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The rest of my school career I could be characterized as having no friends. Whenever anyone would talk to me regularly there were always whispers and questions about why. I had a “friend” from my ER Language Arts class who I would sometimes talk to in line for lunch; never would I dare to sit with him. One day another student came over and asked why we talked to each other, were we going out? That was the last day he actively talked to me outside of class discussion. Similar instances occurred but after a while I would build up a wall in which no one could enter. Classes I could endure until pick-your-own-group projects came along; it was then I was forced to here over and over “Heather, do you not have a group?”, or some variance of the sort. By High School it was almost a joke with my mother. I was Heather, nothing was wrong with me, but I had a breakdown whenever anyone took my table at lunch. As much as I hate to admit it, that tease had some grounds to it. I always sat alone at the same table. Slowly eating my lunch until everything was gone and then pulling out a book to pass the rest of the time. But one day a group of people sat where I took up position, forcing me to look around for a new perch. I finished my lunch trying hard not to cry. That was the only day though for after that I wouldn't let a table bother me, I just moved on the next one. Yet everyday at lunch time, I would race to try to get there first so that I could sit down not bothered, anxiety coursing over me the entirety of the lunch experience, praying nothing would disrupt my routine. Of course only rarely did anything happen because, I was never bothered and never picked on. When those questionnaires about bullying came around and others would check yes, yes, yes; I had nothing and I saw nothing. In school I was invisible, too low to even bother.
This low status never stopped my need to fit in though. Back still in Middle School, when I was still with that group of “friends” this was made obvious to me. One girl, the later snubber, had gone out and given herself a “tattoo” having bought some Indian dye. I still do not know the process but I thought it sounded “cool” and so was determined to do the same. The difference though was that I tried on the back of my hand while she did hers on the hip. I took a needle and scratched a design out on the back of my hand. Afterward I realized the stupidity of the action because it would be obvious to every one what I had done but I still thought it was cool. Until I went to school. That day we had PE, and as we sat there waiting, a was talking to someone and the teacher saw my hand. She immediately told me that I should be ashamed of myself and that I needed help because self-injury is wrong. The teacher informed my head teacher who then had to call my mother. This is where it gets interesting though. Before this day I had never heard of cutting or self-harm, it had never entered my mind. But when I got home and was told by my mother not to worry about what that mean teacher had said because she had gotten the story from my head teacher, I was confused. They spoke about the fact that I was an intelligent young girl that had everything going for her and that my mother had no need to worry because it was surely a one time deal. And it was it turned out; on my hand at least.
I never cut my hand again but I became fascinated with the rush of emotions and feelings that came with the tearing of flesh. At first I was methodical; I had one design that I would trace over and over on my thigh with a needle. After the blood began to pour I would light a candle, place the needle within the flame and hold it to the scratches. A blackness would come off the needle and be placed in the wound. As it healed, the black mixed with the scar tissue and to this day I can still see it on my thigh. Eventually I would not be able to find a needle and so would progress to a razor. The slice of my skin, the sight of the blood filled me with emotions, made me realize that indeed I was alive. Too often I would walk through the halls of my school with a feeling of being detached from my body. I felt as though I was wearing a mask for all to see and that none of my emotions were real; that they were all a facade put in place in order to appear as though everything was all okay. This feeling of being disassociated from my thoughts, feeling, and body only intensified after the death of my brother.
Daniel died on February 11, 2004 from natural causes. No reason was associated with his death, his heart just stopped. My parents came back from the hospital after they got the call to come down and we knew as soon as they walked in the door. My mother was bawling. I didn't even stay to hear the words, I went upstairs and lay across my parents' bed, numb. I didn't know what to do. I went to bed that night and the next morning got up and went to school. I was in High School by this time and went through the motions of the day. Nothing was the matter. When I got to Spanish class it was time for a quiz that I had forgotten about and as such had not studied for. I asked to speak with my teacher in the hall and told her what had happened. I used my brother's death as an excuse for not studying. I still feel wrong for having done so. I don't know what she was thinking at that moment but she sent me to the guidance office to speak with a counselor. I did so for the rest of the day – Spanish was last period – and went home to face my family.
Nothing was right. I felt trapped in a place that didn't make sense to me. Here was my mother crying all that time and trying to comfort us, but it was awkward for me. I felt weird. Why wasn't I crying and wailing? Why was it that I was able to go to school and get through my day and yet no one else in the house was? When my Jeremy and his family came up things got little better. The wake was held which I was required to attend but nothing got through to me. I looked around and it was so pretty in the rooms with a lot of his things held out and put on display. Things that made my brother who he was. I looked at all of those things but could not look at Daniel laying there in his casket.
My niece and nephew were still little and had to go home well before the viewing was over. Their mother took them home and I alone went with them. But we weren't allowed to just leave, to slip out quietly. No, Jeremy wanted to use this as a time to teach his children about death and so he told them to go up and look in the casket and look at their uncle and kiss him goodbye. I was looked at expectantly to do the same. I went up to the casket, glanced at him briefly and quickly turned away. He was not there. That was not him laying in that casket; it was a wax doll of little resemblance to the person that I knew. I do not remember the church funeral service except that my mother made sure the pastor did a nondenominational one because Daniel was a Kabbalist. I was forced to get up in front of everyone and read a poem that I had written a month before. I hated it. Because the ground was frozen we had to wait until June for the formal funeral. That was awful too even with the time to compartmentalize and come to terms with his death. The site-side funeral was the only time I have ever seen my father cry.
After the funeral nothing was the same. My mother had pictures of Daniel placed everywhere around the house and his room was a virtual shrine. Put on blast at least once a day was the Elton John song Daniel. As bad as it may sound, the worst part of Daniel's death was the change it brought in my mother. She seemed to wake up to the fact that she had been emotionally distant from us for most of our lives. As such, she began to talk about feelings and how we felt. Every problem we had became the product of the fact that our brother had died, and she didn't leave for any length of time without telling us how much she loved us, often with a hug. This sounds like normal human behavior, but you must realize that I do not remember being hugged before this and can count on my hands the number of times I remember her telling me of her love. My father became the person that I could understand. His feelings were constant; he may feel them but he kept them to himself. I know my dad loves me, he doesn't need to tell me. This lack of communication in my youth has now presented me with a problem: I can not tell people that I love them. In fact, I often question whether or not I do indeed feel love. As my emotions became more confused my cutting escalated and was supplemented by a new and better way to feel. Demerol.
My mother has always been in severe pain. She would regularly tear hernias in her abdomen and because of a lack of money would often go months, if not a full year, before she attended to them. Because of this, my mother was constantly on pain medicine of which she rarely took because she hates the drowsiness. During this time I was getting massive migraines everyday that made it hard to function. During one particularly horrible migraine in which I was in my room crying in pain, my mother cut off a piece of one of her Demerol and gave it to me. From then on I would sneak into her room and take a couple every so often. At no time was I ever addicted to them, mentally or physically, but I liked the effects they gave me. I loved the feelings they gave me of floating and flying while I was laying on my bed. I was euphoric quite often when I took them which, when combined with cutting made the world look so much the better. Eventually my mother's doctor moved away and she obtained a new one which would not prescribe Demerol, instead she gave her morphine instant release. I took that for a while but it would make me sick and had no where near the same effect on me that the Demerol had. Without the effect I was looking for, I thought, why bother.