Premonitions

So we're watching Stargate: Atlantis.

Apparently, a seven or eight year break is enough to at least make it interesting enough, but not nearly enough to actually forget the show. I remember every episode and I really hate it sometimes. I would just like to be surprised again - not remember everything that's going on.

Back to point, I'm sitting here watching "The Storm" and "The Eye" and remembering some of the first fanfictions I ever read. Sitting here, bored, I looked up one.

Oh, young, innocent, thirteen year old self who barely understood tags and looked up a story about cutting and utterly missed the point of the story.

I mean, all I remembered of the story was McKay had a bad reaction to dealing with a pathetic attempt at torture in one episode (like, seriously. The cut was maybe three inches long and barely a gash: it was pathetic. He only suffered pain - no other side effects.) and basically suffered PTSD. A fun hurt/comfort story for a main character, right? Nothing too demanding, right? Normal story for fanfiction, and actually surprisingly clean. a good story to read to finish up the loose ends of the episode arc that was actually well done.

And then I read it and find out it's actually about a severely depressed character who cuts more and more - first as punishment and then as a desperate attempt to cope. Suddenly, it's an incredibly deep story, and an utterly different story than what I read when i was thirteen.

Thirteen year old me: how did you miss that? How could you have been so innocent to completely miss that McKay was cutting himself? How did you miss that he was scarring himself so much that he covered his arms and legs and stomach? How did you miss that? How did you miss that it wasn't PTSD - how did you think that it was just that night, and the original canonical injury was still bleeding all over the place when Sheppherd found him? How did you miss....everything.

Thirteen year old me: when did you change? When did you lose your innocence? When did you grow up? Where did you go - how did I lose you?

Now I have scars of my own. Now I intimately understand the dark nights alone when no one is there to hold you or help you know what is real. Now I know the feeling of not feeling the pain. Now I know what it is to know full well every fault you have - to deserve the pain and anger others direct at you.

"I'm a failure and far too arrogant to have friends. It was only a matter of time before you all realized it." He seemed so resigned to the fact that this was all going to happen eventually.

Oh, how true that is. I am so arrogant - so messed up. I am destroying every relationship I am in. I am a whiny brat - I am a monster. I am.....I am all I tell my friends they are not. I am cruel, I am broken. I desperately just want to rest - I just want a chance.....

I cannot ask for it. No one will give it to me.

What is someone supposed to say in this situation? I'm sorry? Why would you do this? Was it really so bad that you had to resort to hurting yourself?

I just....I don't want words. I don't want answers. I have answers. I want help. I want support.

I don't want to hurt anyone. Every time I open up to someone, I hurt them.

I am sorry. I am so sorry. I am sorry for everything - for every hurt, for every tear. I just want to make things right. I just want to fix everything. I want to shove everyone away until I can't hurt anyone. I don't really matter - I am not that important. I can deal with the pain I have - I can live with it. No one else should have to. It is not right that I ask anyone else to. I should be left alone - I deserve to be. No one should feel guilty about hurting me, about leaving me. I deserve it.

Thirteen year old self, you're in for hell; and you're going to visit it on others just as much as you bring it on yourself. Enjoy your fanfiction - some day you'll realise what you became.