The last year

[Alexsis Hart]

So I haven’t been on here for a while, no one probably noticed, but here’s a bit of an explanation for those of you who do care. Just over a year ago I accepted a teaching job on the other side of Canada. It’s in the north and in an isolated community. I am a 4-5 hr drive to a grocery store that is bigger than my classroom and I don’t have to spend a fortune on milk. Two hours of that drive is on gravel roads. Two weeks into teaching a student brought me a cat at school because her mother told her to go kill and she didn’t want to drown it. Long story short, I ended up keeping the little guy.

I’ve never been unhappy with my daydreaming. It’s never really interfered with my life and it always seemed to make me happy. It was the life I wish I had but never can so I always looked at it as it’s better than nothing. I’ve never thought of myself as depressed or anxious. I wasn’t anxious, just shy. I couldn’t be depressed, I never cried. Instead of crying I had something else. I cut. I don’t cut to bleed. I always use a dull blade or instrument. It usually takes 5-10 minutes to complete a cut and there is rarely blood. I just scratch the surface. Three cuts in whatever emotion had me worked up (sadness, anger, what turns out to be anxiety) is usually gone. This is something I’ve been doing for close to 10 years. No one has ever questioned me about it and I’ve never told anyone.

Up here there is not much to do. I’ve always found it hard to make friends and have always been too shy to really try. However, last September I really bonded with another teacher. He teaches the same grade as I do so it started out with him coming to me to see how far I was in Math or what I was doing for Art. Then it turned into hanging out and exploring around outside of town through the woods or along the lake. That turned into watching movies, tv, and hockey, which turned into a more physical relationship this past May.

When I hang out with him I daydream less. Which, unfortunately, has given me more depression and anxiety. I have developed more OCD tendencies (ie: eating only a prime number of things, which he says he loves). However with him I can be myself. He doesn’t know about the daydreams, but he knows about my ideal life and that I’m not happy with, but have accepted, my current one. He also knows about my cutting. One night in June he commented on the cuts on my arm. At this point I had had cat scratch fever twice and he said something along the lines of needing to put the claw condoms back on the cat (aka softpaws which are plastic covering so he can’t scratch me or furniture). I said they weren’t from the cat, so he asked what they were from. I don’t talk about things. I never have and I never will. We literally sat for two hours without saying anything. He just kept giving me this look. It was a pity look, but there was care and worry in his eyes. Eventually I told him everything. After that night we never talked about it again. We didn’t watch anymore movies, we didn’t go on adventures, our favourite hockey team was out of the playoffs.

I went to Brazil then back for the weekend with him. Everything was back to normal. He was acting like the best friend he was before. Then, we came back up north. We went on adventures twice, but he invited other people with us. He doesn’t stick his head in my class and distract me after school when I’m trying to get work done. We haven’t really hung out at all, until about a week and a half ago. I was in the middle of cut number three when I though “why the hell am I doing this?”. I gathered up all my knives put them in a bag and texted him. He came over and I told him to take the bag. This turned into a two hour discussion on why I do it and what can I do instead. He was proud that I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore but I needed something else to replace it with.

At the end of August I adopted a dog. My sister decided to take the kitten I had last year since he wasn’t really supposed to happen. This big doofus is my out. I want to cut, I take him for a walk. Works great, except when it’s 10 at night. Up here we have wolves that can look inside a truck cab while standing on all fours. You don’t walk at night unless you have to. We’ve already seen two coyotes during our walks during the day and there has been four wolf spottings in town since September 1^st, so it’s not really great to risk walking alone at night.

My co-worker has said if I want to walk at night to text him and he’ll come with. This is perfect except I’ve already ruined our relationship by telling him all this stuff, I don’t want to make it worse by bugging him all the time. Since I’ve given him the knives I’ve cut twice with scissors and asked him to walk once.

I think I’m getting better, but I want it to go back to the way it was before I told him all this. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had and I want that back.