Chapter Twelve

Tess

January’s leaving the way it arrived – grey, fierce and short-tempered.

I’m in the kitchen, looking through the window over the sink. The bushes opposite keep lurching, like they’re threatening to get me. If they weren’t home to half the wildlife of Weymouth, I’d have taken a pair of shears to them. No, that’s harsh. They’re providing shelter and a splash of colour on a rotten and stormy day. I just don’t like the shadows they’re casting.

From the corner of my eye I can see a glass container sitting on the terracotta-tiled sill. It’s Mum’s Happiness jar, and it has two measly slips of paper languishing at the bottom. To the inexperienced, they could be dead, decaying moths. It’s sad. I pray it’s not a reflection of her life. She deserves so much more. She deserves a greenhouse filled with happiness, Crystal Palace even, not an old, empty jam jar.

I’m tempted to add my own positive notes. I imagine writing them out.

One: I fought and beat the last urge to cut.

Two: I’ve left a message on a self-harm forum.

Three: I received a reply.

They’re all true and worthy of going in the jar.

About a year ago, maybe eighteen months, certainly a while after I first cut, I found this self-harm website. I’ve dropped in from time to time, and lurked in the background, but only recently plucked up the courage to post a message. I gave an account of when I started cutting.

Hi. I’m fifteen and I’ve been self-harming for two years.

It was a lame opening, but I went on to explain that, when I was thirteen, there was this boy in the year above at school who kept asking me to go out with him. I knocked him back every time, but he kept hounding me, said he had a soft spot for redheads, and in February, he sent me a Valentine’s card. I’d not had one before.

Mum was seeing Griff by this point – I didn’t mention any names on the forum – and despite my misgivings, he made her happy. They’d just had Dylan. I was forced to accept that some men, and therefore some boys, were okay.

I agreed to go out with the fourteen-year-old.

We’d meet in town and mess about in the video game shop, or hunt for two-pence pieces in the machines at the arcades. He’d buy me a sausage roll, or a burger, or a bar of chocolate. Sometimes we were alone and sometimes we’d hang about with his mates.

He kissed me. A lot. Especially in front of his gang. I was indifferent. I didn’t dislike kissing, but it didn’t set my world alight. It was an experience.

Then one day, he pushed it too far. I didn’t like where he put his hand, and when he refused to take it away, I brought my knee up and belted him in the balls. Then I ran.

I got a shit-load of grief from his mates at school, calling me a prick teaser, the camp vamp, redhead-head-deader. Even the girls joined in.

That’s when I started self-harming. I had so much crap clogging my brain, and so much pressure, I needed a way to get it out. I was so angry. I ran home, locked myself in the bathroom and started pulling at my hair. Then, in the mirror, I saw Mum’s razor on the side of the bath. She must have changed the blade and forgotten to throw the old one away. Purely on impulse, I picked it up and … well, like I said, that’s when I started. I wish I hadn’t.

The next time my head was set to explode, I did it again. Then again. And again.

No one knows I do it.

The person on the website who replied knows, but she’s in the same boat. Besides, we have usernames, so we’re incognito. The only info I have on her is that she lives in Manchester.

She’s given me some ideas on how to distract myself when the urge to cut is strong, like drawing or origami, and told me to make sure my equipment is sterile, which I do, and always have clean bandages available. She called it harm minimisation.

She also said if I want to stop and I have someone I trust, I should tell them. I could write it all down first, get it clear in my head, and then choose a time to talk, when there’d be no interruptions.

Having the support of her best friend has given Manchester Girl the strength to confront her demons. They go to counselling together. She’s been clean for two months.

I’m pleased for her, but confronting demons is a hell of a big step.

She’s waiting for my reply.

I’m not going to add anything to Mum’s jar. My notes wouldn’t be beautiful butterflies of happiness; they’d be clues to my secret addiction. If it is an addiction.

I’ve read a few personal accounts on the website from teens. Most say they wish they’d never started because now they can’t stop and they live in this vicious circle of guilt, distress, release, guilt, distress, release. I suppose it could be to do with the adrenalin rush, but I don’t know. I’m no doctor and I’m a long way off truly understanding my behaviour. I am recognising the triggers, though, and if I can avoid them, there’s a chance I’ll stay clean like the girl in Manchester.

Mum crying is a trigger. She’s called out in her sleep a number of times since Griff left. Nothing distinct, more a yelp than a word. It’s chilling in the darkness of night. I always check on her. Sometimes I sit with her until she’s settled. She doesn’t know, and I don’t tell her.

She shouted out Dad’s name last night.

That properly freaked me out. I haven’t heard her do that since Griff’s been on the scene.

So, at two in the morning, I was drawing stars. Six sheets of them. Worst representation of the solar system I’ve ever seen, but I’ve kept the pictures, because they kept me from cutting.

I’ve hidden them in the back of my wardrobe.

Perhaps I should get those glow-in-the-dark stars and stick them to the ceiling. I could arrange them into constellations and learn them off by heart. That would give me something other than shadows to fixate on at night. Might suggest Mum has some, too.

If I’m honest, all she really needs is Griff.

And I never thought I’d say it, but I miss him, too.