I remember where it all began! Warning: *Triggering*

Warning *Very Triggering* Please do not read if you are squeamish! Ty!!













I remember where all my trauma began. I remember when I was 15 years old, I used to love to take care of the environment but I hardly did anything for it. So I thought I should start up recycling which my family did not do. I was very motivated at the time so I remember I would sit on the couch and watch and notice when the garbage truck picked up the trash, I also sometimes saw a recycling truck. So I remember I collected all the plastic bottles and milk cartons and I would put them in a blue recycling bag and leave them out for the recycling truck. I was elated to see when the truck picked up my recyclables, and made a mental note of the time and day they came by. The next time they came, I remember not having any clear plastic bags, so I improvised and put all the plastic cartons in a black trash bag. However, this time the recycling truck did not pick up the bag and I felt disheartened. My older brother noticed and while he was considerate, I felt he did not care about the environment in the same way I did. Also the landlord noticed what I was doing when he saw the remaining bag, and he asked me about it the next day. I told him that I was trying to recycle and he was fine with it, and I thought to myself that he does care about the environment and noticed how much care I put into this affair which my brother did not. A few months passed and I had become very efficient at recycling so that I had not only my household recycling but also my mom's Dunkin Donuts recycling their plastics and cardboards. My mom was thrilled with my enthusiasm and she was very supportive. My older brother though who was much more responsible than me at the time and was working as a cashier and managing college, was not as appreciative of my green attitude but I tolerated it fairly well... Until one day when all the trauma began! Keep in mind I am a teenager at this time, never had a girlfriend, very conservative Indian family, never got allowance, and also am very shy and a nice guy/submissive inferiority complex, and threw temper tantrums at times as I only got hand-me-downs and never had skills or freedom to do anything in my family. Ok, so one day, I was cutting the plastic overlay off the top of an Entenmann's butter cake box in order to recycle the paper cardboard material of the box. I was very OCD about things like that and needed to get "Everything!" recycled that I could. Mostly it worked out as I was so efficient at it. It was probably annoying to my older brother as he saw my life being consumed by this hippy attitude and he had expectations of me going to an ivy league university and making some big bucks in my future as I was a math genius at the time. Okaay so anyway, I was cutting this plastic off the top of the box very carefully with scissors when my brother said something to me that just devastated me. He said something to the effect of, "Is this what your life has turned out to be? Is this all your going to amount to?" I was very frustrated at the time because I remember how difficult it was to get that plastic off the top of the box, and just for him to say that to me was earth-shattering. He was right in a sense, because I wasn't doing anything to help the family. This was all my own selfish ego to make me feel better and me being OCD/perfectionistic certainly didn't help. Regardless to say, he apologized for it later on and he even has a very fuel economic car right now so he became environmentally friendly too! ^_^ But getting back to the incident, I just felt so awful that I was doing this meaningless thing and that all my effort was in vain, and that the one thing I seemed to do right didn't seem to matter to anyone. Well, after that, I remember I started cutting my hands with those same scissors. Tiny cuts. Eventually I started cutting on my leg. Eventually I started cutting on my face, which my one friend asked me about. I told him I fell down playing with my younger brother. Anyway, I also started hiding in the closet and missing high school. When they found out I was doing this, that's when they all became so concerned. I went to a top-notch high school, Stuyvesant High School, so they were probably concerned my grades would slip. I listened to them and went to school, but I remember always being haunted by the fact that my family didn't seem to understand my own values very well. When I was 19, I remember going to a bridge and standing on the ledge. When I was 21, I remember stabbing myself in the neck with a scalpel, and it all spiralled downhill from there. Basically, I was a very rebellious, misunderstood teen who self-harmed a lot and alienated his own family. Needless to say, my family stood by me through it all and are still loving to me even if they don't understand my Borderline Personality tantrums. But I think now I can see how my older brother triggered some very powerful trauma from my bullies in elementary school. It was like being shattered all over again and this time it was for what I believed in so it would never go away. I am still dealing with emotional neglect and love avoidance issues as well as borderline personality and social anxiety, but I can say I have come a long way in learning how to cope with my illness and make baby steps to becoming normal. Thank you for listening and please feel free to share anything that would help me as I am always in need of it!

Thank you for sharing