Chapter 9 The Phoenix #4
Tears threatened to fill my eyes no matter how hard I tried to choke them down.
That night always brought up strong emotions.
The memory of her coming into my room unannounced.
Her entire purpose for coming in there was going to be to ask me if I wanted to watch a movie with her.
Only when she saw the blood did she stop in the doorway.
I can still remember how the hall light framed her silhouette.
She had stood there frozen for only a heartbeat before she came to sit next to me on my bathroom floor.
Even though she had started to cry, she never once fussed at me or yelled or took the blade away.
Michelle only pulled me against her into an embrace so tight I feared it might crack my ribs.
She stayed with me that night, bandaging my arm and stroking my hair once she had stopped crying.
The entire night, we never talked about it; the words that could explain it didn’t need to be said aloud.
“She just continued to love me.” I didn’t feel like sharing the intimate details of how she discovered me or how she never begged me to stop.
Michelle and I both had our ways of dealing with our trauma, both a form of self-harm.
Whereas mine was more visible, hers was more psychological, using sex with strangers as her coping skill.
When we were the only family each other had, it did no good to try to push each other away or force each other into treatment.
We simply loved each other to the best of our ability and learned how to accept one another for who we were, messy flaws and all.
His dark eyes searched mine, piercing through my gaze directly into what I hid behind my lack of an explanation.
Could he tell what I was hiding, or was he only guessing?
With the way he was looking at me, I could swear it felt like he was trying to read my mind, and if I had any disorder that paired with paranoia, I probably would have believed he could with how intense his gaze was.
“So how did you cope with it after your sister found you?”
“I wrote in my journal — a lot,” an afterthought I added on. Daxton made another note on his paper.
“Did that help you?”
“I found that I enjoyed writing, but yes, writing about it used to help. Michelle and I were basically alone growing up, so it was the only outlet I had.” He nodded in understanding.
“We usually recommend that patients keep a journal during their stay here. Writing has been proven to be an extremely helpful and healthy way to deal with stressful situations. How often did you write?”
“I’ve kept journals routinely since I started as a teenager, even up until recently, I’ve tried my best to keep up with the habit.
I was actually trying to write something before you came to get me, the words just wouldn’t come.
” Over the course of talking, I found I wasn’t picking at the fringe as much; my hands had started to relax on top of the pillow instead of being so unsure of what to do.
“I’d like to see you continue to try, even if it’s just simple things, or even fictional stories. Writing is a really good way to help process what’s going on in our thoughts.”
I agreed, not to placate him but because I really did want to journal again. I missed it, filling blank pages with my thoughts, feeling productive and slightly less emotionally heavy after I let them all out on paper.
“Did you journal about your relationship with your ex-boyfriend?” He smoothly transitioned, bringing us from the past and into the present.
“Yes. When I say I’ve journaled about everything, I mean it. Even if I didn’t write every day, almost every detail of my life has been written down.”
“Were you able to manage the self-harm when you were with your ex? Or how did that dynamic work?”
Drawing a shallow breath, I decided it was best to rip the band-aid off.
“I hadn’t done it in years before Craig and I got together, last year though I started back again.
But I swear if anyone would just listen, I only ever cut my left arm, I’m right-handed, I never could manage it well with my left hand.
” Grabbing my long sleeve, I yanked it up to my elbow to show him the skin riddled with scars, the skin still visibly puckered beneath my tattoos.
The ones on that arm would be nothing compared to the damage done on my right.
When the dressing came off and I was able to view the damage that had been done, it made me physically ill.
Those scars would be deep and probably never fade.
“Did Craig ever see your scars? I’m wondering if you ever felt like you had to hide them or if he was accepting and non-judgmental.”
The thought of Craig and me being sexually active, and how he first saw my scars, made my stomach turn and twist itself into knots.
Sure, we had been at one point, but after finding out where he preferred to put his dick, I found the thought that I had ever let him touch me repulsive.
If I could have burned away every place he had ever laid hands on me, I would have. Nothing cleansed that feeling away.
“Yes, he did, he knew all about my past. Which is why I keep telling everyone he made it look this way on purpose,” my tone was starting to get irritated, even though Daxton wasn’t the source or even who I was trying to direct it at.
He kept his calm, though, his gentle demeanor never faltering as he continued talking and making notes.
“At first, he was loving, accepting even, he said they didn’t bother him. ”
“I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” I continued, “as time went on, it became a weapon he could use against me.”
