everything, and it cut a lot better than the fake one I'd bought at a garage sale for $3. Anyway, after school that day I went outside and tried to make a bow and arrow. I had no idea what I was doing, except that I had a general idea what they should look like and the book said to whittle the one part down some until it was flexible. (Well, I think that's what it said. It's been a long time.) My dad was outside mowing the lawn, and he kept walking by, making sure I was safe with my knife. I just didn't realize how slippery lilac branches get when they don't have bark anymore, and the knife slipped. The funny thing? I was bleeding like crazy, and my first thought was to go get the spiders web I'd seen earlier, because my book said spiders webs stop bleeding. I actually went over there, but my dad must have knocked it down with the mower. So I walked up the driveway, showed my dad, he tortured me by running it under water long enough to realize that there was an enormous chunk of skin just hanging there by a flap, and then they took me to the ER. I got 11 stitches, and I can still see the little spots where the stitches were. My left wrist, my left ankle, and my right thigh... my left wrist has a white jagged line going across it. My left ankle has a kind of round hole, and my right thigh just has a little red mark. There used to be a lot more that have faded so much I can't see them anymore. My left wrist used to have one too, and so did both my arms right in the fold of my elbow, because there's already a crease there and I thought it wouldn't show. I'm right handed, so the left side of my body got it the worst. I haven't cut myself (intentionally) since I left school three years ago, and I haven't seriously cut myself since May of eighth grade, about six months earlier than that. I usually used scissors or safety pins... razors were too fast and scary, although that's what made the scar on my ankle. I still don't really know why I did it, other than it was visible. I tried on a lot of symptoms while I was depressed. I read books about psychology... college textbooks my mom had in her closet, reference books from the library, case studies, novels about "crazy" people... and all those people had symptoms that made them feel just a little bit better, so I tried all of them. I starved myself, and exercised for hours. It did feel good to be thinner... but that really wasn't worth my mom's screaming. That was the thing I did that bothered her the most. She's always tried to fix things with food. I even read about people who felt better after they made themselves throw up... I tried to do that, I never did actually throw up. In almost every book I read, they mentioned "sleep disturbances" ...I think those were real, I don't think those came after I read it, but I don't really know. I know I didn't have to stay up 24 hours like I did... I know I did that mostly because that was the night after my parents said I had to leave my door open all night. I said I couldn't sleep if I thought someone could look at me... I'm not sure if that was true or if I knew it bothered them so I tried it. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again... I don't remember much. And what I do remember is very foggy, like the memories are inside a cloud and I have to squint to see them. I don't remember reading about someone who was helped by music... but I was. I distinctly remember reading about someone who thought writing things down helped... that was at the very beginning, and it was the start of my first journal, it was on paper and it lasted for over a year, until I was hospitalized. And I remember reading that talking helped... I tried that some. Mostly to "j.a." who was about as messed up as me, and to a certain teacher who made things worse by not telling. She assumed right from the start that I didn't want her to tell my parents... she never once asked me. And maybe that seemed like a rational assumption to her, but I always wanted my parents to know. I was 11 at the very beginning, I was 13 when I was talking to that teacher... I still believed my parents could fix everything, if they could just see it. Sheryl Crow's song, "Strong Enough" came out that year, and she sang, "I'll be the last to help you understand." and I loved her. Nobody could understand that I needed them to understand and at the same time I just couldn't help them understand. I read about cutting on an AOL message board. And I never told anyone that before. It was the only thing I really lied about the whole time through... I told them I just tried it myself, and then found the message board. Really, I read about it on the message board, and got excited, and I locked myself in my room for the rest of the night (not unusual) with a couple of safety pins and a pair of toenail scissors. Cutting was the only thing I "tried on" (as opposed to something I discovered myself, like music) that really did make me feel better. And I could not understand when people told me I had to stop... and I tried not to notice that I cut myself, wore short sleeved shirts, and then walked around in front of my parents... and they never noticed. I think admitting that they didn't see something so obvious as their daughter (who never left her room, ever) wearing t-shirts in April (when there was still snow on the ground) hanging out in the kitchen. They never saw it. I think admitting to myself that they never saw it, and that they should have... I think that would have been too much. I was beyond angry at my parents for not stopping it sooner, I told myself they hated me and that I hated them... but I never really believed it. It was part of my defenses, to keep from being quite as hurt when my mom screamed and my dad worked. I never did have very good defenses. I guess the last set of scars are kind of boring, compared to those. I had the chicken pox at the end of sixth grade, when I was 11 years old. I have two very deep chicken pox scars on my face. Sixth grade really started it all. I got my period that year, and I was mortified. I hated it with a passion. I read Dear God, It's Me Margaret where these teenage girls were hoping for their period... and I was appalled. How could anyone want that? Puberty in itself embarassed me. My breasts grew sooner and faster than anyone elses (not to mention bigger) and they got in my way. They didn't even really embarass me... they made it harder to grab a book and climb to the top of a tree, and they made it harder to go to Hills and grab a pile of clothes I knew would fit. I hated clothes. Sixth grade, I wore nothing but overalls. That isn't an exaggeration. I wore a plain t-shirt, Hills overalls, and in the winter, a sweatshirt over the whole thing. I had two main sweatshirts that were on heavy rotation that whole year... I still have both of them. I think I wore each of them at least once a week. This was the year that everyone else in my grade became fashion-conscious (if they hadn't been already) and started wearing things out of "Seventeen" and hanging up pictures of the boys in "16". I reread Laura Ingalls Wilder books and built elaborate lego towns. I read books about edible plants, and at the end of that year, I even asked for a Swiss Army Knife. I had always