And then I made the decision that would change my life, I told them to go ahead, I would just go home. I did'nt want to put myself in a situation where my best friend would get even more mad at me. So I went home. In an hour I called CJ's house, he hadn't come home yet. I called Kae, and she very quickly said she had to go take a shower. That's when I knew. I could ust feel it in the pit of my stomache. I felt empty and nauseated, for the rest of the day my family asked if I was feeling well. I didn't sleep much that night, I just wanted the unavoidable to happen. At 8:53 the next morning I got a call from Kae. The first thing she said was "I'm so sorry Astra, I love you, don't hate me." She told me what had happened. It's so cliched, but I felt like a dagger had been plunged into my chest, I felt so empty, as if someone had broken me into a billion pieces, as if someone had shattered my soul. Later we talked about it and he felt that way too, he felt that he had broken me like a china doll, and that he didn't know how to put me back together. I wasn't angry at her, not at him either, I was angry at myself. I hated myself. Maybe it would have been different if I had blamed them, but I didn't. I just told myself there was something unlovable with me. There was something grotesque and ugly and deformed about my soul, that I couldn't be loved. My own mother couldn't love me, why was I surprised?
Soon after I ran into the arms of Matt. Matt was an exboyfriend that another best friend, Pricilla, had convinced me to break up with. I trusted Pricilla with my life, so I did, and that weekend she gave him a blowjob. See the pattern? Totally unlovable. So I was in his car, half naked. His best friend caught us. We weren't doing anything, I was changing my clothes because I had spilled coke on myself, but his friend didn't believe us, and I let everyone believe what they wanted. His best friend was also the Girlfriend's friend. Matt and her broke up, and I cried. I hated myself for being like Kae, for ruining something great, for letting everyone believe something that hadn't happened.
I used safety pins to carve "die fuck up" into my ankles, and that's when it started again. I made new razor blades, and cut two more lines into my ankles, four into my wrist. Kae and my other friends thought I was doing it for attention, and they told me so too, so I started cutting into my chest and into the skin right above my hipbone.
Kae and I got into a fight one day, She called my parents and acted like the good, caring best friend. She told them I was cutting again. That night was the most terrifying thing I ever had to go through. My mom took my dad's knife - we were in my room - and tried to make me cut her. "No, no, don't make me do it, please oh god don't make me do it!" I felt like I was screaming and yelling for hourse, but I probably just whimpered for a few minutes. My dad knocked on the door. THey told me this was starting to become a way of life - haha, what did they know? We spent the whole night on my bed, them asking me questions, me crying.
For the most part they dropped it. They didn't look for new cuts, they didn't ask for my razors, they didn't talk about it at all until one day my mom asked me "why do you think we haven't done anything to stop you from hurting yourself?" I told her I wasn't sure. She told me that she and my dad believed in survival of the fittest, and if I couldn't survive...she trailed off.
After that my cutting got out of hand. I started carving "I hate me" on my hips. At the end of that part of my life (which was only about two months), I had eight 1/2 inch cuts on top of "I hate me" Below that I had "Hate", next to that I had thirteen 3/4 inch cuts. THe last day I cut was on May 19, 2001. I cut three marks into my wrist, a place I hadn't let myself touch for years. At that point I was cutting because I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped. Cutting was a way for me to not feel anything, not the good or bad, and I didn't want to start feeling again.
I wanted to tell my family so badly what I was going through, give them an explanation, make them proud. But I knew they didn't care.
CJ did it. He's the one who helped me to stop, and he didn't even know it. We talked about everything one day. I hadn't really talked to him after I decided that I couldn't deal with him after what happened with Kae. But we talked about everything that had happened and how we really fetl, and it was all out. I wasn't holding the pain inside, so I knew I could stop cutting. Even though CJ had hurt me beyond belief, I missed what we had, I missed the flutter in my heart, but I knew that it would just have to remain a memory.
After that guys (and girls) started falling in love with me, or in lust with me, whichever. I couldn't understand it. I was Astra, the girl with the damaged soul, the girl with the scarred body (even if they couldn't see it). I started acting...like a slut mostly. I gave them something to like, since I didn't see anything else about me that they would. Each day I"d try to do something a little more shocking, to keep them liking me, I thought if I stopped all the attention, all the love would disappear.
