Dear Strangers

Dear Stranger,

It’s been getting worse again. Josh and I are doing well, he asked me to be his girlfriend (I said yes) about 3 weeks ago. The part that’s getting worse is me. For the past few nights, I’ve gone to bed early (about 7), cried myself to sleep, woken up several times, and cried myself back to sleep each time. Normally, it’s from being homesick and missing California more than ANYTHING. I would give anything to go back. What makes it worse is my mom wants to go back and visit Washington in the summer, and the wants me to go. I wouldn’t mind doing that as much, since my great grandma is pretty close to dying. The part about it that makes me mad is the fact that my mother won’t let me visit California while I’m there. I mean, two fucking states away, and I can’t go because of a selfish and bitchy mother.

Yesterday, I was showing my parents some dresses I had gotten, and they saw the scars on my arm. My mom almost grabbed me by the arm, and when I told her that most (well I said all) of them are months old, my parents didn’t believe me! They saw the one that should’ve had stitches and were convinced that it was fresh. Hah. That’s actually one of my oldest ones. But they went on to say that everybody struggles with depression and it’s just a part of growing up. (Cough cough BULLSHIT.) They continued to say that if I feel like I’m going to cut again, I should tell them. Now, I ask of you, what person would ever go up to their parents and say, “Mom, Dad, I’m going to cut. Later guys.” I didn’t think so. No. Like I would EVER tell them that! Even if I tried, they wouldn’t listen to me. They never do. The problem is, they don’t even realise they’re not listening to me! Life sucks.

-Me

Dear Stranger,

My scars go past my elbow now.

-Me

Dear stranger,

I haven’t really been able to write because I’m on spring break, and I’m really sorry of that. I’m not extremely sorry for you, but I am sorry for me. Writing these letters has helped me, and not writing them kind of makes it worse in a way. Lately I haven’t really felt motivated to do anything. Some days I can hardly pull myself out of bed. Not because of how warm or comfortable it is, but because I have no will to do anything. Some days I can just be sitting or laying on my bedroom floor and I can’t even will myself to move any of my limbs. It seems as though I’m just kind of floating through this life, not leaning one way or another. I don’t feel anything really, and it almost scares me. I guess the reason I’m not sure if it scares me or not is because I don’t FEEL scared. That’s just it. I don’t FEEL anything at all. If I could feel something, I think I might be scared because I can’t feel anything, but if I could feel scared, then I guess it would mean I could feel something then, wouldn’t it? The part that would be the most frightening is I have so little feeling that I can’t even feel depressed. I would think that if I’m emotionless and feeling less as I am now, I would cut, just to feel something, but I don’t even have enough motivation to do that. The only thing that I can really do is sleep. I almost fell asleep on my bedroom floor earlier. And I almost fell asleep in the car. I almost fall asleep practically everywhere. It’s not like I don’t get enough sleep, because I’m pretty sure that I sleep plenty at night. I don’t know what’s going on with me right now. It’s all so confusing.

Sometimes I’ll just be sitting somewhere and I’ll say to myself
“Oh I suppose I should scratch my nose since it itches.”
But I might not even scratch my nose because I don’t even have any motivation to raise my hand up to my face. Things that would normally seem just a simple, thoughtless action have become things that I actually have to force myself to do. It seems as if I don’t have any reason to do anything anymore. But I also have no reasons not to do anything anymore. I just kind of float through my days, forgetting everything that happens as it happens, not paying attention to anything, because nothing even really matters to me anymore. I’ve gotten to the point where everything just seems kind of like a fog. I can’t always remember if something is real and if it happened it not. Did this person say this, or did they say that? I can’t remember. It’s as if there is a cloud or a fog over everything. Every once in a while, I’ll break free from that cloud and fog, only to find myself enveloped in it once again not much longer, and even worse than before.

It seems as though I don’t even know anything. Do I need help or do I not need help? I don’t know. Everything is so unclear and cloudy. The clouds and the fog appear to cover everything and I don’t know if I like it. But I also don’t know if I don’t like it. Do you see how difficult this is for me? I never know what to do or what to say or how to act or what to wear, because quite frankly, I’m not sure if I really even care anymore.

-Me

Dear stranger,

Today’s letter may be fairly short since I don’t really have a whole lot to say… Nothing good or bad happened over the weekend. Well, I was in a musical at my mom’s church (a musical that I did NOT want to be in in the first place). I love acting and singing, and I love musicals, but I don’t love church ones. Other than that though, it was alright. I had wanted James to come to it, but he had to work. I knew that Josh wasn’t going to be able to make it either since he had to work too.

Oh I thought of one good thing! It actually happened Friday, but I haven’t had wifi all weekend, so I haven’t been able to send letters. On Friday, Les Misérables came out on DVD and I now own a copy of it! And I have watched it at least 5 times out of theatres now. What can I say? I love it and it’s an amazing story!

Well anyways, that’s all I can really think of that happened (or didn’t happen). So I guess I’ll just say adiós and be off!

-Me

Dear stranger,

Sooo…. Good news for today! I didn’t cut last night! Of course that was probably because I was too happy and excited to even think about it………… You may be wondering, “why in the hell was she so happy? She’s been having so many issues and depressing moments lately!” Well, I had better start with what happened earlier yesterday.

So, my biology teacher has this “rule” of sorts that determines whether or not a person can date. If a person’s overall class grades are all 85% or higher, they are free to date. Well, I got my report card yesterday. It shows that I have 93% in two of my classes and a 97% in the other. So according to my teacher’s rules, I can date!! Of course, I told Josh that! We kind of flirted a bit by going back and forth saying things like “hmmm we can both date? That’s interesting!” from me, and things like “well we should do something about it. Something like date!” from him. So I asked him if that was his way of asking me out, but he said that he would rather ask me out in a spontaneous and cheesy way. I actually prefer that, because it doesn’t seem as forces or anything, but more like he would actually want to ask me out. Of course, that’s freaking adorable and everything, but it gets even better!

When he called me last night like normal, we talked (like normal) and kind of teased eachother, until he started getting more serious… He went slowly and went pretty much like this:
“So I like you, and you like me. And I think you’re beautiful, and you think I’m adorable but not handsome.” (A joke between us. I don’t normally say that anybody is handsome, because it just seems too formal to me). But he went on to ask me if I would like to go out with him. *INSERT INSANE AMOUNT OF CUTENESS AND SMILING AND SPEECHLESSNESS HERE*
Of course, I said that I would love to go out with him, but I do really want him to meet my parents. The only guy that I’ve had a relationship with that has met my mom was when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and my mom liked him more than I did. I want my relationship with Josh to be a lot different than any relationship I’ve had before, and it’s already starting like that.

Now you know why I’m so extremely happy!!

-Me

Dear stranger,

It happened again. I was in a good mood all day, and I never really lost my good mood, not even once. But when I went to take my shower, I grabbed my stash of razors and sat in the shower for a good twenty minutes, drawing the red lines along the inside of my wrist. Even while I was doing that, I wasn’t in a bad mood at all. After it I was in a fine mood too. I’m still in a good mood! I don’t even know what’s wrong. I just feel like I have to do it. Like there’s some invisible force drawing my hand to pick up the blade, and pulling it back to my other wrist to carve the marks into it. Sometimes I feel like it’s not even me doing it.

There was one message I got yesterday that had some of the most amazing words that anybody had ever said to me. “Replace those blades with roses and pens and express your pain away.” That’s one of the most beautiful things that anybody has ever said to me, so thank you for that. Someday, maybe if this addiction to creating physical memories ever goes away, I may get that permanently written above my scars.

-Me