December 11, 2021
A Decade in the Mirror
Hey, uh, pretty big content warning for self-harm, suicide, drug use, and abuse. Prepare yourself accordingly or maybe don't give this a read if you're particularly sensitive to those subjects. ❤️
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My name is Jason, I am a graphic designer and artist. As of today, December 11th, 2021, I am 28 years old. This is important to me for a couple of reasons. I've got a thing with sevens, and multiples of them. My birthday is July 7th (7/7), and on 7/7/07 I turned 14, a multiple of seven. And this year I turned 28 in '21, both multiples of seven. I'm not into numerology or anything. Hell, I'm barely into astrology, but I do think it's kind of neat. All I know is there have been some significant numbers that have been apparent to me as "marking points" throughout my life. I just moved to a new city and I feel like I'm closing out another chapter of my life as I approach my 30s. And well, all of this is really just me ignoring the thing I really want to talk about. Something I've hardly ever talked about. I don't know if it was out of embarassment, shame, or just not wanting to call attention to myself. Maybe it's a combination of all of these things. Either way, I feel like it's time to spill it: exactly 10 years ago to this day, I attempted suicide by cutting my wrist open several times with a razorblade.
This wasn't the first time I had inflicted self-harm, but it was the first and only time I tried to make things permanent. Previously I'd do just enough to feel the pain, see the blood, and patch it up. I had spent all of my high school and just-post-high-school years hurting myself in one way or another. I was expelled from my high school for weed. I was drinking a lot, and experimenting with pills. Just kind of trying anything. I'm not sure if I can go into the extent of why I was in so much pain, but just that I was chasing anything to make it go away. I won't get into everything. But it's important to know that I was in a relationship. It was wonderful until it wasn't. This person deeply, psychologically abused me. She threatened to hurt herself constantly throughout our relationship. She was overly attached. Manipulative. It drove me to become the same way. And ultimately, she was physically abusive as well. She pushed me down the stairs in my childhood home. That one was the last straw. I was about 6 or 7 months out of that relationship (maybe longer even) when I felt I couldn't go on living anymore.
I was drinking a lot, destructively I would say. I knew I wasn't like my friends. I felt alienated. I had always felt alienated. They all knew each other and I was some loser from the middle of nowhere. I've always been that loser from the middle of nowhere. I felt years of childhood trauma bubble up in my throat along with the alcohol I couldn't keep down. I wasn't even "old enough" to drink yet and I clearly had a problem. I felt my social alienation constantly, more than ever. I had just started school at the community college in my hometown, about 5 minutes down the road from my high school. My first semester I had signed up for a public speaking class and I had so much anxiety about standing in front of a room of strangers for my oral exam that I completely sat in the parking lot and didn't show up. I failed it. Just going into grocery stores was causing me to have panic attacks. It was December 2nd, 2011 and I had just met a girl at a friend's party. She was too pretty for me. Too smart for me. I thought that it was a waste of time and no one could possibly like me. I was a mess. I had ruined things with the only person who ever would have liked me anyway, and she was terrible to me. I wouldn't find anyone else. I was fucking up at college just like I did in high school. Everything was spiraling.
I was home alone that night and I locked my bedroom door, cried for about an hour, and then I cut my wrists open. I wanted to die that night. But something happened. Before, when I had done this, it was obvious I was in control. I could clean it up and hide it. The blood started coming out faster than I thought. When it started dripping on the carpet, I knew it was going to happen. I panicked. After years of hurting myself and thinking horrible thoughts, I was genuinely in shock. I didn't want this. I wrapped my arm in my sleeve as tight as possible to control the bleeding. I called my older brother to come pick me up and take me to the hospital. They wrapped my arm up. My mom showed up. I apologized a lot. I had crossed a line I couldn't uncross. They handed us a piece of paper with some phone numbers on it. I started going to some strange therapy. I started taking SSRIs. I started talking to the girl I met at that party. We started dating. I didn't tell her about what happened at first. It was cold and I could get away with wearing long sleeves and jackets for a while.
I entered 2012 weary-eyed and numb from the antidepressants. We didn't have enough money to afford to keep me in therapy and on medication. By late spring I was chopping my pills in half and taking them less often. I was scared of where my mind drifted, but I knew that I had already hit rock bottom, and that I didn't want to go back there. I was truly afraid of that place. I started realizing none of the shit behind me really mattered much anymore. At least not as much. I didn't want to die. I wanted to try to figure it out.
I changed my major from pre-pharmaceutical chemistry (can you imagine?) to studio art. I took a printmaking class that changed my whole notion of what art and design meant. I was scared, but I kept moving. I started a band. I wrote a cryptic song about my suicide attempt. We recorded an album and that song is on it. I got an associate's degree in studio art and transferred to a school in downtown Atlanta to pursue graphic design. The girl from the party and I kept dating. I obviously ended up telling her what happened. She understood. She moved to Atlanta too. We eventually moved in together. I bought a weird Japanese printer from one of my first co-workers and started making art for myself and my best friends. We ended up living with two of those friends. The girl from the party and I just moved to Chicago together. And in a couple of weeks, Misty and I will be celebrating 10 years together. I don't think I'd still be here without her love and support.
That milestone is so, so much more important to me than this one. And that's why I needed to stop hanging on to this secret like it matters so much. It doesn't. Because the truth is, it's really just a dark spot at the end of the darkest period of my youth. I still have the scars. They'll always be there. But I'm not sad when I look at them. They're a symbol of the moment I realized I wanted to keep living. I can't say I'm "better." Most days are fine, but it still comes in waves. Sometimes the waves are overwhelming. I need to go back to therapy. I need to take better care of myself. But I'll get there. Because I know there's time. There's always time.
It's really, really beautiful to be alive. Here's to another decade.
This was a condensed version and there's so much I left out. But it felt good to get this out. Thank you for reading if you did. I love you.
reflection.garden is a project by Jason Combs
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