“Oh God”. I stared wide eyed, horrified, at its broken body. The mid section appeared to be snapped, all bent and grotesque looking. With blood rushing into my face and eyes swelling with tears, I gripped it by its yellow outer shell that was starting to come off, curling and peeling at the part where it had fractured. It had barely been with us three weeks in this house before I brutally, unintentionally murdered it. You never know how powerful you are capable of being until you deprive something of its life and worth. My breath had slowed but my heart had sped up. My mind racing with one thought: I just broke my mom’s scissors. Her favorite scissors. My mom, always yelling about those scissors. Her voice was yelling in my head, replaying all those times she needed them; “WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS???” and “I JUST BOUGHT LIKE FIFTY PAIRS OF SCISSORS AND THEY’RE ALL GONE” and “GOD$^#~** I CAN NEVER FIND ANYTHING IN THIS HOUSE. WHERE ARE THE SCISSORS???”. My mom wasn’t even home but I could feel those words, those yells, vibrating against the walls, inside my head, pounding to get out. They echoed with the sound of my heart slamming against my ribcage.

I wiped my sweaty palms across the front of my pink and red plaid Justice ™  capri pants. The rhinestones scattered across my thighs seemed to reflect my image, with its judging, accusatory gleam. Sinner, they said to me. I remember when my mom bought me these. Even got the matching shirt, too. They were expensive and my mom didn’t have to get them. I remember when we picked it out together. Stepping into Justice ™  was never easy for my mom. It was like a glittery pink prison with feather scarf nooses and a suffocating smell of chemical fruitiness.Those terrifying wide eyed, animated animals staring from the walls and clothing. Those horrible pun shirts that featured the likes of a living peanut butter jar and an excited piece of bread dancing under the words “We Go Together”, almost threatening. So many shirts like this, all in neon green of course.  The tackiness of it all could have blinded even the strongest of people and the price tag alone for this rhinestone with a piece of shirt on it were probably the number one leading cause of cardiac arrest in America for parents of 2nd to 5th graders. But she took me there anyway and this is how I repaid her.

Suddenly, I came out of my trance. The garage door was opening. Mom was home. I ran upstairs, scissors in hand (another sin. So dangerous), short chin length hair flying behind me. I made quite the commotion given the fact that my pants were made out cardboard and they tended to rub against each other quite loudly. I threw open my bedroom door, practically dove into my closet where I buried those scissors under a pile of clothes, where they would lay for the next six months.

The next half year was filled with anxiety, hyperventilating, extreme caution, and acting extremely nice to my mother. She still did not know about those scissors. There had been a few close calls. One day I was sitting on the couch with my sister, watching some Wizards of Waverly place. Mom was in the kitchen, rustling around in the cabinets and drawers. It had been three months since the incident and it was nearly starting to slip from my mind. On the screen Alex Russo had gotten in trouble at school with her principle and in real life my mom had just realized she couldn’t find her scissors. “Girls, do any of you have scissors?’’ My eyes flew open and my heart jumped into my throat. “I’ll go check my room”, my younger sister said. How could she possibly be so casual??? Because she has no guilt. I looked down. The rhinestones again. I was wearing the same pants as the day of the incident. This time I made the decision to play along. “Yeah, I’ll go check too”. I shot up the stairs, slamming my door. I took out the scissors which I hadn’t beared to look at for three months. I shoved them even deeper in my closet. After, I just started rustling around in my drawers, pretending that I was looking for those scissors just in case my mom came in. “I can’t find any”, shouted my sister from her room. “Yeah, me neither”, came my voice right after. My mom merely responded with a simple ‘okay’. She sounded calm, apathetic. But I knew the battle was not over just yet.

