| Right from a young age my body has been
too heavy. Too clumsy. A cadaver that I drag along with me. My brain
started to shrink after my sixteenth birthday. I know, because now
I just feel dim. Wiped out. From 16 on my brain has been losing three
grams in weight every year. Of the original 100 billion brain cells
allocated to me, five per cent will already have disappeared by the
time I reach 40, and thereafter I'll lose a further five per cent
for every decade that I drag this body along. I can feel it quite
clearly. And brain cells are never replaced. That's why my body is
getting heavier, my brain is dumping dead brain tissue into my bloodstream
at a rate of 500 cells an hour and my body has to cope with it all.
My body is too static. As if she doesn't exist. I look down at
my feet; they look blue. But I know there's stuff inside there.
Blood and atoms and nerve fibres full of messages about how to move
a toe. Hair that grows with no respect for my decomposing body.
Even after I'm dead it will continue drawing vital force from my
body and keep on growing and growing. Just like I have to cut my
nails once a week too. They grow by the width of two full hairs
every day, winter and summer. Within four months my nail-bed is
the edge of the nail at the end of my finger.
But there's never a connection between inside and outside. I feel none of all this happening. On the one hand my body is dying under my control and on the other hand other cells are breeding as though there were no tomorrow. War zone, and I'm sitting numb in the middle. She leaves me cold.
What does it feel like to feel?
One day, in a certain moment of clarity, I realise that the body has to get some shock therapy, if you like. Until I can feel her. If I were to cause her pain … perhaps torture? I am looking for an unlimited supply of people who can hurt her until I feel something and she is hurting and I am crying. But I know people are cowards; they won't hurt you if you ask them to - you have to create your pain yourself.
A failed suicide is safe. It guarantees you time in therapy and with luck even admission into the ward together with "wounded souls" (as the corny psychologist calls them). Where better to learn about pain? People who understand it well.
It's shortly after eleven. I am alone in my flat. "Iris"
from Goo Goo Dolls is playing. I reckon that's romantic enough for
a planned suicide. The objective is slow, meandering melodies. Slowly,
together with the music I move onto blissful autopilot and her eyelids
flutter more slowly. It's a vulnerable, illogical state where colours
begin to look different. Quickly scribble a note, for effect. Death
is a punishment to some, to others a gift and to many a favour.
Dramatic enough.
I slit her wrists as the song gets louder. It burns me. And I bleed just to know I'm alive. It works pretty well. Trillions of morphine-like endorphin molecules draw chiffon over her brain. Everything becomes softer, rounder, as the blood escapes the confines of her body. I even lose consciousness a bit. Nothing to write home about. Knew my flatmate was coming back within a few minutes. It's a small risk. She'll find me. Call the ambulance. And that's what happens. Precisely.
Referred from Casualty for admission in pain and suffering. Between the blue house and the moon I walk up and down the passages. Looking for blood, guts and gore. I look and I look and I look. I am looking for something on the walls that makes sense, to trace the fine web of pain with my finger. But the walls are white.
From a young age I used to sit and bite the skin between her thumb and her index finger in order to feel more real. To jolt this cadaver. To feel alive. I almost bite her hand to pulp. My mother cries her eyes out over this weird child.
"You're depressed," she says.
"I'm not, I'm shimmering," I reply.
There are almost-fights about something that neither of us understands, the awful mother-admin, and the mutilation that I learn about in the institution and the sympathy that doesn't help.
There must be something more. On the internet I find a site that teaches me how to experience pain without any outward signs. There it is, in flashing neon red letters: Pain without sympathy. And I shit you not; it works. At the first meeting the leader of the group tells me I first have to answer a list of questions before I can start my recovery.
"Recovery from what?" I ask. "Life? What the fuck is life? You first have to convince me that I want to recover," I say. She smiles.
In brief:
- I must have enough emotional support from family and friends, so that I can use them instead of hurting the body.
- There must be at least two people I can phone when I have the desire to hurt the body.
- I must feel comfortable talking about Self-Mutilation or, as the psychologist calls it, Self-Injury.
- I must have a list of at least ten things I can do instead of hurting her.
- I must have a place I can go to so that I don't hurt her.
Blah blah blah. So it goes on, until the last real hit:
- I want to stop hurting her.
I put a tick against each one. Look rather deep and sorrowful as the psychologist reads through my answers. And just wait for the tips on how to fuck the body up further without leaving any signs.
At the support group they teach me some valuable lessons. The woman says, "If you want to cut yourself, it's important to remain safe." I mustn't share cutting implements. I must learn first aid. The psychologist gives me some tips. She says: "Don't judge yourself." If I want to burn the body, she teaches me that I must immerse the wounds in cold water for 15 minutes. That I must NOT put cream on them. I must cover the wound lightly with gauze. She teaches me about different types of burn marks. She teaches me to recognise when the wound I have inflicted on her needs stitches. She warns me against wounds that can cause me to go into shock. She teaches me that I must buy myself some Betadine. That I should rather take Tylenol, because it doesn't thin the blood like aspirin does.
I become cleverer at every meeting. On the wall in the bathroom I read: Life is a pendulum that swings between the two extremes of boredom and pain.
At the fourth meeting she finally gives me the pearls. "Your training wheels," she calls them:
- I must make a sketch of her, the dying body. When I am frustrated or angry, I must mark on the sketch in red ink where I want to cut her.
- I must collect Coke bottles and slash them when I want to hurt her.
- I must take ice and press it hard onto the exact spot on the body that I want to cut; it doesn't leave a mark, just gets a bit red for a while, like a burn would do.
- I must hold her finger in a bowl of ice cream for a few minutes; then afterwards I can lick it off.
- I must eat a chilli.
- I must shoot her wrist 50 times with an elastic band.
And lastly, during the very last session, the psychologist is waiting for me in the back room where we pack away the containers of pain apparatus for the next group. She is standing in the dark behind the door. She calls me. I smell her breath. She unbuttons me, she takes me out. She unpacks me from the inside out. She bends me over, she drags her tongue over dead atoms. And my body becomes a pendulum that swings between the two extremes of pleasure and pain.
And I'm connected. Hello the future.
|
Jackie Nagtegaal studied LLB at Stellenbosch.
Wrote Vis in die Punch at 17. "I speak Afrikaans badly
and most people think I'm going to hell."
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