I didn’t suffer child sexual abuse but I did experience a family situation of me not being able to say no and not being allowed bodily autonomy for various reasons, as well as pain from verbal attacks and constant high tension and potential rage. I remember telling my therapist with major shame at my privilege that I secretly liked cutting because it made my heart injuries physically visible, because I imagined had rather my parents (and teachers and coaches) physically hurt me than continue their unhealthy ways with me. I know that’s wrong and that no one should wish physical abuse on themselves but there was a real sense of making my pain visible.
I love that you are destigmatizing cutting. When I was cutting as a kid adults treated me like I was “just attention seeking” and they would give me all these psychology tests and I would answer the prompts as though I were the least depressed person on the planet, lol. I didn’t want to give those fuckers anything. They just wanted me to comply and stop cutting. Well, the adults were not letting me have autonomy, they were screaming at me, and I was supposed to be the face of perfection and peace. So obviously I had cuts.
I was a volleyball player. My photo was published in the newspaper of me blocking, my arms up, with visible cuts. I am grossed out by the photographer who put that in the paper. My parents showed me that photo in shame and anger. I still feel ashamed that “the world” knew my secret. It didn’t help me to publish that photo. It just exposed me to teachers, classmates, and parents in a way that made ME look crazy in the eyes of the world. Ugh. I need your writing to help me forgive myself. Cutting is harm reduction and body sovereignty. It is one hundred percent related to my drinking and smoking and punching and slapping myself, and is completely different from suicide. Thank you so much for your destigmatizing writing.
This is weirdly comforting; thank you so much for sharing. It offers an answer to a question I didn’t know I had, about how best to help people who have faced things I haven’t experienced.
Also, as someone who has struggled endlessly with fear and grief in relation to pain and suffering, I see a potential for clarity in this piece: of pain as release, pain as communication, pain as a vehicle for compassion. Last night I had a severe sinus headache and couldn’t sleep all night: that clear, bright, undeniable insistence on attention branched behind my nose and eyes like sustained lightning. Maybe it’s a kind of release; maybe it’s telling me something. At the very least it’s telling me to slow down and pay attention, so I’m taking the day slowly, forcing nothing.
Im in school to be a therapist and I really appreciate reading your writing and expanding my perspective on people’s experiences! Love that you’re sharing this with the world; I think it’s so helpful to many people
I resonate with this so much. When I would self injure regularly, I was in a place of extreme dissociation that was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever experienced. I always tried to explain the feeling to my therapist at the time and I still try when reminiscing about that time in my life, but I never felt like I could explain it. The best way I could describe it was that I felt like I was at the edge of myself, like I was about to fall off the Cliff of myself. I experienced severe structural dissociation due to complex trauma and I imagine that when it got that bad I was on the verge of my mind / sense of self and reality majorly splitting in ways I hadn’t experienced before. It would feel like I was about to lose consciousness. The absolute only thing that would bring me back in those moments was cutting. It was something I could feel when everything felt numb and unreal to an excruciating degree. It brought me back into my body. The blood and cuts were something I could see that visually told me I was still here, alive and human. Cutting was not about dying. It was about feeling. It was reaching out to my body in an effort to survive when I felt like I was going to lose myself completely.
The closest person in my life, my brother, had me forcibly institutionalized during those days. I will never get over the experience of being locked up like that, at a time in my life where I needed autonomy and actual help the most. It was so re-truamatizing, as the reason I was so crazy was because of forcible loss of autonomy of my body at the hands of other people in the first place. But I was able to continue our relationship. I think that he did not have capacity to hear/ understand the things you’ve written here or that I’ve written in this comment, and it’s a shame. I know that it was his idea of responding out of “love” — feeling inadequate to help or understand, and reaching for the most violent and also easiest “solution” he could find. I get why he felt the way he did, even though I don’t agree with it. It’s one of those things that even if you CAN figure out how to move on in relationship to the person who does that to you (or threatens it) when they fail to learn, change their minds about what they did and be responsible for it, it’s really the closing of a door to trust that person with your life and agency like you once thought you could. And it’s devastating.
God I resonate with this so much, thank you for sharing. I also have intense structural dissociation and I understand so much what you mean about falling off the cliff of yourself. That is a beautiful phrasing as well. I completely understand and empathize with your experience.
