At age thirteen I started to cut myself. It began innocently enough -- I spent hour after hour cleaning up the dry skin around my fingernails with a hobby knife -- but it quickly became something much worse. Before I really knew what I was doing I had scabs on my ankles and forearms. When I was using the blade on myself it seemed like someone else was doing it to me, and I would stare at my cuts in mute horror and do my best to try to hide them.
My parents found out after a few months, and their horror was not so mute. All I remember was the crying which I think was me, and the yelling which I think was them. Or there might have been some the other way too. After long testing the specialist declared me PSS-negative. My parasympathetic serotonin system operates in the reverse of the normal manner: basically I cope better under stress. At some level I'm not happy unless I'm unhappy.
The cause was Ljungdahl Syndrome. My immune system had been attacking my own body for many years but had remained undetected because it had been isolated to glial cells in my central nervous system, and there are few outward symptoms in children. Not at least until puberty triggered my miss-wired PSS response.
I was sent to Hospital in Alberta where they killed my worthless immune system and fitted me with lymphatic biochips. I didn't realize how much of my own personality I had invested in being unenhanced until it was no longer true. Joining the ranks of the cyborgs in my limited way meant that I could no longer revel in my uniqueness, while at the same time everyone outwardly still saw me as different. Under drugs to suppress the self-mutilation impulse, I instead suffered a long dull depression.
In time I embraced it. My condition is part of me, part of what makes me who I am. Who am I? I'm the girl who's looking for trouble -- because under stress I'm grounded, and in hardship I'm strong.
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