“How did he react when he found out you had been doing it again?”
I glared at him, anger burning through me, making my right arm itch worse than it already was. My entire body felt hot with my rising temper. I contained it, even though I wanted to throw something, yell, scream, rage at the top of my lungs until someone finally heard me.
“He picked up a knife,” I stated coldly, “and told me to do it again.” Something flashed across Daxton’s expression.
Just as quick as it had appeared, it was gone, leaving me to wonder what the change in emotion was.
He didn’t continue with his questions about Craig and I’s past relationship, either because we had run out of time or because he was well adapted at reading my not-so-subtle frustration.
“I have a strange request — if you’re okay with me asking.”
That piqued my interest. “Sure, what is it?”
“Would you be okay giving me permission to reach out to your sister and see if she could bring me your journals?”
I frowned at him, not expecting that to be what he would ask me for. Essentially, he was asking for a physical object, but it felt as though he was putting in a request for part of my soul.
“Why would you want them?”
“Like I said before, I don’t think you’re suicidal.
It would help me make a case to your psychiatric care team for how your treatment needs to be handled.
They won’t release you early, but it might at least get it off your record that you were admitted for a suicide attempt.
I can’t promise you anything, but I’d like the chance to really dig into this. ”
The way he said ‘dig into this’ made it sound like it translated directly into ‘dig into your mind’.
My skeletons were buried deeply in the past; giving him those journals would not just drag them out of their graves, but expose secrets I had never exhumed from their final resting place once they were placed there.
“If I let you have them, will I get them back?”
“Yes, Raelynn, upon your release, I will send them all home with you in the same condition they arrive in.”
“And whatever you read, it stays confidential?”
“Yes, everything in our sessions would remain confidential. The only people privy to anything we talk about, or anything I would read in this case, would be just the two of us.”
I hesitated, weighing the options presented to me.
The idea that a suicide attempt would be in my medical record was a heavy burden on my shoulders.
How would that impact me in the future if any issues ever arose again?
The number of people who could see that information and pass judgment on me without knowing the truth.
Anyone I wrote about in my journals had no idea they were a subject for me at one point or another.
So as long as the information never saw the light of day, it would be worth the risk to me. To be free from that label.
“Okay, as long as anyone in those journals never knows what I wrote about them.”
“I promise they will only be used professionally. I’ll just need you to sign a release form.
Even though Michelle is your next of kin, that doesn’t grant her the right to obtain any information regarding your mental health status.
If you want her to be able to talk to your doctors or speak on your behalf for your treatment, I can add that on. ”
“No, just a release for you to ask her for the journals. I’m fine keeping control over my treatment.
” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my sister.
I trusted her completely. The need to maintain control over something right now, when my life was so chaotically out of control, was too strong.
I was without the ability to control anything in my life behind these walls, and I needed to maintain the illusion of control over at least one thing.
“Okay, give me just one moment to get that form,” he closed his notebook and took it and his pen over to his desk.
Daxton had to remove keys from his pocket to open his filing cabinet.
It took him a moment to locate the form he was looking for, shutting the file cabinet drawer, making his muscles in his forearm flex visibly from where he had rolled up his sleeves.
He paused at his desk, setting the paper down to fill it out, before handing it to me.
It was a straightforward release form, only granting permission for him to verbally speak to my sister.
It didn’t give any access to any of my files or medical information.
Not that I wouldn’t share that information with her on my own, I just wanted to be the one to share it.
Michelle would understand that, too. She's never been hurt by my need to maintain control over something.
Even if it was just one trivial thing, it helped alleviate the anxiety that acted like barbed wire around my mind.
The more I fought against it, the harder it dug in.
After quickly signing the form, I handed him back the pen and paper. He set them back on his desk before checking his watch.
“We’ve run out of time for today. Are you ready for me to walk you back?”
I nodded, replacing the pillow to where I had found it and following him out the door.
I followed behind him, his body language setting me on edge.
While being with Craig, I learned how to pick up on how the body changed when it was under the control of certain emotions.
I didn’t have a choice when it came to my relationship with him; either I learned how to read them and even more so how to avoid them, or I would risk instigating a fight.
Daxton's shoulders remained tense as we made our way back to my hall. I couldn’t predict his reactions like I could Craig’s, but I could tell he was stressed about something that hadn’t been there before our session.