Confession

I've cut. I did it right after I got dumped last February. I was sick of hurting and knowing that you can't do anything to help a broken heart heal any faster. I wanted to put bandaids on something and be able to pretend I was doing any good at all. I cut twice that month.

I cut a few times over the summer too. I was spending a lot of my time outside of CoOp with my friends in Virginia, and my ex was part of that group. He was being a real jerk to me for no reason that I could think of. He dumped me, so I have no idea why he was being so awful. I was hating myself for still loving him when he was being such a jerk, and I sought release and bandaids again.

It's been about two months since the last time. That really means nothing, because it was four months between February and when I started again in summer. When I stopped feeling depressed about a month ago, I thought I might be far enough past those horrible feelings that I would be able to regulate my daily emotions and stress without turning back to self injury. Something has come up again which makes me worry that it's a near-future possibility I will cut again.

You don't have to worry that criticism of my screenplay will be taken personally or put me at risk. I've tried to make Elizabeth's circumstances different enough from mine that apparently, while I was feeling safe and happy, I lost my reason for caring about her. But my work is sucking so far. My last truly good screenplay work was also inspired by my life, and I played it much closer to home but still came out of it feeling the character was very separate from me. It was like I was a big bubble and I pinched until that work was another little bubble next to me. I'm thinking there's a real possibility that I will chose to scrap a lot of the elements and basically start over on Elizabeth's story over Turkey Break or Winter Break.

And please don't worry about my sanity or anything. If I hadn't told you, you probably would never have suspected anything. I just needed an extreme self-regulation and coping method, and I'm trying to be done with it. They were basically deep scratches and part of what helped me was the process of cleaning and bandaging them. You're welcome to try to psychoanalyze me, but I wasn't abused as a child, and it's obviously not attention-seeking behavior because I'm usually trying to hide it.

Elizabeth's Confidante, pt 2

Okay, I cut Elizabeth down to one sister. Hannah is more socially outgoing than Elizabeth and probably prettier, but in a cute way that should be hard to hate or be consciously jealous of. I didn't exactly give her a smart sounding voice, but I think there's still room in her characterization for her to have a tiny edge over her sister's academic achievement. I wrote her younger, young enough that growing up Elizabeth probably had to look after her for several years and wait for Hannah to catch up. That kind of history can put a strain on siblings, and I'm hoping Elizabeth comes off as the type to downplay and hide that strain, but it's probably still there a little.

If she doesn't, tell me, let's make notes, and then I have concrete things to fix next term. I really need to be keeping a legit record of the notes and advice I receive on each section of script so I know exactly what's most important to change next term, although changing those things will invariably change billions of tiny things throughout the script, it would nice to know what major things were most bothersome in this very first version of things.

Elizabeth needs a confidante.

I'm trying to tailor Elizabeth's character into the kind of person who believably doesn't make new friends easily, so she's down to just a few by the "first job" point in her life. I think that the harmful emotional coping/controlling habit of self-harm is psychologically more likely in someone who doesn't have a good social support network, whether because of quality or quantity.

However, Elizabeth needs a confidante so that the script can have dialog mixed in with the action of Elizabeth acting mildly manic-depressive because she cuts and can somehow pretend to be normal when she "empties out" her depressive feelings. So, should I bring in a best friend who has doggedly maintained the friendship through things that most other friends melted away because of, like moving and getting full-time careers? Or should Elizabeth's confidante be a sister?
          And if sister: older, younger? Is the sister prettier, higher achieving, both? I wrote Elizabeth's bio so she had two sisters, one prettier, one "smarter," but she doesn't need two, as long as there's one around to make her secretly feel inferior while she expresses pride in her sister; one whom her parents seem to love more, even though parents really love all their kids the same amount.

Right so: are we going for a super-friend, or a sister? Should I show reasons why Elizabeth is messed up inside, or should I give her a best friend/foil with a really social friend who makes damn sure to maintain their college or high school friendship?