Ella

Ella:  “I’m so angry, I could spit!”  is what my grandmother used to say.

I say it to myself:  I’M SO ANGRY I COULD SPIT!

Only, it doesn’t work.  I mean, I don’t want to spit.  Spit?! 

I’m so angry, I could cry is more like it. I am crying.  I always cry when I’m this mad.

It doesn’t even matter anymore what I’m mad at, or what I was mad at.  Now I’m mad at myself.  For being mad?  For being me.  And the worst part is, I can’t go back, I can’t ever be unangry.  I can’t NOT have told my boyfriend that I never want him to talk to Jayla again, and I don’t care if they’ve been friends forever, and if it doesn’t mean anything like we’re going to break up, or anything to do with me at all – that’s what he said, but I didn’t – don’t – believe him.  Still, I shouldn’t have said anything.  Then he wouldn’t have gotten mad, and we wouldn’t have had the fight we had and he wouldn’t have left all pissed and maybe going to break up with me, I don’t know…

All I can think about is scraping a piece of glass up my arm.  Slashing thin lines of blood.  I know where to cut to really hurt myself, I slash up by the crook of my elbow instead of my wrist.

The broken glass works.  A flap of skin is free, hanging, and blood is running down my arm, and I feel better.

Ella

Ella read a New York Times article about posting videos of cutting yourself on Youtube.  Right Now, she is a star...
Ella first appeared in OGW 2/3/2011.

Ella:  My mother yells up the stairs, “Ella, you have to get dressed Right Now.”

She says, “Ella, the bus is coming Right Now.”

“I’m busy, Right Now.D” 

Cutting. 

Only I don’t say that part.

Duh.

Using a bent paperclip, digging in, dragging it up and down my arm.  Making a cross.

Right Now I’m making a short film.

Youtube.

Me.

Cutting.

I do this every day.  Right Now, I’m done cutting, and I check my Hits and it’s around ten thousand and that’s just since three weeks ago and I’m a star.

Right Now I’m a star, Ma.

My mother says, “I’m not driving you if you miss the bus, you’ll have to walk!”

I haven’t missed the bus.  I have time to pull a long, black sleeve down over my bloody arm, turn off the computer – password protected – tie on a choker of a fake cameo in a gothy-y cross on a ribbon around my neck.

“I’m coming!  Right Now!” I yell down the stairs, my voice running ahead of me.

I smile to myself.  What she doesn’t know will hurt her.

Only, then she hugs me, says, “I hope the rest of your day is better than the beginning,” and she means it.

Great.  Just Great. 

Right Now, I feel like shit. 

My arm stings.

oh boy

ohshit

i am a star.

there’s the bus.

Ella

Ella suffers from anxiety and depression since becoming a teenager, and it seems like no one understands her, especially her mother.

Ella:  I don’t feel like writing don’t feel like writing don’t feel like writing my mother is making me do this she says I have to stop crying and this will help she says I have to write a whole page I don’t feel like writing I don’t feel like writing Mom what’s wrong with me?  I feel like crying all the time, and sometimes I really want to do something, like, something fun, but I can’t get out of bed, I mean I can’t lie down either.  I have all these ideas of things to do but I don’t want to do anything but I want to do something but I don’t know!  Why are you making me do this Mom, it isn’t helping.  I still feel frozen.  I’m still crying.  I don’t feel like writing.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I always love writing.  I finished the first chapter of Saving Ella, which I know you want me to let you read

I don’t feel like writing I don’t feel like writing I don’t feel like

Oh I don’t want to draw either.

You don’t understand!  Why won’t you listen to me?  You say you can’t understand me if I don’t stop crying, but how can I stop crying if you don’t understand?  Writing and drawing help you, they don’t help me.

I don’t feel like writing.

There, that’s a page.

I stopped crying, are you happy now? 

Oh.  You probably are.