Peaches and Cream Screams

Dear, Readers,

Before you read further, this is a trigger warning that this essay discusses self-mutilation, self-harm, and substance abuse. If you suffer from any of these, you’ve been warned, and if you can’t read this without being triggered, I would rather you didn’t read it.

If you or someone you know struggles with self-harm, please seek help by contacting the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

No one read my last Dear Reader letter, so I know I’m setting myself up for failure for this one. I don’t care though. That’s not the point of these letters, the amount of reads I get, though I do appreciate them. This is for my readers, if I really have any to get to know me. This isn’t any kind of cry for help or anything like that. I’m fine. Let me get that out of the way first and foremost. I’m just uncomfortable in my skin these days, feel like sharing it, and maybe someone out there might find something in this they relate to.

I wasn’t sure I was even going to write this letter until earlier this afternoon. I was watching a review for the mini-series “Sharp Objects” and realized I had a way of talking about two things about myself. This series, along with the book it’s adapted from, and the demons who crawl under my skin. That really is the best name for them, little demons, moving around like little spiders looking for a way out, a way to show themselves as pieces of me.

As you might have taken the hint from my subtitle, that I’m a veteran self-harmer, meaning it’s something that’s been an on and off struggle for years, since I was about thirteen or fourteen, in the wake of a traumatic loss; a loss I still don’t think I’ve recovered from. I’m not as creative as the lead character of “Sharp Objects”, who literally carves words into her skin, to the point where she’s completely covered with different words that reflect how she feels, but we can say, there’s a “body” work. Most are superficial and can’t be seen, and those that can be seen have been hidden by tattoos. Then ones I still see in the mirror, pulse, hum, and taunt.

“Come on,” They say. “let me out. Let me see the light of day. Your body is dark, dank, and ugly. Let us all out.” I don’t know if anyone else feels the same experience as I do, where it feels like the feelings have a mind and voice of their own on many occasions, but for me they do, and I wouldn’t wish it on ANYONE.

In this Pandemic, I have been struggling. Struggling to find my place in a world that made little sense to begin with, and makes even less sense now, is almost too much to take. It feels almost like my head is spinning even if I’m doing my damnedest to push through it all and tell myself “Just survive the pandemic. Just get through the pandemic. Don’t get yourself sick. Just get through this, however long it takes.” That’s the harder part, when the thought comes over me that none of us know when it will be over, or if it will be over, or it will just go and on as the new way of life.

I feel shitty when I work at the store, I feel shitty when I don’t. My brain doesn’t stop. It doesn’t shut up, especially at night, when I beg it to. When I beg it to just let me sleep, shut up so I can sleep and start over the next day, then if I do sleep, I wake up and it starts all over again. That’s what happens, when you have constant screaming in your head, it all turns into peaches and cream screams, when my skin starts screaming to be released.

I could cry. I have cried, a lot, even today. My eyes hurts, my heart hurts, everything hurts, but I’m doing what I can to push through it. I push forward, it just feels like in this world of chaos no one is noticing, or asking the right questions when I am open to answering them.

This isn’t intended to be a downer for anyone’s day, despite what people who know personally might say my dark moods do to them, why they might not want me around. All I intend is to be honest, to let you all get to know me. This isn’t much of a happy letter from the last, which I hate; I wish it could be a little different. But there hasn’t been much of a change. I’ve applied for a job that could change my life. I won’t say what it’s for. But it would be a needed change from the place I’m working in now. I, like everyone else, need to feel safe, to feel like I can have the demons under my skin silenced. Stability, safety, feeling like I’m being heard, would do wonders. All of it comes onto me, and what I need to do for myself. I’ve done what I can on my end, now I just wait.

Yeah this was a vent piece. I hope it’s done something for you. Stay well everyone. And stay safe. Wear your mask and social distance, so we can get out of this global depression already.