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So what are the purposes behind your scars?
Printer-friendly versionWhat I mean is, that every scar has a purpose.
I have so many.
I know the one that came from my first cut. It's on my right forearm on the back, a couple of inches away from my wrist. It was fear, anger, and self-hatred that drove me to taking the plunge and cutting myself after doing things like pinching, scratching, and using needles to tear my skin. My dad was screaming at somebody in the background and I just wanted to have something I could call my own.
I have a number of scars on my arms but they have turned white with time so they don't get noticed. It's funny, though, in the past month several people have asked about them or let me know they've noticed them. I don't remember where most of my scars came from. There's the largish ones from a night with a butcher knife on my upper arm. I wanted to see how far I could go. There's the one on my wrist. It's not large. I wanted to see if I could ever slit my wrists (this was before I learned the correct way) and be done with it. There's the ragged one that makes up the word 'Dying' (heh, I was clichéd, wanted to write 'Dying is an art') and which I used my teeth to cut out a stubborn piece of flesh.
There are the ones on my breasts, so many of them they melt into one another that the flesh is strange and sometimes numb if you press down. Their purpose? Hiding the fact that I was still self-injuring, destroying my sexuality, comfort with that location, the looks on the faces of the nurses whenever they'd cry about how my future husband would be devastated by the scars.
All in all, there are so many things behind each scar and I can't remember the majority of my reasons. I don't try to count too often but my siblings have tried counting the ones on my arms with little success and in some places I can't even count because it's just one big scar.
Fear, anger, self-hatred, self-punishment (when I was religious, like the time I cut a cross between my breasts when I was fifteen), dealing with the past. Some of it was sneering at the mental health workers dealing with me, see what you can't keep me from doing, that sort of thing. Part of it was seeing how far I could go. Not in terms of damage but in terms of chipping away at my body bit by bit.
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I didn't know where to go.
1 year () (Permalink)I didn't make a conscious decision when I started. In the weeks leading up to it, I would just dig my nails into my skin, I guess to keep from crying sometimes. There are three separate times I've self-harmed that I believe led up to the path I am on now.
The first time I recall vividly. Early September of '09, I was thirteen. Right around this time of year, actually, but I can't remember the exact date. I was standing in my bathroom and there was a cut on the fleshy part of my hand, below my thumb, and I had no idea how it got there. I opened it back up with this broken thing that was supposed to be for cleaning your teeth. The sharp metal did the trick, and I was a little confused, but better; I didn't give it much thought.
The second time, I was at a high school football game. It was later in September, just before my birthday. I was still thirteen. My mom was so sick. I remember that because she never got sick, and she had to go to the hospital on the night of my birthday party. She said it was the worst pain she had ever experienced, her stomach was hurting so bad. She had a miscarriage, we later learned. Our car wouldn't start, and we were waiting for Triple A to come fix it; my mom and brother were inside the building, and I was waiting outside, sitting on the hood of our car. Sliding off the silver Navigator, my feet hit the asphalt of the school parking lot and I wanted to cry. And I had no idea why. I begun to pace back and forth along the fence that rimmed the school grounds. 'All my friends hate me,' I thought. 'They're just pretending to be my friend because they don't want to hurt my feelings. But I know everyone thinks I'm a freak.' I felt so completely alone. Everyone else had left the school by that time, and the dark night was encroaching on me. Summer was turning to fall, and I wanted to go back to the glorious summer that was before. Lost in memories, the moonlight glinted off a jagged piece of broken fence, the metal protruding from the uniform chain links. Without thought, I reached my arm out, catching the barely-marred skin against the sharp edge. It dug into the inside of my wrist, and blood flowed over. And I felt better for a moment.
The third time was on October 31st, Halloween of 2009. My older sister and I had a huge fight -- worse than all the others we've ever had, even to this day. After that we seemed to stop fighting, but our relationship was forever changed. I begun to hate her after that. It was also the day I realized I was a cutter.
I'd never heard the term "self-injury" before, but my sister and two of my closest friends used to cut, so I knew what that was. But I didn't recognize it in me at first.
"I hate you!" I screamed at Nikki, my body curved forward in anger, feet spread apart in a defensive stance.
"This whole family hates you!" She volleyed back, "I hate you! Mom hates you! Dad hates you! Quintin hates you! No one wants you in this family!"
Her statement only confirmed my doubts. I know now that it's ridiculous to believe her words, but they only fueled my greatest fears. Spinning around, I wheeled for my bedroom. This argument took place in the hallway between our rooms, and I was grateful for the proximity. No one was home -- my parents were at my little brother's football game -- so I slammed my door, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't have my father to answer to afterward. I'm sure Nikki's door was slammed too, but I was too caught up in my own dramas to notice it. Making a beeline for the closet, I scooped my latest implement from the floor -- a sharp stitch ripper that belonged with my sewing tools -- and scaled the shelves. Settling onto the top shelf, crouched in the fetal position, I made one short incision and pressed the metal repeatedly into it until blood sprang out. Tears were streaming down my face; the pain couldn't stop them this time. The plastic blue handle of my utensil stood in stark contrast with the red that it pulled from my skin, and I couldn't hear the front door bang shut over the sounds of my sobs. I heard the screams of my name and reluctantly dropped from my perch, leaving the bloodied ripper in the recesses of my closet. When my feet hit the carpet and my mom reprimanded me for hiding in my closet, crying, fighting with Nikki -- of course she had already told her, those two were close -- all I could feel was shame. I remember thinking 'If only you knew what I was doing in that closet, then maybe you wouldn't be yelling at me.' I realize now, what with her ignoring it, that it would have made no difference, but in that moment I was so angry. With that thought, I finally understood -- I was my sister, I was my best friend, I was Sarah -- I was a cutter.
As for the purpose behind my scars? It's all of this and more. It's completion and fixing of myself; it's distraction and punishment; it makes me whole.
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