Wanting to Suffer

Lily wanted to feel, and joy was too difficult. Pain was easier. Back when she'd lived with... her family, she had often prolonged out the hunger, letting it persist for a few hours, or a day, before forcing something down because... that's what she was supposed to do. Her family had... taken notice, however, and so she had been forced to eat and be monitored. Why couldn't they just let her... do what she wanted? Deep down, Lily knew there was something wrong with her, but as long as no one but her knew, it would be okay. So, she had taken to hiding it, especially when her parents finally allowed her to attend school. It was much easier, that way. She could go to her hiding spot during lunch break. Since the school had breakfasts, she could easily say she would just get breakfast there. Maybe one day there wasn't enough time to eat at home, or she liked the school food better. Either way, it had finally allowed her freedom. Now, she didn't even have to live with them anymore. She didn't often speak with them, now that she thought of it. She sometimes felt guilty for that, but life at college was better, she told herself. Lily sometimes... actually wanted food. She tried to ignore those times or suppress the desire. Luckily, she usually got full or sick after a few bites. Yes... Sometimes the thought of food made her feel queasy. The same was true when she had a nearly-full plate of food in front of her and really didn't want to eat. Other times, she just wanted to... revel in the intense hunger that twisted her stomach and made her feel hollow.

Lily didn't know why she wanted to suffer, she just... did. It felt good, somehow. Or the thought of it. Lying face-up on her bed, she automatically turned her head toward her desk, where her scissors... used to be. They were now stuffed under her bed somewhere. Or maybe in the back of a drawer. She couldn't remember where she'd hid them, and couldn't bring herself to get up and dig through the mess for them. Instead, her eyes moved to her disorderly books. Sometimes she wanted to feel what those characters did. When they were stabbed or sleep-deprived or broken—in body and mind. She didn't want to die, usually. She just wanted to be on the verge of it. She wanted to suffer, yet survive. She wanted to... to have someone care for her, to treat her wounds, to care enough to call an ambulance, to cry for her, to bring her back to life. Maybe that was selfish of her, maybe she was just... not well mentally... or maybe... she didn't know. She tries not thinking about it, but when she did it was always confusing. She couldn't separate her feelings from others', her thoughts from others'. She couldn't figure out which thoughts belonged to which layer of truth, or what feelings existed. She did know that, on some level, she wanted to suffer. She wanted to hold her breath underwater forever. Wanted to collapse unconscious, have someone save her. She wanted... both control and lack of it. She had never confessed these feelings, though she had known them for... for years, many, many years. She hadn't even fully acknowledged them herself, at least not since she'd... learned what it could mean about her. She had internally realized that people like... like her... were not accepted. They were outcasts, the "bad" people. The crazy. The... the people who needed help. Lily... had wished she was like them. Maybe she was. Or... maybe she had just... absorbed it into herself, making it her identity. Either way, she... she was fine. She could just keep going like this. It brought her joy, right? On some level?

Lily's mind returned to... reality... and she found herself on her knees on the floor. Why was she here? Her arms were under her bed, like she... had been searching for something. Oh. She turned over and lay on her back on the floor. Where had she been? Eh, it didn't matter. Hopefully nothing important. Knowing her, just some depressing nonsense like usual.

What was wrong with her? She wanted to fully embrace that... side of herself, but somehow held back. She felt a tug both ways. Something stopped her from... from... doing something that she was supposed to regret. From hurting herself even more. Yet she also had such a desire for it. She... embraced depression, made it who she was. It was comfortable. Relatable. The norm, at this point.

Lily sort of felt... separated, from the others. From... "reality." She lived in her mind, which was housed in a moving corpse that she so desperately wanted to neglect, break, hurt, leave lying in a field somewhere, on a park bench, on... on a road. In the times Lily was around people, she felt disconnected from them. When they laughed, she either softly chuckled along to fit in. She didn't engage, she isolated herself. It was better that way. They could probably tell she was depressed when she was around them anyway, or would pick up on it. She just didn't feel like interacting with anyone. It was... a strain. A... nuisance, perhaps. It just took up time and was pointless. Time she could better spend... suffering, alone. That way no one would know. No one would comment, no one would... care. And... it made her feel more authentic, knowing she wasn't doing it just for the... attention. Even if she knew that's part of what she wanted, in the end.

What would her life be like, after college? Would she even be able to function, completely on her own? It would all be solved if she could just... leave behind this shameful part of her that... she'd had for maybe a decade at this point. Who was she, without everything? It stripped away, what was left? A corpse with no mind? Or perhaps a better mind? One that is healthy, that functions properly, that doesn't work against itself, doesn't actively ruin its life? Did Lily want that? She knew she should... but at the same time, if she were healed, would she even have struggled? Where was the... proof? Was she expected to just ignore it and move on? She wanted to get better because of expectations, but also wanted to stay this way—even have it worse—because... she wanted to suffer. Suffering meant worth. Suffering meant being... deserving of care and empathy. If she was healthy, she was just another cog in the machine, blissfully unaware. Or... it meant there was no reason for her issues. It meant... she suffered for nothing but her own selfishness. Lily... Lily didn't know if she could live with herself if the past ten years—no, her whole life—had been her own fault. A life of suffering because she was ungrateful and stupid. Because she wanted... well, she didn't even know what it was she wanted at this point. But suffering was easy.

Without moving from her spot on the carpet, Lily reached under her bed and—suddenly remembering—grasped the scissors. She sat up, vision blurring, and rolled up the left leg of her PJs. Half-conscious, she gently put the cool blade against the skin of her thigh. It felt... interesting. What would it feel like to—

No. What the hell was she doing? She lifted the scissors, finding a scratch, as if she'd jerked the scissors suddenly. It... didn't seem to be bleeding. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. She clenched her fists, dropping the scissors. As she often did, she pressed her hands against her thighs, fingers curled and nails digging into her skin. She felt the tears forming, and soon she could barely see through them. She wanted to... let out her intense frustration and shame and guilt and hatred for herself and her stupidity and inability to do anything right or just... get help. No wonder she wanted to... inflict suffering upon herself. Hurt herself. She felt trapped. She couldn't let out her intense feelings. She didn't even have anyone to sob to. Anyone to listen, to comfort her, to care, to be there, to worry... nothing. She drew in a shaky breath, tears still streaming down her cheeks, and tried to calm down. To go back to feeling nothing. She found it hard, though. She felt a lump in her throat, and the tears returned in full force. She lay back down, curling up on her side, and could feel the scissors protruding into her ribs but didn't have the care or energy to move.