i bruise easily

i think this will be a rather serious post.......
i metioned this very briefly in my last post. i wanted to write about it properly, but the moment has passed - it occured exactly a week ago, and that's too long ago for me to write about it properly with real feeling. i would leave it out altogether, but i feel as if its something i should write about.
basicly, i was having a pretty bad day last monday. well, to be honest, it had been building up all weekend. everything seemed to be going wrong, although i couldn't tell you specific things. i guess i was just going through a bad patch. but it really was a bad patch. things seemed to be going especially bad that monday evening. again, i couldn't really tell you what exactly, but almost everything that happened was making me break down and cry. not that i let on to my family, that is, i just bit my lip and held it inside. that evening after dinner the whole family was watching tv together - something we never do, but it was neccessary that night for reasons that aren't important now. i went out into the hall to do something, something that was actually driving me nuts, but i had to keep working at it or i felt that i would burst into tears - and by the way, i know this is sounding just like overactive hormones or whatever, but trust me, they have never, ever been this bad. anyway, i was in the hall working on this thing to keep myself sane, but eventually i just couldn't stand it anymore. there happened to be a cushion on the floor (don't ask why) and i just lay there and started sobbing quietly so the rest of my family couldn't hear me. i lay there for a good while, actually, but then i finally got up and went upstairs to have a shower. the shower didn't cure me though, so when i got back to my room i put on my Avril Lavigne CD ("Under my Skin"). i've had it for about 6 years, i'd say, but that music is still as depressing as it ever was - i hadn't listened to it in about four years, it truely is my sad music. anyway, i was sitting there, on my bed, with music playing in my room and my family all watching tv downstairs, and so no-one could hear me. after a minute or two i felt the sadness wash over me again, like i knew it would, and broke down into sobs once more. by the second song on the album i coulddn't even sit up anymore, and so i was lying down on my side on my bed, with my hair still wet and a damp towel still around me. im not sure exactly when my carefully controlled tears turned into gasping, heaving sobs, but they did. sometime in the middle of all this i looked down at my bare, still damp arm underneath me, and hated it. i'm not proud of it, but i was so repulsed and upset and generally not even thinking straight that i started hitting it, hitting it as hard as i could, with all my strength. i wanted a bruise, something to not let me forget about it. i felt if i closed my eyes and didn't see myself do it, then it didn't hurt. i was literally putting every ounce of strength in my body behind those punches; by the end of the album i didn't even have to close my eyes, i was so far gone i couldn't even feel them. i was using as much force as X had used on me that day in Cappanalea, if not more. i know it sounds so crazy stupid, but i really wanted to have a bruise, just so i myself could see it. by the time the album was halfway through its second run i was beginning to calm down just enough to know that i had to get it together enough that my parents wouldn't be suspicious when they came up to bed. by the time my mum stuck her head around the door to tell me to turn my music down, my swollen eyes just looked tired and she didn't question me.
i didn't have a bruise the next morning (it was on my inner forearm; a word of warning to anyone - you don't bruise there) but it did hurt the second i put any pressure on it, or even just folded my arms, for the next two or three days - perhaps even more than a bruise. and the worst thing was, i didn't even really regret it...
before you tell me, i know what i did was really, really stupid. the only time i ever did something like it was about two years ago, again only one night, when i delibrately scratched my wrists a few times - just with my fingernails though, and not really very hard.
i'm not the kind of person who self-harms.
i love my life, and i wouldn't give it up for anything.
i never plan to do that again, so please, don't worry. it was just a moment of weakness. i was having a bad day, going through a bad patch. i just needed that one little release.
i promise.
xxx