Tag: A to Z

Q is for Questions

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Taking a break from the short stories for today to expand on “Trigger: Cutting.”

First off, I want to point out I provided a clear and easy to identify reason for Kevin to fall into depression. I could have just as easily had Kevin with two loving parents struggling to understand him instead of just one, but I chose to take a clear starting point for Kevin’s problems. I did this is because fiction has to make sense.

Most times the emotional injury triggering cutting behavior is unclear. And what sets off one person will not affect another. Because – SURPRISE – everyone is different! So what sends one person into a spiral of depression wouldn’t even be a blip on someone else’s radar. And this is okay.

For those in back, let me repeat it. IT IS OKAY to have something affect you differently than someone else.

What we need to address is the wound first and foremost, not figure out how it got there in the first place. Think waking up and finding a bruise on your body. Thinking about yesterday, you might recall banging into a drawer or a locker or a fist, or you might not remember the inciting incident at all. But in the end, that happened yesterday, and you can’t fix the past. What you have now, today, is a bruise that needs treatment.

If you are cutting yourself, or have a friend who is cutting themselves, they have a bruise that needs treatment … as soon as possible. The sooner the better because, like a tree, the person is going to grow around the wound. The sooner it is treated, the less scar tissue there will be from the bruise. There will be scar tissue, no matter what, but you or your friend doesn’t need to be only scar tissue.

I realize coming forward to friends and family will be hard. You don’t want to be stigmatized with “mental illness,” and sometimes family can get really angry at dealing with this stuff, or blow it off, or hurt themselves, and you have no idea how they are going to react. I get that, believe me from the bottom of the therapy I had at age thirteen (not for cutting, but stuff like it), I get that.

You can show this story, and this final bit, to an adult or friend and tell them what you are doing and you want to get help. Whether you go forward with this, is up to you. No one pushing you. You have control.

Now I am going to talk to the person who this is shown to. First off, DON’T FREAK. Think about this like the son, daughter, friend, spouse, parent, etc. coming to you with a bad bruise – because that is what they got, a bad bruise to the head that needs some TENDER LOVING CARE. Got that – TLC and a first aid kit, not a lecture or a freak.

You are not going to be able to fix this on your own, so don’t try. Do the initial kiss and make it better while also letting the person know you will get them help. Can you do that? If you can’t, find someone who can help your friend or family member. (Again, as I said at the start, people react differently to things. What hurts someone does not hurt someone else – if you can’t handle it, that is OKAY – find someone who can.)

Help can be complicated. But doable.

Self-Harm Texting Hotline: https://www.crisistextline.org/selfharm
Advice for Parents:

(Google “cutting resources” and “self-harm help” for more. There is a lot; figure out what you need.)

Finally, I want to talk to the friend who has been confided to by their bestie, about their bestie cutting themselves and asked not to tell anyone.

Loyalty – am I right? That is why you haven’t said anything. Because friends are loyal and don’t squeal on each other. Loyalty and trust. Guess what, there is one more part of friendship. That is love. And I am not talking about romantic love, but loving … caring … about the other person so deeply you want them to succeed, want what is best for them … even if that means you may lose them. I’ve helped friends find jobs and move, because that is what they needed. You may have hear love is an action. 

Your friend has told you something, and you know they need help beyond what you can give them. If you tell an adult or someone else, your friend will know you broke their trust.

Let me ask you – what is more important to you: your friend or your friendship?

After you think about that answer, if you want, show your friend this blog and tell him or her that you want to talk to an adult. Talk it over between you and figure out which adult that you both know that will be best to talk to. Then go together; be there with your bestie. Because that is really what friends do when they say they got each other’s back. They listen, they help, and they support. They act. Even when the going gets tough.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions

Next: Bookstore Sort

 

#HoldOntoTheLight

About the campaign:
#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Hope for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors and blog posts, or reach a media contact, go to http://www.HoldOnToTheLight.com and join us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WeHoldOnToTheLight

P is for Pause

Erin Penn

Trigger Warning: Cutting

“Aren’t you coming down for dinner?” Dad asks, standing in the doorway of my room.

I stare into my video game and keep playing.

“Dinner!”

“Yeah, not hungry.” I work on killing the boss.

“Is your homework done?”

“Got it done in study.” I half-lie.

“Alright.”

That is what he always says before shutting the door. Dad gives up easy now. I’ve trained him well.

“You know I love you.”

That’s new. I pause the game.

I look over at him. “Got a new relationship book or something?”

