I do it often. I will lie there in bed, reliving every detail of that terrifying moment in my life. I replay my futile attempts to escape, feel the strong arms drag me back to captivity, the deafening whisper in my ear, all of it.

I do this over and over and over and over again.

And I enjoy it.

This is probably the reason why I'm so into being hurt physically/hurting others, so I can in part relive that horrifying day.

And here's an essay that I wrote about it.

Forest

When I was in my Sophomore year of high school, I was a wreck in a dense thicket of wood. I was barely going to school, always fought with my parents over the most trivial of matters, and literally felt like I was in a handcart shooting straight to hell. My entire life felt out of control, falling and spinning into a deep darkness that I would never be able to escape. I was lost in a thick dark forest of angst and pain, weighed down by chains of obligations from my demanding family, ropes of guilt tightened until I couldn't breathe when I slipped form their high held expectations.

Running around blindly in the pitch blackness surrounding me, I wildly flailed my arms around like a crazy lunatic, grasping around for my own breath, for anything I can hold and be certain of. I reached first for my closest friends, the safest ones, but they couldn't see me gasping and choking in my chains. I pleaded and cried, spat and shouted, but they didn't understand. For quite some time I found comfort in the silent blade, but so many others cried out so loud in opposition of my comfort in them. Next I tried for those "adults" who walked within our school walls, some with knowledge from all corners of the world, others just dimwits drowning in their authoritative power over the still mindless children. Some understood my cries and pushed me away, the lions who throw their children down the cliff to toughen them to become their own kings. Others reached out their angelic wings and, whether or not on purpose, stabbed me in my eyes.

Still flailing around in the dark screaming and running, lost in the dark, I
stumbled across some acquaintances I barely knew. They saw my chains, my binds, the scars that had accumulated over the years. They saw and understood, and led me down the path they walked and believed was the correct path for me.

They were my life support. The ones who encouraged me to break from the system, to fight the flow of everything. Their word was my law, their suggestions my command. I followed and believed everything they told me as truth and never questioned their logic, like ignorant children blindly believing the faith thrust to them by their parents. Running behind them in their shadows, listening to their words and not those of my ever demanding family, gave me a taste of freedom, a taste of my own individuality, and I hungered for more.

Crawling behind their lead, a dog on an invisible leash, I wagged my tail and drooled my tongue happily, turning a deaf ear to the shouts and cries of what used to be my only order of life. I enjoyed the ecstasy of rebellion, the bliss of knowing my fake freedom. I ran around with them, believing that this was the best way of life, free of bounds and responsibilities, enjoying the full aspect of finally being let off the heavy metallic chain and leash that scarred all along the neck, not knowing that this so called freedom was fast bringing my own demise.

Weeks and months passed, staying out late and not going to school, stealing money from my parents to purchase the physical substances which brought along the mental ecstasy of my faked escape. All the alcohol, all the marijuana, all the hiding away at the local hidden parks, faked my mental freedom, my faux fur of the coat of freedom. No one truly understood how this euphoria was dragging me further into the pitch blackness, the never ending spinning into the depths of hell. No one, not a soul. If anyone saw, no one dared to stop my impending doom.

That fateful day, October of 2006. I was spending my after school with the one I believed to be my best friend, and two other very well liked acquaintances. I considered all I knew an acquaintance because I never quite believed they would stay with me for too long at this time. I followed my best friend, believing his word that this would be a quick stop at his home for a video game in need of returning to our acquaintance. I followed him innocently and blindly, not reading into the signs he was giving off. Quickly we ran up the stairs and veered right into his room. Once we entered his chambers of faked light and freedom did I feel the familiar dread crawl over my skin. He locked the doors and yelled out the window to our acquaintances below that we will be of some time, that he could not fine the item we had been questing for. I felt the dread creeping and stumbled out the bedroom door, in hopes of relieving this crawling demise. Chased and captured, dragged back and locked again. This time it was yelled, it would be some time for he was making food for our grumbling tummies. I felt no grumbling, only fear that I could not quite shake off. Crawling out the room on my fours, making to the front door and barely unlocking it until I'm captured and dragged back again. No excuses this time, just being dragged back. In a flash I stumble away like a desperate child, to the living room window. Captured and dragged again.

No more energy to run again, I feel my body collapse. First my fingers, then my legs. My torso and limbs follow quickly behind. I feel the hand I trusted turn into hands of those I do not recognize and tear off the wall to my own sanity. As I feel the breaking of the barrier, I hear the whisper: "You're not going to fight anymore?"

My arms give one last desperate struggle to escape the drowning blackness, then all is lost.

A few hours later, I realize I am outdoors again, streaming tears down my cheeks and abandoned by my acquaintances, as I imagined countless times before. I call out to them over imaginary cable lines, but only the drooping yellow flowers return my falling tears. I stumble myself back home after another few hours, take a long cleansing of all the sins I've committed to all those who only wished my best, then sleep. I cry out from my heart at random intervals the rest of all the pent up guilt and shame of disobeying those who only wanted me to succeed and be the best that I could possibly become, and shed off the skin of the one who was so lost in the darkness of the forest, blind to the flickering light of the torches of the ones who were trying to find me and lead me back home.

Stepping out f the dense forest, covering and deep gashes and wounds from the scratching and tearing of the branches, I realize I am now not only free to the demands of my unforgiving family, but also free to the demands of those who stained the purity of my innocence. I realize, in the new rising of the sun, that I am free to all the chains and binds that tied me down in so many shapes and ways. I finally, realized, after wandering the thick denseness of the darkness, that I am my own master, my own slave, my own demon, my own hero. In my own decision, based on my own logic.

Finally, out of the drowning forest, away from those rusted chains and blinding blackness, after all the screaming, bleeding, and scarring, I was free. Free to live my own life, in my own mind, with my own thoughts and and my own feelings. Finally, after so many years of self inflicted torture, I was free.