scars.

i don't want to wear sleeves to prom. who are they to judge my arms, my scars, how i cope with what i've been through? my psychiatrist says i have coping mechanisms to cope with my coping mechanism: apparently my obsessive planning of the timing, the setting out the instruments, where the new cut will fit in with the existing scars, the act, the release, the cleaning up afterwards, but then my telling myself "i'm too tired" or "i don't trust myself" is a way to hide from the grim realities of what i sometimes have to do just to make it to the end of the day. i don't need their opinions of it.

the deeper the cut, the more release, the worse the scab looks, the better i feel, the angrier the scar the more rewarding it is watch slowly fade. i think i like the risk, the knowing that i'm just an onion-layer of skin away from the vein that i can now see throbbing in the gaping slit; just a fraction more pressure and i'd be in hospital with getting dirty looks and sutures in my arm.

i'm sick of being told that i do this, or that i'm honest and open about it, for the attention. i don't get attention for it. i get worried frowns off my mother, insults off my father, tut-tuts off my boyfriend and odd looks in supermarkets. i'm not getting off on this. i'd give up in a heartbeat and never look back, if i thought i could.

but i refuse to feel ashamed. i have nothing to be ashamed of. i won't hide it. the only way to stop young, vulnerable, unhappy tweens from getting into it, and the only way to help get teens, young adults, minority ethnicity women, men in prison, the elderly, people suffering from illness, disease, depression, schizophrenia, anorexia, bulimia, body image dysmorphia, or whoever, out of it, is to talk about it and make help accessible. schools talk about sex and cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, obesity and anorexia, but never once has anyone mentioned self injury.

sometimes i need to cut just to be able to stop my head spinning in circles so i can sleep, or to be able to put on the necessary face to get through a day. sometimes i feel so consumed by fear or sadness i sneak off to public bathrooms and lock myself in a cubicle and slip a razor out of my purse. i am emotionally addicted to the release, i am physically addicted to the adrenaline and endorphins and hormones in my brain when i break the skin. the hormones are roughly the same strength as morphine. i have the abuse of my father and stepmother and the bullying from my childhood on replay in my head, i have the fear of abandonment and everyone leaving me ripping through me any time i perceive someone's body language to be distancing themselves from me.

okay then, but people say "attention seeking" like it's a bad thing. i'm asking for help in the only way that i know how. i'm letting my personal demons out of me with every new cut, just so i don't implode from the pressure and go off the rails. these injuries are war wounds, battle scars. i will not be judged for them.

i'm not wearing sleeves to prom.
March 24th, 2011 at 11:28pm