“Yes.” He leans against the door, the weight of the world on his shoulders. I envy him for feeling something. Well, as much as I can – envy is complicated and you need to actually want something badly. “But it is still true. I love you, kid.”

“Yeah, I know.” I restart the game. “Thanks.”

Dad quietly shuts the door. I play another few hours, until he shouts he is trying off the wi-fi for the night. I get in one last level before he actually does turn it off, after his second shout.

I wait to hear him stomp past my room into the master bedroom at the end of our ranch house.

Once I was sure he was down for the night, I pull off the clothes. After checking for bloodstains, I throw the old clothes into my hamper to take care of later. Can’t wear them three days in a row. The therapy doc said that is one of the things to look for back when I was in therapy. That, and lack of grooming.

I shower in the second bathroom, the one for children and guests, and rush back to my room. I lock the door as I go in, reminding myself to unlock it before going to bed.

Dad let’s me have private time, because guys just need to do some things without interruption. But I’m still his son, and he wants access to my room at all times. His house, his rules.

Still wrapped in the towel, I pull out a box under my bed and roll the numbers until the combination is unlocked. I remove the plastic sheet, and unroll it and the brown towel I had put together like a sandwich wrap. I rub my hand over the spiky towel. I need to clean it soon. Next I take out a box of bandages and a box of razors. I replace the one in my hoodie, as it was getting dull, and toss the red jacket to the side.

Getting up, I check my two hiding places in the room. Those blades haven’t been found yet and weren’t rusted. I have thought to hide a couple more in other places in the house, just in case, but a five-year-old made that a bad idea. Don’t want Cheryl to hurt herself.

I sit back down and lay out everything carefully.

Some days, I think it might be easier to kill myself. It wasn’t like I was alive now.

Just haven’t figure out how yet. Dad keeps his guns at the range since Cheryl was born; no guns in the house until the kids are old enough to know how to treat them right per Mom. And hanging was out. I played monkey when I was nine and tore a fixture out of the ceiling. If the plaster couldn’t handle me at nine, it sure couldn’t handle my weight now. Poison, well, that was too close to what happened with Mom. I can’t do that to Dad.

Not that I want Dad or Cheryl to find me.

Besides, I really don’t want to kill myself. I don’t want to live either. I just … well … don’t want anything.

Except to feel. To feel something.

I pick the blade and cut myself.

The End

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions

O is for Open

Erin Penn

Trigger Warning: Cutting

I survive through educational haze/hazing of the first half of the day, waiting for the moment I’m released for lunch and rush to the bathroom.

Not the one everyone uses by the cafeteria, but one over behind the music room in the old section. You know, the part of the school shut down because the roof leaks. It’s not fully shut down; a couple classes are over there for the senior class since they are the product of a winter with three blizzards. As soon as they push the bump through, the school is either going to rip the roof off or just tear everything down and try again.

Anyway, that bathroom is always empty during my lunch break. It smells of pot from the people on break just before my lunch time, but for my lunch break, it is empty.

I go into the biggest stall, close the door, and sink the floor, pulling off my hoodie. From a little pocket I sewed inside, I pull out my razor box. It’s small, only holding a single razor at a time so it doesn’t set off the metal detector. I snap open the case and stare at the blade.

I’ve been cutting on myself for a while. It helps me feel. To focus.

Nothing matters, but people want you to interact with them. This gets me there.

I unbutton my long-sleeve shirt. It is a plaid flannel, rust brown and black. Rolling up the sleeves I see the history of scars on my arms, some thin white, some angry red, and some crusty with scabs. The scabs are the most recent. I debate just digging into them a little.

No, I need new pain.

I pick up the blade and cut a line about two inches on my right arm. I’m right-handed, so that arm doesn’t have as many lines. The blade cuts deeper since I can’t control it as well, causing a deep ache. Holding my arm over the toilet, I watch the blood drip into the porcelain altar. Each painful drip reminding me I am alive.

That I am not just going through the motions.

The blood drops bloom in the water, spreading in a fog but taking mine away if only for a moment. I’m real. The world is real. Red is life.

The cut stops dripping after a few minutes. I want to scrape it open to bleed more, but I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I needed to get some food into me.

I clean the blade and put it away, then roll down the sleeve and button up, finally pulling on the hoodie.

I flush the toilet, watching my life blood go down the drain, like everything else in my life. Meaningless in the end.

The cafeteria ladies pile on the food. My lunch is the last one of the day, and it isn’t as though they can store the food as leftovers. No, they don’t give me the bags of chips and stuff they can sell tomorrow, but I do get three dogs for the price of one.

