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_______.::g is for guilt::._

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‘Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment; only there does

its satisfaction lie.’

Lawrence Durrell

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I, quite rightly, felt sorry for all the people who had to treat me, who were forced to

speak to me because that was their job. I knew that I shouldn’t impose myself on them, but I

was just too dependent, I get attached to people to easily, despite trying so hard not to. I

would try so hard to avoid them, give them a break from me but I was just too selfish and

before long I’d return, screaming at myself for being so selfish and greedy.

Not only would I be a burden on them, I would disregard a lot of the things some of

them said to me. And I behaved terribly, I was really grateful for all the work that they did

with me but I acted like a spoilt child. I did appreciate it really, I couldn’t have coped without

some of them even though I was stubborn and rude. I did treat a lot of them like dirt but I

didn’t mean to, horrible things just came out, especially if I was angry and felt rejected. And

I’d feel more rejected by people who I was closest to, so, perversely, the more I liked them

the ruder I was!

One morning I went to see my school nurse - the best nurse ever, my favourite - like

she had told me to. Only she could only spent a little amount of time with me because she

was so busy sorting out meningitis vaccinations. I got really angry and upset, convinced that

she hated me and didn’t ever want to see me again. So I had a tantrum and stormed out,

screaming at her for preferring her work to talking to me. (Still, talking to me was work

anyway, however much I tried to pretend to myself that she actually liked me.) I spent ages

after that crouching on the toilet floor cutting my calves to pieces, I knew that it was all my

fault for getting so attached. Later that day I discovered that a girl in my class, a girl that I

really quite liked, had suffered from meningitis over the holidays, but was now recovered.

Then it sank in how awful I had been. While my nurse had been trying to save the lives of so

many people I had been too selfish, wanting her to talk to me, right away.

So much time and money was spent looking after me when I should have been able to

look after myself. I knew how awful I was- how dare I cause so much fuss about some made

up problems when there were real people around, with real problems? I felt guilty towards

those A&E doctors who fought so hard to save victims of road accidents before having to

look at some stupid graze on my leg, something I did to myself.

And then there are the things that I should have felt guilty about but didn’t. Particularly

where involves my parents. I felt so little remorse in constantly lying to them about what I

ate. And, as they reminded me every so often, I destroyed them with the things I did to

myself. They just never knew what I would do next. Having said that, it was guilt about their

reactions that would hold me back from suicide, something which, deep down, I probably

resented them for. Then again, I might have liked that safety, the only thing protecting me

from myself.

Once I was wildly angry with everyone, as teenagers are apt to be, although I was

behaving the way I apparently did at age nine. I was busy screaming at everyone that they

didn’t love me and to stop laughing at me. Wildly overreacting but it was quite fun to me and

I was too stubborn to stop once I got myself all worked up. I did have to stop every so often

to sing some song, it really like I was drunk, or to burst into fits of manic giggles. Then my

dad gave me his amateur psychology, which I shouldn’t have complained about because I

spent most of the day giving people my opinions on their deep emotional torments. But it

angered me so much that he was saying so much rubbish about me and I couldn’t stop him.

He said: ‘you’re just winding yourself up so that you can convince yourself that everyone

hates you and then you can feel really sorry for yourself and then you can lacerate yourself’.

That’s my point; I didn’t do it for an excuse to ‘lacerate’ myself because I needed no excuse,

I did it whenever I wanted, no guilt attached. And I didn’t feel sorry for myself, I felt sorry for

all the people who didn’t know how great cutting could be.

Perhaps I should have felt guilty towards myself, wrecking my body and perhaps my

life. But that seemed a bit of a silly concept- how could I be both victim and perpetrator?

When I was in the house alone I would ever answer the door or the phone, I just didn’t

want to talk to people. But I’d scream at myself for being such a bitch, what if they wanted

something important. What it if they were suicidal and had come to talk to my dad? I could

have at least taken a message. Bitch.

I felt so guilty for eating, for allowing myself pleasures, for never doing enough work,

for getting 70% on an exam my teacher expected me to get 100% on, for being lazy, for

being fat, for being a bad sister, a bad daughter, for living. If it wasn’t for me everyone would

be so much better off- and safer too.

Perhaps there would even be world peace.