Pain Like A Loose Tooth.

Self mutilation. Yeah, I know something of self-mutilation. Just a thing or two that I've picked up along my way to hell. Some people are so overwhelmed with emotions they feel numb, so they mutilate their self to feel some thing. Pain. Pain to know they are still alive. Others, like me mutilate to rid myself of the pain. I cut myself and watch each drop fall to the floor and count a sorrow.

I self mutilated for years. I was a nurse and had access to scalpes and suture materials. Cutting myself was nothing. I'm not talking about the superficial hesitation marks people make with a safety pin or a paperclip. I cut through the ugly fat to the muscle. I would have cut the muscle too but I wasn't sure I could properly suture muscle.

It boggles the mind to think of one pain alleviating another. Remember being a kid with a loose tooth that hurt if you wiggled it? You wiggled it anyway because you knew there was a pay off. And my anger, my pain wasn't for show and tell either. I cut myself up high on my thighs so no one could see my pain. Not unlike the emotional pain I hid every day.

After I cut myself and cleaned up the mess there was relief. I would lie back on my bed and blend into the bedding becoming one with the bed itself. Perhaps the relief was seeing my blood, my pain flow out of me. Perhaps it was from the exhausting ritual itself or it could have simply been from blood loss. It was not uncommon to use an entire roll of paper towels to sop up the mess.

The first time I cut myself, I cut my foot. Also concealed from the public. Each step I took was a pleasant reminder of a pain I could identify. It wasn't that huge mass of nothingness. I could run my fingers across each suture and name my pain, molestation, alcoholism and the list goes on.

Like a good junkie, like I would later become, I always had my tool box of scalpels and suture materials near by. I learned that lesson the hard way. I cut myself and sewed myself back together with household needles and thread. It took three needles; two broke off, and I had to use pliers to push the needle through to pierce my skin.

My thighs became a massive scar. I had to find another form of release. I started by popping pills. Nice little buzz, but timing was every thing. First thing in the morning worked best. On an empty stomach accompanied with a hot cup of coffee. It was shear bliss. But if you're looking for bliss in a pill you might as well give up eating. I would try taking an extra couple of pills to counteract the food. I ended up puking my guts out. I learned to puke into a bowl instead of the porcelain throne so I could fish out any pills that had not dissolved and take them again. Hind site 20/20? Wrong. Every time I puked I prayed to God to don't ever let me do this to myself again. Please God, never again. I suppose the misery of my life was greater than the misery of puking.

Shooting up. Shooting up had to be the answer. Didn't matter if I had eaten or not. I was so very ignorant about shooting up. It's not like going to the street corner and saying, "Hey man, mind showing me your technique?" Technique wasn't my problem anyway. Stupidity was.

I was an emergency room nurse. Early in emergency nurse training 101 you learn to start a large bore IV on anyone who might need fluids rapidly, like blood. I used large needles to shoot up out of habit. I'd been shooting up for years before I learned I could use an insulin needle. Stupid.

After a period of time trying to find a vein was the name of the game. Under my tongue, between my toes. Anywhere there was a vein. The thrill of finding a vein was almost as exciting as the drug. Very intoxicating to see that blood flash back. I found a vein one day when I wasn't even looking. I was so excited I rushed to get my rig. I jabbed the needle into the vein and then realized I had no juice in my syringe. Like a hunter who seeks the thrill of a kill and has no ammo in his rifle when that perfect buck crosses his path.

Then abscesses became an issue. I had once thought my legs were my nicest feature. I am guessing that is also why I mutilated my legs. There could be nothing nice about me. I was a dirty person. The abscesses ran up and down both legs. I was hospitalized because my ankle abscess became so serious the doctor was concerned I would develop osteomylitis. An infection deep in the bone that never clears up. My doctor attempted to help me. I stubbornly insisted though that the abscesses were the result of spider bites. The story I provided my family. My father paid an exterminator to debug my house.

Of course there were dozens and dozens of emergency room visits. By this time I no longer had a nursing license or a home. Those weren't my problems though. My problem was getting a fix. I appeared in emergency rooms with a "migraine headache" all over the southern part of this state. It wasn't too long before they caught on though and I was back to square one.

My poor son got to suffer right along with me. He was may be 7 or 8 years old and he had real migraines, killer migraines. Turn green and puke up your guts migraines. He wanted just to sleep them off. I wouldn't hear of it though. I'd carry him to the emergency room and tell them exactly what he needed. I know the emergency room staff figured I had discovered away to suck the stuff right out of his butt cheek once they left the room. If I couldn't get high I wanted to at least see someone feel good. May be by some source of osmosis I could absorb the medication they gave him.

I'm told there is a different way to live. A way to hold my head up high and walk through the pain without looking for the loop holes. I'm about to find out for myself. My daughter has excommunicated me from herself and my grandchildren. I can't not be a part of my children and grandchildren's lives. She gave me a "choice." I could continue to live my life on a one way ticket to hell without her and the grandkids or I could go to residential treatment. Long term, thirteen months. God, I can't remember the last time I went thirteen days without a fix of some kind. Thirteen hours is a chore.

I love my children and my grandchildren more than I love my misery. I think. I'm about to find out.

K.A. Shaw