Old and Classy

Mar. 1, 2012 at 1:34pm with 18 notes

[TW: Self harm]

So today is self-injury awareness day, and I’m going to speak plainly about something I usually do not speak plainly about.

I self-injure. I have done so for years. I almost always have open or scabbed-over wounds on my back, breasts, and shoulders. When I’m in a particularly bad mental place, I may injure my arms, face, and stomach as well. Glorification of cutting, especially in music, can trigger me to self-injure.

I very rarely feel any support or even recognition, even in the midst of events like this.

Because my scars are not neat straight lines. They are blotches.

Because my method of self injury is not seen as a precursor to suicide or a call for help. It’s likely to be dismissed as “having bad skin” or at most as “a bad habit” even by the people closest to me.

Because there’s no “tool” or “weapon” for anyone to notice. My tools of self-destruction are constantly, literally at my fingertips.

In high school, I never worried about being seen as attention-hungry, the type of girl who followed the worst kinds of trends. I was too busy building up a delusion that mine was not real self-injury, despite the fact that in the locker room I was embarrassed far more by my scabby shoulders than by my large stomach or soft thighs, and despite the fact that I did not own a single nightshirt that was not bloodstained.

I have never once, in my entire life, intentionally cut myself. I don’t cut. I pick. I see the little imperfections on my skin and I feel the need to remove them, scraping and scratching and pinching with my fingernails. Most of the time, it’s blackheads or bugbites. Occasionally it’s freckles. I never intentionally burn myself, but when it happens by accident, I relish a good sunburn or half-healed blister.

I do think I pick less than I used to, though. Most days I’m no longer afraid to wear light-colored shirts. I don’t wear facial sores like a shield and a mask anymore. Even if I do still open new wounds on a pretty common basis, I’m better about letting them heal without picking the scabs back off. And I think a lot of the reason I’m getting better is that I’ve finally admitted that I’m doing something to myself that I shouldn’t be. That I’m trying to fix myself in ways that just make me feel more broken, and that this isn’t the only way to deal with it.

So I want to say to anyone else who comes across this and who also picks their skin: it’s ok to acknowledge that you’re hurting. That you’re hurting yourself. Even if other people can’t understand that you’re hurting yourself. You deserve to be happy and free from your sores just as much as any cutter, and I hope you get better.

‘Cause I’m going to keep getting better, and if I can, I know you can too.