I take it to a table and shove the food into my mouth robotically. When I was thirteen, I guess about four or five months after Mom died, I fell over and they took me to the hospital. I hadn’t been hungry and forgot to eat, I don’t know, maybe two weeks?

The shrinks diagnosed it as depression with disassociation or detachment or something like that. Whatever.

Anyway, they made me stay a little while and do tests and stuff. Afterwards they put me in an out-patient program. It really put Dad through the ringer thinking his kid was mentally ill. After a while, with therapy, I figured out the answers they wanted and got out of Dodge.

Yeah, I know. I probably should still be in therapy. But it wasn’t helping, and it was a big hassle. The secret now is not to fall over again. Because if they take me to the hospital, they are going to see my scars and all hell will break loose. So I force myself to eat regularly. There is no one talking to me at the table, because by the time I sat down most people had finished eating and gone off for their cliques.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions

N is for Nihilism

Erin Penn

“Get up lazy bones, I’m leaving in fifteen.” My dad slammed the bedroom door behind him.

I lay there gathering the strength to get up. The struggle is real. Yeah, I slept through the night, if you count nightmares, panic attacks, and cold sweats. Last night wasn’t bad. I laid awake for most of it. But Dad would be back to pull me out of bed, like he has to do at least twice a week and I care enough today that I don’t want to deal with that shit, so I sloth onto the floor, grabbing my red hoodie from where I tossed it last night and pull it over my head. My comb is stuck in the pocket from yesterday.

Yeah, I’m wearing yesterday’s clothes. Whatever. At least I’m dressed.

I pick up yesterday’s backpack with yesterday’s homework. No, I didn’t touch it last night. The teachers never check anyway, and I can just fill something in during homeroom. I glance around the room, making sure I haven’t left anything out, and then stumble to the car for school.

My old man had warmed up the car, and my little sis is already strapped into her kid seat by the time I made it down. She was an unplanned “gift” in my parents lives, back when I had two of them. We all kind-of love her; five-years-old are kind-of hard to screw up unless you are some kind-of monster, and my dad isn’t.

“I was thinking I needed to dump a bucket on you, Kevin.”

“Grumble.” Or something like that is my response as I climb in the passenger side. I pull my hoodie up over my head and hunch down, but only after putting on my seat belt, because, god forbid, I forget to wear my seat belt.

Mom died because of a mistake, but not the seat belt kind. Just stupid shit. Two years ago and it still hurts … somewhere.

I guess it hurts Dad too, but he never shows it. Back at the beginning, he said we needed to be strong for Cheryl. That’s my sis. I try to be, and Dad is a pillar. But, some days it is like we pretend Mom never existed. Whatever. I guess that is always how it is. A person leaves, and people fill the hole somehow.

Kind-of kills the argument against suicide.

Yeah, the people you leave behind will hurt, but they will get over it. Or not. Whatever.

Dad joins the drop off line for the prison. I mean high school. Same difference. Except we get to go home at night, and the prison has a better weight room. I guess that balances. I go to the sophomore homeroom for average students. They say they aren’t grouped by grades … but they are grouped by grades.

In homeroom I pull out my schoolwork from last night and fill things out quickly. Math was a multiple choice answer sheet, as was history. I just write down the numbers and letters, not really caring if they are right. I try to get enough correct that Dad won’t be called in. He doesn’t have time for that shit, what with having to find a sitter for Cheryl. English gave an essay, and I scribble out some BS for the teacher. She is an easy one; at the beginning of the year she decides how you are going to do, and you pretty much are stuck with it. She thinks I got potential, and my grades from her are some of my best.

As long as I pass the standardized tests, it isn’t like anyone is going to fail me. That gets them black marks with the state. So I do enough to skate by; it’s not like college is an option. Dad makes too much money for grants, and with Mom dead, we don’t have enough money for anything else.

I’m practicing saying, “Do you want fries with that?” since I figure I will be asking that question a lot.

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)
Marathon Party (G to M)

Trigger: Cutting (N to Q)
4/16/2019 – N is for Nihilism
4/17/2019 – O is for Open
4/18/2019 – P is for Pause
4/19/2019 – Q is for Questions

M is for Marathon

Erin Penn 3 Comments

“You know I do marathons. right? Something to do after getting out of the marines, right?” Neil glanced quickly in Jazz’s direction to see her nod. “Well, I fell down on the last one. What with Elisa being pregnant and Courtney going nuts over getting a script actually being produced after so many options picked up and timed out, I didn’t prep like I should have and sure as hell didn’t carbio load the day of. So I got to mile fourteen and keeled over. Well, not keeled…” He shook his head. “Nah, I really did. I fell and couldn’t get up. They fluid pumped me and then I got to spend the next two days while Elisa and Courtney took care of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Their bedside manners could use work.” He shrugged slightly. “They yelled at me for being an idiot as much as kissed my boo-boos.”

