I’ll start by saying that I’m going to be incredibly candid in this entry. I wrote a few things down as they happened, and I’m just going to paste the text in here. It’s easier.

November 16, 2014

I’ve done something today that I swore I would never do again. I set everything up on the bathroom floor—Q-tips, Peroxide, bandaids, disenfectant cream… I pulled my sweats down, cleaned off my pocket knife, and started cutting a line in my thigh. Not fast—I scored a line and went over it again and again until I had a deep enough point to start flicking through the tougher layer of skin. I spent fifteen minutes just digging away at myself, cleaned the wound, slapped a bandaid on it, cleaned my knife, and went into the spare room to go through some boxes that needed going through.

As I tested the bristles of old paint brushes and tossed aside dried out bottles of pro-white, my thigh stung. And I felt nothing else. I moved like a zombie until I had all the good supplies organized and put away in proper places, then I curled up on my bed and started crying.

I am a failure.

I have bills that my parents are paying for me. My mother is angry with me for not finding work. I am angry and disappointed with myself for choosing to be an artist when there is no real way for me to make a career of it. The work that I see when I check the Internet is for unpaid internships and one-time-only jobs that pay terribly.

Why did I do this to myself?

Why did I ever think that art could be a career where I’d feel fulfilled and useful?

I want so badly to give up. I want so badly to just kill myself and leave this feeling of failure behind in nothingness. What stops me from actually doing it is the knowledge that my mother would be devastated. That my very good friend would feel horrible. That they wouldn’t understand why I did it.

I can’t stop crying.

I can’t take this. I hate myself so much. I hate the decisions I’ve made. I hate my materialism. I hate that this self-loathing is so crippling that I put things off—because why bother? Why bother when, in the grand scheme of things, nothing I do matters? I am just here for debts to be made. I am worthless.

I made an appointment with a therapist.

November 18, 2014

I realized today that I don’t have enough money to pay for therapy. And I had a complete breakdown about it. I called the counselor’s office and explained to them that I was uncertain about what I could do about this. There was a lot of crying on my part, and I must have sounded hopeless to the receptionist. I certainly felt it. After a few questions about where I was mentally, I admitted to cutting myself and that I felt like I might be in a dangerous place mentally. She asked if I thought if I needed to be hospitalized and I said that I thought I might. After saying a few things I can’t remember, I hung up and went downstairs, completely freaked out about everything. Mom had me call them back and confirm my appointment and then someone was a the door.

They called the cops on me for a wellness check.

The officer spoke to me for a while and, seeing that I was with my mother and not alone, she gave me her card and wrote some information on the back about mental health resources in the county area. She and her partner left and I felt like a complete asshole for scaring my mom like that.

November 19, 2014

I went to my appointment. This new therapist is nice and seems to listen to me—she thought that my other therapist spending an entire session looking on Craigslist for jobs I might be qualified for was inexcusably rude. I go to see her again next week.

November 21, 2014

I have $17 in my bank account. They charged me $5 for having an account at all.

I can’t do this anymore.

I cut myself again today. I used an X-Acto knife because it’s sharper. It didn’t hurt enough.

God, I hate myself so fucking much. I’m a failure. I’m broke. I have a spending problem. I can’t live on my own. I just want to stop. Stop everything. I don’t deserve the people who tell me I’m worth it. I’m not worth it. I’m nothing.

I’m just taking up space that someone so much more accomplished and competent could occupy.

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I see my therapist again on Wednesday.