Pseudowisdom from an Ex-Cutter

Rarely do I think about my scars these days. I know I must glance over them all the time, but the day has finally come when they no longer shock me. They're just there. Scars are to my arm as eyes are to my head. White, slightly raised, and in perfect rows up my lower left arm, it is obvious that they were not made by a cat or barbed wire, but by a human hand. People are surely aware of them but that no longer bothers me. They are permanent and a part of me.

Despite my acceptance of the scars, just having to utter those words, "MY SCARS", fills me with a little jolt of dread for a split second. This dread stems from knowing that I could have stopped myself. My skin would still be perfectly intact like a wee child had I never picked up that damned little razor blade. When I hear those words, "my scars", the cold hand of a nameless emotion passes over me, but it's gone in a flash. That piece of a memory will always be seared into my brain. It's like a permanent bug-bite; fortunately, writing about it helps me scratch it.

Saying they are mine feels almost synonymous to saying I like them. Accepting my scars makes the world believe something that isn't true. If I were to say "I take responsibility for what I did, and I love my scars," I walk a fine line on saying, "Hey, guess what, I used to hurt myself and I'm proud of it!" Some people will hear what they want to hear. I just have to accept that. I guess some would call me an ex-cutter, even though the label doesn't really resonate with me.

I never had a very good excuse. I was never physically or sexually abused as a child, nor was I neglected, overweight, unattractive, or unintelligent. My parents told me they loved me, I had close friends up until the 7th grade and everything about my childhood was generally normal, except for the fact that my parents divorced when I was nine. Even that has started to lean toward becoming the norm as we enter the 21st century. The fact of the matter is, I used to cut myself because... you know, I guess I'm still trying to figure that one out. As for friends (or lack thereof), that could be part of it. Friends make everything a thousand times better.

I feel torn. I think I'm forced with the decision to either love the scars or hate myself. There seems to be no middle ground. It's hard to like yourself as a whole when you hate big chunks of yourself. How can you say "I hate my body, mind, emotions, feelings, and/or life... but, as a whole, I absolutely love myself!!!"? It just doesn't flow, if you know what I mean.

I know everyone wants me to believe I'm not bad or wrong as a person, but at the same time, it's like they want me to feel pain. Pain: is that just another word for life? Am I just a weakling, and that is why I cannot accept it? I've always thought it was a strong possibility that the reason I used to hurt myself was just to prove that I could take it. This is one of the less mentioned motives for self-injury, which sometimes makes it seem like a stupid excuse, and maybe it is.

Another possibility is that I did it to punish myself. What did I do that called for punishment, you ask? I'm sorry, but I still can't answer that.

I do know that at the time, I was dealing with a lot of confusion and frustration. My parents splitting up after 18 years of marriage was hard on both them and me. I moved back and forth between my parents' houses until I finally decided I wanted to live with my dad. I was feeling isolated and depressed because I was having trouble making friends and getting used to my new school, all the while living with my dad in some strange woman's house who he was suddenly sleeping with (does the word "rebound" come to mind for anybody?). It all added up to overwhelming stress. Sometimes it was like, "Maybe if I just slice myself open, I'll find a glowing treasure chest full of wonderful secrets that will solve all my problems once and for all." Oh, wouldn't that be nice?

People are always trying to "fix" you when they find out you hurt yourself. "What's wrong with you?" they say, "Let me help!" Yeah right, as if they could possibly understand. It's none of their god damned business anyway, don't you think? Maybe that's a little bit overreacting, but I know some people have felt that way before. Plus, people can be extremely invasive assholes sometimes.

"Cut" is such a cold, rigid, dead word that just doesn't truly capture the point. The point is not that you cut yourself, the point is that it hurt. Obviously everyone has felt pain before. Each one of us have intentionally hurt ourselves at one point in our lives. Whether it be physically injuring ourselves, worrying and feeling guilty about things or making certain choices that we later regret, these things can all be equally harmful. The problem is, people want something they can put a label on and point a finger at. Self-injury provides that concrete, physical evidence that people so desire. When someone sees your arm covered in slashes, they suddenly feel sorry for you, even if they're not quite sure why. Honestly, what a great feeling! At 12 years old I was already a little attention-seeking whore.