“That sounds like them.” Jazz had been friends with Elisa since preschool, and with Courtney since her best friend married her a decade ago.

“So I guess I should give up on marathons, right?”

“What? No!” Jazz turned her body toward the ex-marine. “You love it. Just because you didn’t make it to the end, you still did fourteen miles. I couldn’t do that on my best day back when I used to run track.”

“I’m just going by what you are say, right?” Neil’s lips pulled up at the corner. “That when you fail a marathon, you are a failure and should stop trying, right?”

“Huh?”

“You ran a marathon today. You prepped for it, did everything right, and didn’t make it to the end, right?” Neil looked over for a second. Jazz frowned at him. “You are going to need days to recover from it, right? Self-care, exhaustion, recovery time. right?”

“Yesss,” she hissed, seeing what he was trying to do. “Learn you story-telling from Courtney?” she commented sarcastically.

“Nah, from staff sergeants. Just not adding the run around the far flag pole to think things over part,” he said turning at the first intersection into her neighborhood.

Jazz smiled. “And I am grateful for that. I didn’t run a marathon though. I just went to a party.”

“Nope. You ran a marathon.” Neil declared while he pulled up in front of her house. “Potatoe, patotoe. You are one of the bravest people I know, because every day is a marathon for you, and you try to do it every day. Sometimes you fall down, but you get up again. And that is incredible, right?” He stared at her until she nodded, then he hit the button to back door of the minivan and climbed out. “So let’s get you in, make sure everything is good for you, and get you set up for your next race, okay?”

“You don’t need to–“

“It’s what friends do, right?” Neil pulled out her walker out of the back.

Courtney bounced up behind him after parking Jazz’s car in the drive. “What do friends do?”

“Stuff.” Neil responded, leaving Courtney to close the raised door while he brought around the walker as Jazz got out of the vehicle.

“Yep, we do stuff for friends.” Courtney said looking back and forth between Neil and Jazz. “What are we doing?”

“Getting Jazz into her house and making sure she is good to go before we go, right?”

“Right. We got time for that.”

Jazz shook her head. “I don’t want to be a both–“

“Marathon. You ran a marathon.” Neil interrupted, putting out an arm to indicate Jazz had a choice of walking to her front door, or him helping her to her front door.

Courtney followed them. “Oh, god. He didn’t give you the marathon story, did he?”

“He’s done it before?” Jazz asked, stopping to get her breath after going up her front ramp, covering the issue by searching her purse for the key.

“Elisa keeps trying to help.”

“She is making a small human being for us.” Neil pointed out. “That takes a lot.” He held open the door while Jazz and Courtney went in as Courtney and Neil said together, “Marathon.”

They looked over at Jazz and smiled, clearly waiting. And she shrugged, guessing they do this all the time with Elisa. Together the three of them said, “Marathon.”

Jazz continued. “Okay, I won’t argue anymore.”

“Tonight,” Courtney smirked at the family friend, clearly having heard those exact words from her spouse. Elisa and Jazz had been two peas in a pod while growing up.

“Tonight,” she agreed. “No promises for tomorrow.”

“You know we love you.” Courtney said, hugging her.

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“So what do you need us to do, because we ain’t leaving until we do something, right?”

“I got the nurse’s aide coming Monday, so I don’t need much.” Jazz commented looking at the mess around her house. Abandoned projects, dishes, and clothes from the last two weeks. She reminded herself sometimes giving people the opportunity to help is as important as helping. “If you could clean up the dining room table and help me put things away from the party, that should get me through until she comes.”

“That’s it?” Neil asked.

“You sure that is all you need?” Courtney said as she picked up the trash on the table.

“Yeah,” she lied. While it wasn’t all she needed, it was all she could bring herself to accept.

The End

 

A to Z Short Story List Breakdown

Rainbow Spectrum (A to F)

Marathon Party (G to M)
4/8/2019 – G is for Gobi
4/9/2019 – H is for Horse
4/10/2019 – I is for Sherbet
4/11/2019 – J is for Jazz
4/12/2019 – K is for Keeper
4/13/2019 – L is for Loss
4/15/2019 – M is for Marathon

Next: Trigger: Cutting