I am also a survivor of incest and found bright delicious meaning in cutting myself as a teenager. As a visibly queer kid I knew that my pain didn’t matter to anyone around me, so I would only cut in places that I knew no one would see, and it felt like a dance I did with myself, an act of love. It soothed me and made me feel real and alive. Reading this piece I’m also thinking about my anorexia as a teenager, a defiant claim of autonomy in a world where I had no control over how I was treated by my family or peers or the institutions I was subjected to. A way of bringing into the tangible world the spiritual and psychic terror I was experiencing. Thank you for your writing, you continue to open doors and portals and perspectives that are so necessary.
Sketchy+mad+loud+angry+chaotic+street-involved kids in all their infinite wisdom and bravery to the front (and center) always!! ✊(imagine the world if that were so!)
Wow, this was deep and I’m thankful for it. For me, those parts of me that society sees as the darkest parts are actually a light in the darkness, illuminating unmet pain and creating an invitation to meet myself further.
Can I say, I love this style of vulnerability. I relate a lot as I’m discovering writing as an outlet for my own pain after getting sober. This space to collectively bring witness to your story and process is refreshing. Thanks for putting yourself out there. This is inspiring work.
Memory of me burning my hands under hot water unlocked. I grew up in a hell hole filled with violence, rage and control over every aspect of my personhood (my childhood was terrifying) and I relate to this article a lot. My form of escapism and bodily autonomy is/was through finger (skin) picking. I struggle to fight the impulse to stop picking until I bleed- I still feel a sense of freedom and control in yielding blood -and (mild) pain on my own terms even 3 decades later. Thank you for this piece.
Parts of me are feeling so emotional reading this, so seen, validated, empowered. Like many, I have felt so much shame for being "crazy." I kicked these parts in an internal closet where I locked them up for a while myself, retraumatizing myself in the same way I was traumatized from the outside as a teenager- by making myself shut up and locking her away. I am so thankful I learned that I did this and have been able to get those "crazy" parts out of exile and show them how much I love them and reintegrate them back into my life. Reading this makes me feel so much joy that people are talking about this topic in this way- what the fuck is crazy? what the fuck is wrong with it? why the fuck are we judging highly skilled survival skills? Thank you so much for your vulnerability, I'm feeling so empowered reading your work.
I didn’t suffer child sexual abuse but I did experience a family situation of me not being able to say no and not being allowed bodily autonomy for various reasons, as well as pain from verbal attacks and constant high tension and potential rage. I remember telling my therapist with major shame at my privilege that I secretly liked cutting because it made my heart injuries physically visible, because I imagined had rather my parents (and teachers and coaches) physically hurt me than continue their unhealthy ways with me. I know that’s wrong and that no one should wish physical abuse on themselves but there was a real sense of making my pain visible.
I love that you are destigmatizing cutting. When I was cutting as a kid adults treated me like I was “just attention seeking” and they would give me all these psychology tests and I would answer the prompts as though I were the least depressed person on the planet, lol. I didn’t want to give those fuckers anything. They just wanted me to comply and stop cutting. Well, the adults were not letting me have autonomy, they were screaming at me, and I was supposed to be the face of perfection and peace. So obviously I had cuts.
I was a volleyball player. My photo was published in the newspaper of me blocking, my arms up, with visible cuts. I am grossed out by the photographer who put that in the paper. My parents showed me that photo in shame and anger. I still feel ashamed that “the world” knew my secret. It didn’t help me to publish that photo. It just exposed me to teachers, classmates, and parents in a way that made ME look crazy in the eyes of the world. Ugh. I need your writing to help me forgive myself. Cutting is harm reduction and body sovereignty. It is one hundred percent related to my drinking and smoking and punching and slapping myself, and is completely different from suicide. Thank you so much for your destigmatizing writing.
Solidarity.
This is weirdly comforting; thank you so much for sharing. It offers an answer to a question I didn’t know I had, about how best to help people who have faced things I haven’t experienced.
Also, as someone who has struggled endlessly with fear and grief in relation to pain and suffering, I see a potential for clarity in this piece: of pain as release, pain as communication, pain as a vehicle for compassion. Last night I had a severe sinus headache and couldn’t sleep all night: that clear, bright, undeniable insistence on attention branched behind my nose and eyes like sustained lightning. Maybe it’s a kind of release; maybe it’s telling me something. At the very least it’s telling me to slow down and pay attention, so I’m taking the day slowly, forcing nothing.