And that's when I stopped eating. I wasn't cutting anymore, but I wanted to fade into nothingness. My grades dropped, summer came. I already had a liking for drinking, getting drunk was a way to numb myself, it was cutting without the blood there. I fell into a crowd of kids who felt the same way. It was the same thing - the guys liked me, they liked how wild I acted, how I didn't care about taking of my shirt or straddling them. I was loving it, and so were they. The first time I had sex I was drunk. I couldn't move or anything, I couldn't feel anything. The guy loved it, he loved me. He loved my body and the sex and he loved me for giving it to him. I didn't see myself as a person who could be loved, so I would let anyone do anything to me, just to feel that love. Just so that they'd love me.
I was young when I started thinking of selling and using my body. My aunt was a stripper, so the concept wasn't unkown. I knew people wanted sex, and I knew I could give it to them - or I thought I could anyway. A distant cousin came to town once, and I could hear my mom talking to him. She was telling him about my brother and his job and his school, but all she could say about me was "isn't she beautiful". That's all she could ever say to anyone, the only thing good she could come up with. It happened when all the kids at school lusted/loved me, so I thought the only think I could offer anyone was a pretty face and my okay body.
The doctor looked at Astra curiously, a new understanding had developed.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I'm going to die"
"If you're going to die, then why bother getting help?"
"It's not for me doc, it's for you. I know you need to hear my story, I know other people need to hear it too."
The doctor wasn't sure waht to say to the patient, but she didn't have to, because Astra continued her tale.
At a party someone had cocaine. I had smoked pot before, but never anything harder than that. I was drinking a lot of liquor, but the effect wasn't coming the way I wanted it to, my body was becoming immune, so I took the coke. THe guy showed me how to do it, how to snort it. THe feeling was undescribable, I felt like I was flying, I felt so good. Too quickly I began to come down, so he gave me more. in exchange, I gave him sex. And that's when the prostitution started. I was only 15, no one would hire me, and I couldn't afford a cocaine habit. I'd sell my body to just the dealers at first, just so I could get the coke fast. But soon the dealers got tired, there were prettier girls with prettier faces and nicer bodies. I ran away from home and lived on the streets with the other teenage prossies. Most of them had drug problems like me. I don't really remember too much of that, I was stoned off of my ass for most of it.
That's when I got taken off the street. They sent me to a place for juevenile delinquents, and sent me to a therapist. Because I was so skinny I was diagnosed with anorexia and they made me eat and eat and eat. I wasn't anorexic, I just didn't spend any money on food, I spent it all on drugs. They made me so sick of food though that I stopped eating once I left. It made my stomache churn, which spawned an actual eating disorder. At least this is what my next psychiatrist said. I ran away from that place, I had to get away from all the kids with real problems, I thought that I could control mine. So I went to southern california, I'm not sure where. I hadn't ever really left the desert, so I went to the beach. And for a long time I just lived there, watching the waves, listening to the birds, thinking about life. I realized that I had to make choices in my life, because how I was living just wasn't working out. I couldn't be a prossie forever, I was like 17 then, I'm not really sure because your birthday doesn't matter when you're on the street. But 17 is old for a teen prossie. And I was still cutting through all of this, so I had more and more scars, and as one guy put it bluntly "no one wants to fuck a scarred up scary girl." One day at sunrise I was sitting on the beach with my razor blades. And I wanted to cut, but I didn't. Instead I burried them in the sand. I knew that wouldn't make the wanting go away, but it was my way of saying that I didn't have to live this way, I didn't have to hurt myself anymore. I was scared out of my mind, at that point I wasn't cutting to stop the pain, I was cutting because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't. How would I survive? How would I feel? How would I change? And I didn't really change. But I never went back to the real world so maybe I did. That's when your men picked me up. And that's how I ended up here.
I know you're probably wondering why I cut myself again. I'm not really sure myself. I just did it. But I know I'm going to die now, because when I burried the razor blades in the sand I told myself that I would stop cutting or I would die, but I wouldn't live like that. And I broke my promise, and now I'll die. I can't explain how I know it. Doc, don't fall into the trap I did. Live your life the way you want to, and don't make promises to anyone, not even yourself. You just gotta do what makes you happy, because in the end it doesn't matter. Fuck your family and your friends and your bosses and coworkes, because you came into this world, and when you die you only answer to yourself and it doesn't matter who you pissed off and who you didn't. What matters is you lived your life, you laughed and cried, you fell in love and you gained enemies, but you lived, and that's the point. That's why we're here, we don't have any other purpose. Don't forget that.
Astra was found dead in her bed the next morning, cause of death was unknown.