The first look into my novel, 'August.'

I'll let you go into this blind.
I don't need a specific mindset, I don't need you to react any certain way. Just Read.

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FRIDAY: 3:45PM

Dear Ireland,

It doesn’t matter what any one else ever says, being hurt is a lot easier to withstand then the recovery process which follows after it.

(It takes half a millisecond to destroy someone’s entire being, yet it takes the same person over 20 years to even find the courage within them to accept it had happened to them.)

People have a tendency to automatically destroy themselves because it is much simpler to do so; how do you make it go away? You hurt yourself.

It’s automatic, it’s quick and it doesn’t require much thinking for your brain.

However as much as its easier to destroy yourself, it takes a great deal of courage to actually complete the deed entirely; I’m now at a moment in my life where I’m not great, but I am not what I used to be and I can tell you myself, even now I feel afraid of my past self because of what I was capable of doing.

I am at the point where I have my own body, some one else’s and then my ego; the body which is mine, tells me that I’m afraid, I’m afraid of the past purely because I’m aware of how addicting I once was and I’m more then aware that it’s fucking hard to get out.

My third self, which is my ego, tells me the outcome is most indefinite and my time period isn’t infinite and I will more then likely find myself packed into a sealed jar.

The second self, I mostly like to refer as ‘my tucker’, the bastard who’s not always visible but hangs around, waiting for the right moment to really start fucking things up.

That’s another thing Ireland, if you ever meet some one who is struggling, the chances are, you won’t be talking to the same person…at one time, you might even be talking to a thousand.

Sometimes, you don’t have to be sick, you don’t have to be mentally ill or have a problem…any one is capable; as I have once said in the beginning of this book, people have their own coping methods in life, some which they aren’t aware of. In these cases, people will always become one emotion, therefore allowing a specific type of person to come through…if you so wish, a person could tell you accurately what their name might be, if you asked.

No one will ever be the same person; no matter how many times people may deny it.

We always try to find a way to solve things and sometimes the only way to do that is become something or some one else; whether it be invisible or not, really depends on what is occurring around you.

If all else fails, the next easiest option is to give up.

The reason I say that healing is harder then damaging is because in order to fix yourself mentally, your entire being is stripped; you’re actions, your emotions, your reasons, your do’s and don’ts. It’s all written out, right in front of you and you, you stupid idiotic person, have to tell yourself why.

And the reason why you’re an idiot (I’m an idiot too) is because when you’ve done things for so long, and they’ve become THAT engraved into your routine…you just forget why. You don’t even remember the fucking problem in the first place.

It’s very much like killing 12 people, having your memory wiped, to then watch the tape and trying to prove it wasn’t you.

I should probably tell you stripping yourself down isn’t the core reason to why healing is worse then hurting; it’s one of many factors, which tend to make your body quiver.

One of the toughest challenges I ever faced was simply telling some one why I was there; that’s it, ground breaking right? Only when it arrives, it doesn’t feel like a counselling session, it feels like an interrogation room because whilst you’re going through your struggles, not one thing you do is ever seen to be right.

Wrong, wrong, your stupid, ugly ugly, you’ve put on the wrong thing. It just turns into this gigantic fucking pile of wrong.

So whilst I sit there, playing with the sleeves of my sweater and I press the curves of my nails into my hands, I try to not look into the eyes of my adviser, because I have never felt so guilty in my life.

Guilty I couldn’t fix me, guilty I couldn’t do better, guilty I was here in the first place, and despite this whole journey being the correct thing to do, I still feel so fucking guilty.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

What’s so incredibly sickening to me is throughout this time that I have lived, I have known everything that I have done and am doing is wrong; it is not healthy, it is damaging, it might even kill me but I do it a n y w a y.

Because I couldn’t cope with myself If I didn’t.