Life Behind the Razor Blade

Part 1 by Jamiey-Marie

Cutting, Mental, Emotional, Physical abuse,  Isolation from ones- self and others. What are all of these things? How do we understand them? How do we know if that person is going through something terrible, if they don’t speak out?

Hello, my name is Jamiey-Marie . I am a 16 year old female, and I am a 4 year Domestic Violence survivor. My story is unlike any story I’ve ever heard in my 4 years of recovery. Because no one has gone through something like I have. I am not saying my situation was worse then anyone’s.

My situation was...Unique. My story... Is amazingly shocking to know that someone, like I, would of gone through something like this. My personality doesn’t show I’ve been through hell in the past 4 years.

4 years ago. In the month of November, it was during Thanksgiving break. My brother had invited a friend over. His name was Stephen pronounced “Steven.” Tall, Midnight Black eyes, dark chocolate brown hair. He looked so innocent. Like he couldn’t hurt a fly… or another human being. Now that was my mistake. I misjudged him on that little element.

We started out with a silent smile, a wave and eye contact. He drew me to him. I was mesmerized by his eyes- those deep dark pools of lifelessness… it made me feel….. sad. Like I just wanted to go and help him. But I couldn’t just go up to him and say “your eyes seem lifeless, is there anything I can do to help you?”  That would show I am nosey, and I didn’t want to pass myself off as that kind of person.

Even though he and I became friends immediately, we had so much in common. From music choices, to art, to how we saw the world. I could tell he was SO unique. Later that night when I had to retire to bed, he lent me his spare Nintendo Ds so we could continue to talk without myself getting into trouble. Since it was past midnight and my father had just gotten onto me about “bothering the boys,” and “staying up too late.” Stephen and I talked for a couple hours up until my brother was fast asleep. We flirted a little. I unknowing was drawn to him even more.

Right down to the point when he said, “I like girls who are sophisticated and pretty looking,” that really reeled me in and the fact I had unknowingly formed a crush on him.

We all went for a walk the same morning when he and I only got about 6 hours of sleep.  By all- I mean, My brother, him and I.  When we rested on a hill for a bit and went back to the house, I made some tea to warm us up.  About 10 minutes later, we all went back to the hill to sit out there.

I spent some time by myself to think over everything he had said to me, then he said the most horrible words, “Man Jamiey, I can’t have you as my girlfriend.”  My eyes watered up and I walked away to try to calm down, I remember him watching me.  I felt his eyes wander over my silhouette as I walked to the edge of the hill.

Hearing him call my name and call after me put a pang of hurt into my stomach, but I didn’t care. I wanted the nightmare to end. Sitting down, I left about 50 Ft. of  distance between him, Jesse and I- about 20 minutes later I heard his foot steps. The grass crunched under him as he sat down next to me.

“Jamiey?” his voice rang through my ears. I didn’t respond. “Jamiey please speak to me,” he said again. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t dare look into his eyes. I’d be lost in them. I said one syllable, “what?” in the coldest voice I had. Colder then the day itself. I could tell he cringed as I shivered from the cold, and he scooted closer to me. “I’m sorry” he said softly. His voice was almost upsetting. “Good” I thought to myself. He deserved it. His arm wrapped around me in a hug. Then he said more. “It’s not that I don’t want you to be my girlfriend. There is just a lot to understand, Jamiey, and it’s…Complicated.”  I sighed, and he did the same. We both became closer friends that unfaithful day, but what I was unaware of, was the future that was to come.

3-months later. I sat there staring at the computer screen. I had been talking to Stephen for 3 months. He started to tell me EVERYTHING about him. Down to the darkest secrets he harbored in his heart. We knew everything about each other and didn’t dare tell a soul about our secrets. He was unaware that I had fallen in love with him. Or if he did, he didn’t tell me. Perhaps he didn’t care or he felt the same and didn’t admit it.

The secrets he shared scared me. Frightened me. But I kept them. He had controlled me. Turned me against myself. Turned me against the world. Against anyone but him. I was his puppet. His little doll for his enjoyment.

So to say if he got “bored” he would “toy” with me for his amusement.

He even told me the sentence, “your life only matters if I say it matters.” I believed it.

“She was his puppet, he was her master. What the truest recipe for disaster, so to say, he would play and never got bored.”  The poem he always recited to me when I  wanted to stop being his friend.

 Out of everything he had done, I had started isolating myself from others, I even started experimenting with cutting myself, smoking cigarettes, listening to dangerously exotic music (meaning heavy metal, death metal and black metal,) wearing black, gothic, emo, and truly being unhappy. My friends really started to worry cuz I would cut in front of them and I wouldn’t care. I stopped talking, stopped eating. Stephen was the only person I would talk to, but every time I looked at him, I could see the enjoyment of making me suffer in his eyes. I wanted to cry because I was finally seeing what I had become. Cutting, Smoking, shaking off everyone that tried to help me It was really hurtful.

I felt so bad. I had dropped my friends for one person. I knew there was no way of regaining them back. Finally one day when my friends had enough of everything, they went to see the councilor behind my back.

 I was called into the office and given help forcibly. I felt crushed and betrayed that they would do that. But it was for the better.  I was eventually forced to tell my mother everything and she told my brother, Stephen was never allowed back over to our house.

 I was also told, not to talk to him, to stay away from him. It was hard.  I wanted to talk to him so bad, but not after what I had been through. What made it worse, was that over all, my mother didn’t understand why I had cut myself. I had explained to her. It was a feeling of release. The pain in your arms takes away from the pain in your heart.