Dinner Date Dysphoria

TW: Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt

Nothing ever goes right.

Is this normal?

It's normal for me.

*****

I walked to the door of my house. Nothing even makes sense to me anymore. Why would this attractive white boy even want to have a date with me? At my house? I'm black. Very black. And ugly. And worthless. And nothing. I'm nothing.

He's knocking on the door.

Just to be nice to me.

He just wants to have fun with you.

No, he doesn't. Nobody would.

Just give him a chance.

I needed to open the door or I would seem rude. I didn't want to give this man an even worse image of me.

He would never like me for who I am.

As I opened the door, I noticed his clothing was in stark contrast to mine. He was in a nice suit that complemented his fair skin and blue eyes. His platinum blonde hair shone in the moonlight like one of the dilapidated street lights just down the road, but in a good way. It made him look even better, because that just had to be something that made him better. Too good for me. Too good.

I could never satisfy him.

I was wearing something incredibly inappropriate compared to his striking form. I was wearing an ugly green turtleneck shirt with ugly gray, bloodstained sweatpants. Great thing to present myself in.

He'll notice my flaws and then hate me forever.

I looked ugly too. I knew it from the way that his vibrant smile completely faded when he looked me over. Just a small, short, skinny, sleep-deprived, downright ugly black girl with unruly and tangled curly black hair. My eyes were too brown, my hair too long, my nose too small, my ears too big, my bust too tiny, my waist too skinny, my skin too cracked... everything about me was ugly and he just wasn't saying it out loud, trying to be nice and trying to find a suitable excuse to walk away as soon as he could. He hated me, the way I looked. He had too. Nobody else ever liked me, why should he?

Have hope. He doesn't hate you, he's just concerned and wants to help you.

He hates me and I should just die, I'm a drain on resources and a waste to the world.

YOU ARE NOT WORTHLESS!!!!

Do you really think that? You're just saying that to be nice. You don't really think that. I know. It's okay, I'm okay.

His face turned downward into a frown, and his eyebrows knitted into an expression that I had never seen anyone waste on me before. Concern. How is he concerned about me? I didn't understand. I was nothing. Why would he even try to help? I was helpless. Nothing. Useless. Broken.

I'm too gross to be concerned about. I'm too broken.

He said something, but the static was too loud for me to hear what he said. It was all just a mumble of mixed inflections. And I replied on autopilot with my usual response to those inflections.

"I'm fine."

"Are you certain?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine."

"Does the fat lady sing?"

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You obviously aren't even listening to what I'm asking, you're just responding to it. I'm a therapist. I know these kinds of reactions. Here, can I come in?"

He grabbed my shoulder and shook it a little, helping me come back to reality and realize that he was asking to come in. How rude was I being now? Did I just offend him? It was rude to just open the door for someone and stand there. I needed to let him in immediately. I automatically started towards the kitchen, but he guided me with strong arms to the couch. The physical contact made me flinch, but I went with him regardless. When I was seated snugly on one of the only seats that wasn't either bloodstained or muddy, he pulled a kitchen chair out of the table and sat down in front of me, with the back of the chair supporting the front of his body. I cocked my head at the strange position that he insisted on taking and blinked hard. He asked me to answer some of the questions that he asked me, and he wanted me to answer them honestly, whether that be to myself or to him, he didn't care.

*****

Two weeks later, My house.

We were... cooking. Together. Knives. Many knives. I liked knives. I liked knives and I liked red and I liked blood. My blood. My blood was pretty to me. He was looking in the fridge for something I definitely did not have. I rolled up my sleeve and looked at my wrist, scarred and broken, just like me. He kept talking to me, he kept trying to help me. I didn't get it. Why did he even care about me? Why did he want to help me? To fix me? I was broken beyond repair, and every time that I told him that, he only seemed to become more determined to help me with my 'issues'.

I brought the knife down harshly on the inside of my wrist, craving the pain, the control, the red. I barely even gasp at the flood of pain that always comes with me cutting myself, but my breath caught and became uneven, which must have been a tell-off to him. He whipped around as fast as humanly possible and immediately ran to get a first aid kit. Maybe he thought that it was an accident, but if it were, I would probably have screamed more in surprise than in pain, and only one of my sleeves was rolled up.

God, I'm such an idiot. Why'd I even try something like that? Why'd I do it in front of him of all people? He ran back into the kitchen, and I knew that I was bleeding out. I hit the artery just right and it was gushing out, almost without control. He was saying things, and I was registering those things, but absolutely nothing could make me actually process them. The wonderful endorphins and adrenaline were flooding my mind and making it hard to focus on anything at all. Soon enough, he'd finished dinner on his own, with a few substituted ingredients and was setting the table. I was just sitting there, useless, as always. I hurt myself, I made him worry, I made him finish making the meal that I had offered to him in the first place so that he would get off of my case already, and I managed to ruin the whole relationship in about thirty seconds.

Damn, I was such a screw-up. If only I could just die.

He set down a steaming hot plate of eggs and pancakes in front of me, breakfast for dinner, my favorite. Ruined by my suicidal ideation. I wish that I wasn't so stupid. He says grace after setting his own meal down in front of him, and urges me to eat my food.