They told me it’d help.
By: Eleanor Carmel
Tags: Fiction Writing, Mental Health, Therapy, Short Story

It was quite awkward, she wasn’t going to lie- all these people just sitting in a circle in the empty town hall fingering their long sleeves in the oppressive heat, surrounded by pictures of happy seven -year-olds in scout uniforms.

The silence stretched on, and the longer it continued the stronger the urge to laugh became. She tried her best to push it down- this was the worst possible place to descend into hysterics, it would be the sure -fire way to cement herself firmly as truly mad. And once that happens, you are forever the one at the very bottom of the ‘damaged people’ food chain, the one everyone compares themselves to and is relieved that however bad they themselves may be, at least they’re not quite as bad as her.

And Sophie knew she wasn’t the worst one. She was just more open.

She had always been a drama queen, a naturally appealing self -decrepitating comedic flare coupled with appreciation of attention had ensured that. She couldn’t remember how long she had kept cutting herself quiet- might have been a month but it was unlikely to be longer- and once one person knew, everyone else found out in pretty quick succession.

Isaac was the first person to see. She had been surprised at his reaction actually; she had known he had many issues of his own, that was why she didn’t make much of an effort to hide, but he had been almost totally unfazed by the whole thing. Of course, she was glad that he wasn’t too upset, but there was something deep inside her that wanted just a little bit more of a reaction. There were these big red welts on her skin, she figured she’d at least get an ‘oh I’m so sorry you are going through this’ but he didn’t really say anything.

The attention-seeking part of her was something she had always hated, but it was basically uncontrollable. She no longer hid under long sleeves, and proclaimed her issues to everyone without exception. Sophie knew that this was not normal self- harming behaviour, but why should she hide these things if she didn’t feel the need to? It was much better this way ultimately. Everyone who knew her knew she had these problems, and strangely that actually seemed to work in her favour.

She didn’t quite understand how, but being relatively open at all times with people somehow gave her a safety net. People presumed that if she talked about it, then it was as bad as it looked and nothing worse. The semi-humorous narratives that she espoused everywhere were graphic enough to explain some of the deeper scars: the time her upper thigh wouldn’t stop bleeding in the middle of an exam, the time her maths teacher fainted when she saw one of the infected cuts (“did they expect her to sterilise it beforehand!?”)- but not too much. She omitted more than she would care to admit. She didn’t tell anyone of the time she woke up in a hedge at 4:30 in the morning. She didn’t tell anyone of the time she had broken into her friend’s parents house to take some vodka she had seen earlier. She didn’t tell anyone of the time she had sex in a field with her cousin’s boyfriend.

She didn’t tell anyone about the bottles of paracetamol still hidden under her bed.

The somehow both monotonous and grating voice of the seventeen- year old opposite her drew Sophie out of her own musings. Not for much though; the girl was simpering and whining as she did every session without fail, going into infuriating detail as to how extraordinarily well she had done that week, how fantastically this therapy was going for her, how even though she did have a couple of ‘very minor blips, shall we say’ but with the ‘oh so excellent’ techniques they had been taught the thoughts were gone in a flash- ‘all thanks of course to the extraordinary blessing that was this group….’ Sophie had to work immensely hard not to roll her eyes. The girl was impeccably by the book- every single word she said was so correct as to be absurd, and always treacled out with a glowing smile that was half long -suffering martyr and half patronising sycophant. As if they didn’t all know she had overdosed literally four days earlier.

Out of the corner of her eye Sophie could see Elaine nodding rhythmically along, an intense look of understanding gratitude all over her face; she was absolutely lapping this stuff up. Of course Elaine was a rubbish therapist, no doubt about that, but in this case Sophie couldn’t really find it in herself to blame her for allowing herself to be taken in. Who wouldn’t want to hear cheerful and optimistic lies over the bland depressing truth? It must make a nice break, these sunny fantasies, over all those dark, brutal, honest suicides.