As my mom enters my room to wake me up she opens up the blinds. I cringe at the sight of sunlight in the blue sky. I wake up and ponder if everything will be okay. My mom sits next to me and starts talking. Ever since that incident, she tries to talk to me about everything in hopes to rebuild my self confidence and she thinks that by her talking, I will be fixed and my crashing world will be some how be okay. Giving no response to her while she was talking, I can see her heart break because she does not know how to help me. All she wants to do is help or find a way for me to help myself. She just wants me to be my old self and feel better. I start a conversation with her so I can see that pain in her eyes go away. I cannot help but see this sort of sorrow knowing that my mom has to through my misfortune.
Although my therapist says it is only going to make things worse if I feel like this and that it is not my fault, I cannot help but feel like this. The feeling that I am a source of her unhappiness and that if it were not for me, she could be living a happy life. As my breath softens, I rise from the my bed and start to get dressed. As I am getting dressed I can see the scars on my legs and arms. I hate the sight of the scars as it remind me of everything. The scars that once proved to me that I was real, I was alive. At times it also silenced the chaos in my head, briefly pausing the repetitive flashbacks and body memories. I hate how it will never go away. I get dressed and walk myself downstairs with my mom, allowing myself to continue on with my day. After eating my mom wanders towards me and reminds me it is time to see my support group and that it cannot wait.
As I arrive at the support group, everyone greets me and asks me to take a seat while my mother waits outside. When it comes to my turn, they all ask how I am doing, I respond with a look that says everything, I am not well, I cannot stop feeling this way and I need help. I talk about how I regret the scars. I regret it more than anything else I’ve ever done in my life. It’s personally invalidating. It’s hard to be proud of yourself or feel okay about something that is censored- even if the reasons for censoring are good ones. It’s very hard not to internalize the feeling that your body is something that shouldn’t be seen, that it’s shameful, because your body makes other people feel uncomfortable, or hurt, or want to hurt themselves. Winter is coming. I look forward to it, the season of sleeves, where I don’t have to think about this stuff. I wish it were all year round. The peers in my support group listen and remind me they are there to help. Hearing those words made a big difference on how I felt. It reduced the feelings of shame and isolation. I started to head home with my mom.
As we pulled up on the driveway I saw my dad’s car and all the feelings began to flood back and I felt suffocated – confided by all the old memories. I feared seeing him. I couldn’t fight the clammy hands, the goosebumps that ran up my arm or the sweat that trickled down my back. When I walked in ,I saw my dad holding the liquor bottle that never left his side, as he scrammed at my brother. While waving his hand around, his bottle had dropped and broke not to far from me. Being the merger boy I was, I couldn’t look him in the eyes as he grabbed me by my collar and said he was ashamed of the man I am today and how he wished I was never born. Not being able to handle his screams or his poison like words, I broke from his grip and ran upstairs to the bathroom where I could lock myself in. My knees weaken and my eyes flood with tears as I fell to floor. Across from me was a razor that I was tempted to grab. Not being able to cope with all the emotional pain, I decided that it would be better to be physical. A few seconds later, my brother came banging on the door yelling at me to open it up. A moment of relief came into my mind when I realized that I was not alone; however, I felt weak in my knees and could not find the courage to speak or open the door. I can feel myself drift away, slowly into the darkness. After some time my brother slammed down the door and stood across from me staring at the blood. Both of us not knowing what to do, we sat in silence around the pool of my blood and hoped that tomorrow would be a better day.
Kite Runner – Khalid Hosseini (372 pages)
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