been different, I don't have any memories of actually fitting in. Before sixth grade, I didn't care. I didn't care in sixth grade, either, until I got the chicken pox. I was very sick for two weeks... I did nothing but sleep, and occasionally eat rainbow sherbet. My mom bought me a big lego set, and set it on the coffee table so I'd see it when I woke up... and it sat there for three days. That's how my mom knew I was really sick. When I got better, I'd lost weight. I don't know how much, I'd never weighed myself before that. My doctor probably had some idea, but if he did he didn't tell me. In any event, I started leaving the house again, and people kept telling me that I'd lost weight, and more importantly, that I looked really good. They told me it enough times, I started to wonder. So I went home, and I looked at myself in the mirror. It was the first time I'd ever really looked at myself critically. And I looked fat. And looking at myself, I wondered, "if I look like this now, what did I look like before I got sick?" And that was the first time I cared. I had barbies growing up, it never occured to me I should look like them. I knew I weighed more than most kids, because the school nurse weighed everyone each year and she said the numbers out loud and my number was always one of the highest. I even knew my clothes were bigger than the other kids, because I knew I could never try on any of my friend's clothes. But I never cared, my clothes were fine. I had no physical self-image before that. I think it was the summer before sixth grade, my mom took my cousin and I to the county fair. My cousin and I were best friends at that time. And we went on a carnival ride that spins you around like crazy, and when we went to get in the seat there was a sign that said, "heaviest person sit here." or something to that effect. We looked at each other and decided we weighed about the same, so I'd sit there. She was a year older than me, and I can tell when I look at the pictures, she was a lot bigger. I don't know if she knew and didn't say anything or not. I got smushed on that ride, and when I told my mom she said, "oh, you're a lot smaller than Michelle." and I looked at her and said, "I am?" ...I didn't believe her. I'd never noticed. I always liked myself the way I was before I got the chicken pox. I don't know why, and I don't know how I managed that. In second or third grade our bus was really crowded in the afternoons, and I had an assigned seat with this little girl two grades below me. There were three of us in a seat, and it was beyond crowded. I always sat on the inside, and she always sat on the outside, and yelled at me to move over, and that if I weren't so fat she'd be able to fit in the seat. I was so shy when I was little, I never would have dreamed of speaking to someone older than me, let alone making fun of them. I was so easily intimidated. My dad worked nights then, and he was always home sleeping when I got off the bus. My job was to let myself in, and go upstairs to wake him up. And I distinctly remember one day going into his bedroom, climbing on the bed, and, half-crying, asking him, "am I fat?" I don't remember what he said. I don't remember his reaction at all. But whatever it was, it must have made me feel better. I don't remember ever worrying about it again, until sixth grade. I don't remember being particularly happy when I was little. My least favorite memory is of one of my birthdays, I have no idea which one except I was probably less than ten. And my birthday was on a weekend, so I got up, opened presents... and then, I sat around playing by myself for hours while my parents chopped vegetables for my party. I kept asking one of them to play with me, and they kept saying they had to get ready for the party. I think they always meant well, and I think they always did the best they could. But I never wanted a big party. I played with legos for years, they were my therapy. I made an inordinate number of hospitals and orphanages when I first started playing with legos. Later, I made overcrowded houses with lots of kids. And I made hundreds of covered wagons, where families of six were crowded into a tiny space. I always asked my mom to play legos with me... I only remember her actually doing it once. She always told me she was bad at it. To this day, she still doesn't understand that I was trying to tell her something. She never will understand that, I think. My dad used to come in sometimes, and sit with me. He sorted my legos, putting all the blue ones in this box and all the red ones in that. He said he didn't know how I could find anything the way I had them. I had them in an enormous pile all over the floor, most of the time. My mom used the toy room as a dressing room, it's where she kept her clothes and where she got dressed every morning. Once every other week or so she'd tell me her path had gotten too small and she'd help me pick them all up and put them back in the boxes. Within two days, I'd be inspired to make something and they'd be all over again, while I was pushing through them, searching for a certain piece I couldn't find. A lot of times, I think I more or less raised myself. I was never punished, not once, the entire time I was growing up. I was screamed at a lot. My mom screams whenever she gets mad, most of the times I remember her getting mad it was usually about school... I didn't want to go, and she said I had to. She screamed most mornings. My dad never really did anything. I only remember seeing really him mad twice... once, some well-meaning pharmacist decided I was too young for the pills the doctor had prescribed for me, and gave me chewables, never mind that I'd had the pills at least five times before. I tried to the chewables, they made me gag. I was sure if I even attempted to swallow the gagging would get the best of me, and I'd actually throw up. My dad was really mad that I wouldn't take them. I'm not at all sure why. The other time he was really mad was the second time I was admitted to the hospital. I'd only been out for a day and a half (or maybe it was two and a half days. I only have one memory of that interim and the memory only covers five minutes or so.) The minute he heard they were admitting me again he mumbled something about me not needing him and left. When the nurse came back to get me she gave me the funniest, "oh, so that explains it!" look when I told her my dad had already left. I felt more than a little justified. umm... I'm not quite sure how I got to this point. But I have a cold (which makes me lose my appetite) and it's almost 9pm and all I've eaten today is a couple pancakes around noon... my stomach is starting to grumble loud enough I'm surprised my neighbors haven't come in to ask what I'm doing in here. So I'm thinking I should probably go eat something. And then I should probably go study for the chemistry quiz that (obviously) got cancelled when classes were cancelled Friday. I accomplished absolutely nothing (academic) during my 4-day weekend. I sat around doing nothing, except for Friday night when I went out with a girl I met on the internet (and I was extremely proud of myself, by the way. See, Sarah, you are capable of having fun when you're not alone.) index