Im in school to be a therapist and I really appreciate reading your writing and expanding my perspective on people’s experiences! Love that you’re sharing this with the world; I think it’s so helpful to many people
I resonate with this so much. When I would self injure regularly, I was in a place of extreme dissociation that was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever experienced. I always tried to explain the feeling to my therapist at the time and I still try when reminiscing about that time in my life, but I never felt like I could explain it. The best way I could describe it was that I felt like I was at the edge of myself, like I was about to fall off the Cliff of myself. I experienced severe structural dissociation due to complex trauma and I imagine that when it got that bad I was on the verge of my mind / sense of self and reality majorly splitting in ways I hadn’t experienced before. It would feel like I was about to lose consciousness. The absolute only thing that would bring me back in those moments was cutting. It was something I could feel when everything felt numb and unreal to an excruciating degree. It brought me back into my body. The blood and cuts were something I could see that visually told me I was still here, alive and human. Cutting was not about dying. It was about feeling. It was reaching out to my body in an effort to survive when I felt like I was going to lose myself completely.
The closest person in my life, my brother, had me forcibly institutionalized during those days. I will never get over the experience of being locked up like that, at a time in my life where I needed autonomy and actual help the most. It was so re-truamatizing, as the reason I was so crazy was because of forcible loss of autonomy of my body at the hands of other people in the first place. But I was able to continue our relationship. I think that he did not have capacity to hear/ understand the things you’ve written here or that I’ve written in this comment, and it’s a shame. I know that it was his idea of responding out of “love” — feeling inadequate to help or understand, and reaching for the most violent and also easiest “solution” he could find. I get why he felt the way he did, even though I don’t agree with it. It’s one of those things that even if you CAN figure out how to move on in relationship to the person who does that to you (or threatens it) when they fail to learn, change their minds about what they did and be responsible for it, it’s really the closing of a door to trust that person with your life and agency like you once thought you could. And it’s devastating.
God I resonate with this so much, thank you for sharing. I also have intense structural dissociation and I understand so much what you mean about falling off the cliff of yourself. That is a beautiful phrasing as well. I completely understand and empathize with your experience.
I am also a survivor of incest and found bright delicious meaning in cutting myself as a teenager. As a visibly queer kid I knew that my pain didn’t matter to anyone around me, so I would only cut in places that I knew no one would see, and it felt like a dance I did with myself, an act of love. It soothed me and made me feel real and alive. Reading this piece I’m also thinking about my anorexia as a teenager, a defiant claim of autonomy in a world where I had no control over how I was treated by my family or peers or the institutions I was subjected to. A way of bringing into the tangible world the spiritual and psychic terror I was experiencing. Thank you for your writing, you continue to open doors and portals and perspectives that are so necessary.
Sketchy+mad+loud+angry+chaotic+street-involved kids in all their infinite wisdom and bravery to the front (and center) always!! ✊(imagine the world if that were so!)
❤️🔥 solidarity and gratitude to you in your work
Wow, this was deep and I’m thankful for it. For me, those parts of me that society sees as the darkest parts are actually a light in the darkness, illuminating unmet pain and creating an invitation to meet myself further.
Can I say, I love this style of vulnerability. I relate a lot as I’m discovering writing as an outlet for my own pain after getting sober. This space to collectively bring witness to your story and process is refreshing. Thanks for putting yourself out there. This is inspiring work.
Memory of me burning my hands under hot water unlocked. I grew up in a hell hole filled with violence, rage and control over every aspect of my personhood (my childhood was terrifying) and I relate to this article a lot. My form of escapism and bodily autonomy is/was through finger (skin) picking. I struggle to fight the impulse to stop picking until I bleed- I still feel a sense of freedom and control in yielding blood -and (mild) pain on my own terms even 3 decades later. Thank you for this piece.
Thank you! As someone who cut herself a lot at a teen, this resonates deeply!
Parts of me are feeling so emotional reading this, so seen, validated, empowered. Like many, I have felt so much shame for being "crazy." I kicked these parts in an internal closet where I locked them up for a while myself, retraumatizing myself in the same way I was traumatized from the outside as a teenager- by making myself shut up and locking her away. I am so thankful I learned that I did this and have been able to get those "crazy" parts out of exile and show them how much I love them and reintegrate them back into my life. Reading this makes me feel so much joy that people are talking about this topic in this way- what the fuck is crazy? what the fuck is wrong with it? why the fuck are we judging highly skilled survival skills? Thank you so much for your vulnerability, I'm feeling so empowered reading your work.