Now here’s where the story gets pretty wild and yes, it is all true. These memories are some of my more vivid ones. Two months later and it had been five months from the incident. It seemed to consume my entire life. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t decide what my next decision would be. Lent was coming up as well. I went to a Catholic school and we always had confession before the Lenten season. I dreaded confession anyway but this one had me plotting my escape to Mexico. My class and I were walking single file to the Church. With each step I grew more panicked. “Do you have to tell everything?” I blurted out to the girl in front of me. She shrugged. “I never do”, she said. “What if it’s something really bad?”. The girl squinted at me. Oh God. I had revealed too much. I kept having this vision of the priest going to my parents, telling them what I had done. I had only made it worse by lying about it. What happens if you lie in confession? Before I knew it, I was sitting in front of the priest. I must have looked terrified because he told me to not be so nervous. I began the process: “Bless me Father for I have sinned…..” I gulped. I was about to tell him. “I broke my mom’s scissors.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You... broke your mom’s scissors.” My eyes were filled with tears. He must think I’m a horrible person. “Hmmm. Let’s say a prayer.” A prayer?? I had never had to say a prayer during my confession! They always had done that after! It was the Act of Contrition,by the way. Now I was sure that I was going to hell. I walked away feeling worse than ever.

Decisions, decisions. There’s not a lot of them when God is watching you. There’s even less of them when you have undiagnosed anxiety. I was tip-toeing around the nails of the cross but my shaky hands and heart wouldn’t let me be steady. I stood and waited until my heart would allow my feet to move but my brain was always getting too far ahead of me. My head was always running away. Sometimes it went forward, screaming about punishments and failures and what the future, and my mother, had in hold. Sometimes it ran behind me. It was always replaying that day, those memories. Running backwards to those scissors, the moment they snapped. Sprinting to my 8 year old self who made fun of my sister’s acne. Slamming against my six year old self who stole money off my mom’s desk. Stumbling into my four year old self who pushed my baby sister into a wall. My brain ran back and forth  and I came along with it, leaving me breathless. I was four and six and eight all in one day and I knew I couldn’t change those sins I committed. I was twelve, fifteen, twenty-one, and forty and I didn’t even know what was going to happen then and I don’t know what scared me more. But those nails never let me run fast enough to keep up with my brain. I wanted to be four when my brain was four but it only worked halfway because I was still stuck being eleven. And sometimes those nails looked too much like scissors when I looked forward or backwards when what below me was blurry and out of focus so I constantly had to look down to remind myself what they really were. Decisions, decisions that we can’t change.

So this is how it ends. I had a dream one night that I was in the school that was portrayed in Wizards of Waverly place. We were having a scissor throwing contest against the lockers to see who could get theirs stuck in the furthest. I threw mine, they stuck, I pulled them out. They were broken. The principal was standing beside me. “You know, you should just tell her. I really think she won’t care that much”. I agreed, in the dream sense. My mom was kind and easygoing. Scissors are entirely replaceable. I still waited a long time to tell my mom, long after I had thrown them out. This is a pretty funny story, I do admit. When I first told my mom and older sister (nearly three years later) we laughed and laughed about it. But this is also a story that reveals problems, huge problems, I was going to face in the future. Breaking scissors is not a big deal. Being unable to sleep or eat properly because of it, is. Religion can be a positive thing. Using it as a way to self-harm and demonize yourself is not. So while the story is hilarious in some respects, it really alludes to the fact that I had severe underlying mental health issues. It was the first story that I looked back upon and thought something is really not right with me. Not because of my ‘sin’ or lies but because of my guilt and anxiety and depression that came with it. But that was fifth grade me. That was Christian me. That’s the me that helped me come to the realization that I needed help. This is the me I don’t want to go back to, especially with those God-awful clothes. I’m still trying to find the me that I like and I’m comfortable with. But hey, I’m on medication now, I go to therapy, I know now that I’m Bipolar, and I’ve learned to get the message before my brain has to create a dream for me, telling me it’s okay. And it’s all okay. Those scissors were from the dollar store, and ironically we haven’t run out of any since.