I remember when I was a little girl I bit my arms and hit my head on walls when my mom got mad at me. At the time, it didn't hurt, it actually felt good. Usually I would get frustrated because she would misunderstand what I was trying to say as something against her and blow her top. She didn't give me time to explain before she took it out on me. Mom was always angry at somebody, always about virtually nothing, so there was really no reason to take it personally. But when you're a kid, you believe everything your parents say, so when your mom says something like "What the hell is your problem! You must have something wrong with you," you take it to heart, even if it's not as bad as hearing that you're ugly, fat and useless. Everyone has flaws, myself included, so I can't really blame her. She was a wonderful mother and there's no one else on earth I love more, she just has a bit of a sharp tongue. How much all this has to do with my later cutting incidents, I'm not sure.

A couple years after I quit cutting, I took up the occasional hobby of burning myself with matches, or scratching myself with nails, this time on my upper thigh so it would be easy to hide. Just like with any other addiction, when I did this, I would always tell myself "It's just one time, just once. I'm not one of 'those people' anymore. I'm better than that now." But then I would do it again, and after that, one more time. I would always find a reason, whether it was because it felt good, because I was bored, because blood looked cool, or (my personal favorite to tell my parents) "I wanted to make a smiley-face with the top of the lighter, kinda like a tattoo." Ah, an ironic little smiley-face burned into my arm. How lovely.

When you get a piercing or tattoo, you are purposefully inflicting pain on yourself and it leaves some kind of wound or mark. Is that not the definition of self-injury? SI(self-injury) and bodymods are both done as a form of self-expression of often similar feelings, like angst or frustration with the utterly hopeless state of the world we live in (corny, I know, but true nonetheless). Maybe if having scars really bothers you, you can think of scars as body-mods, kind of like art on your own personal canvas. Perhaps all those scars can be a map of what you've been through. Each scar could be like a tally-mark on the wall of a jail-cell, signifying another day you stood strong and hung in there. I'm not promoting further self-harm, I'm only trying to provide an alternative view of the existing scars.

In some ways I think smoking pot has replaced cutting for me as a more socially-accepted alternative. It's a way to deal with tress without people treating you like you're some kind of freak. There are innumerable pro-marijuana people out there, especially in my peer group, but there but very few people who are pro-SI and that minority is generally looked down upon by society for harming out youth. Maybe they should make cutting illegal instead. Marijuana never hurt anyone.

I hope this essay reaches someone. It's not the most heart-rending or well-worded story ever told, but maybe it will at least help pass the time for someone, or make them feel like they are not alone, that someone shares those difficult experiences with them. I am no expert on this subject, or really any subject for that matter. I merely dabbled in the art of self-harm for a short time as a young teenager, but during that time I got a little taste of what it's like to want to hurt yourself and I know that release that comes with from having done it. It sounds fun and all, but in the long run, it only keeps hurting you. Please don't think that you have keep hurting yourself. I don't want to sound preachy, but if you don't think you can stop on your own, seek help.

Before I leave you all alone in this world, dangling by a proverbial thread, I have but a few words of pseudowisdom: Know that you are okay just the way you are, don't take any shit from people, be yourself, and most importantly, legalize weed already! Even if it's just for medical use, at least it's more easily accessible for stoners and helps cancer patients. Peace be with everyone as you depart the realm of my essay!

Here are some things you might want to know about me:
I am a 16 year old female. I prefer not to talk about my residency. The damn government may be watching me and who knows what kind of shit they might try to pull if they knew where I live. Then again, maybe I'm just paranoid. Also, I am a self-proclaimed bisexual, which in my case pretty much just means extremely fucking confused and willing to try just about anything at this point (but not with strange old men off the internet. Forget it you perv!). I live in a prison, but they usually feed me, clothe me, take me to school and buy me all the necessary shit like cars and ipods and crap, so it's not too totally unbearable. God, the only other thing I can think to say is that writing this has helped me to undertand myself better, and I think that's a pretty good motive to do anything, so there you go! I really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and if not, feel free to kiss my ass! Or not, it's really your choice. People should have the freedom to choose how they want to live their lives under all circumstances.

Recently, I wrote a paper for my English class on the same subject and got an 'A'. I will also submit that one. It was more touchy-feely and heroic, which I knew would probably get me the grade, even though I like this one better. Eh, you do what you gotta do. The other story was more of a narrative than this and less of an essay and was entitled "Personal Canvas." Writing comforts me, and some people seem to think I'm kinda good at it, so maybe I'll stick with it.