Snowballs (Part 1 of Designs)

Whilst in therapy last Friday, I was asked, „How did you start self harming?“ A simple question. The answer isn’t. Its a complex web of curiosity, self loathing, self punishment, antidepressants and relief. I don’t know what prompted her to ask this question; After all, I’d been seeing her almost two months, she’d never really touched on it before and my wrists were clean of any fresh cuts. The twisted and gnarled flesh of my left wrist is half tattooed, half exposed. It’s my wanting to hide, burry the past and wanting the constant reminder that I survived, that I have a remarkable strength somewhere inside me. I’m a visual person by nature, so that’s probably why I need and on some level enjoy seeing the deep ridges in my flesh. Its smooth, despite the layers of criss crosses imbedded in them. 

I replay the question over and over again in my mind while staring at my wrist. My fingers dance across my entire arm. Its not only my wrist thats scared. Underneath the tattoos, white, semi-ridged scars peek out. They wrap around the entire underside of my forearm. „Well, I was 11 almost twelve. It was summer, late June. I’d read this article in some kind of magazine for young girls that talked about self harm, how it was on the rise and it shared the stories of three girls who’d self harmed over come it or still do it. Shit like that.“ „How does that pertain to you?“ „After reading it, I was curious. They all told different variations but one theme was constant; relief from emotional pain. I wanted to know if that would work for me. Could I gain that same level of relief? Could I discover something else about myself just as these others had? Now, before you start, their gender is irrelevant. Despite my open dislike for women, it was nowhere near the level that it is today, I wanted what they had. Insight, maturity and even if it was for a fleeting moment a break in the noose that was growing tighter around my throat.“ I stop. „Doesn’t the cutting hurt?“ I wanted to smack her. What kind of therapist doesn’t understand this? Its psychology 101, you learn shit like this the fist few weeks. 

„Cutting releases endorphins and endorphins relieve pain. Its a natural antidepressant. And, I’m not going to lie, I became hooked on it. It propelled me to another state of consciousness. I could see myself from the outside. Think of a calm on a lake on autumn day. Just like that.“ „Anyway, back to the beginning. I’d broken a picture frame and taken the glass out. I carefully twirled the shard between my index finger and thumb. I was scared, but also waiting for the perfect moment. And something inside me broke and I found myself opening my physical casing. It wasn’t deep, but it wasn’t a minor scratch. It burned, but it felt so good. In a matter of minutes, the entire upper part of my left arm was covered in angry, semi-deep red wounds. I sat back and breathed in. I drew breath in a way I never had before. I pressed toilet roll to the weeping wounds, smiling at what I’d done. I was proud. I was relaxed. I was stupid. I’d opened the door to a battle I didn’t even have a concept of.“ 

„Does it still feel that way now?“ „Each time is different you see. Anger, sadness, frustration at myself and others that I can’t take it out on. Its as if the blade is the charcoal that absorbs the poison with in. It started out small and progressed quickly thought the years, though there were a few lulls in the action, so to speak. I don’t remember all of the smaller incidents that lead up to the big event. Its like when I’m working on a manuscript, yeah? There are some parts of it that stand out so vividly and the others I have no memory of.“ „And what was that big event?“ „It came to a head 4 years later. I was 15. The school year was coming to a close and I was hit with the realization that I’m completely alone. My mates aren’t my mates. I saw them all making summer plans and none of them were including me. Now that they didn’t need me to help with assignments I was worthless. I collapsed realizing the entire situation for the first time.  This time, I didn’t use broken glass, but a box cutter that I’d stolen from my father.“ 

„Now don’t start on all that Freud shit that its because I wanted my father to hurt me, that it was the way that he shows his love-through abuse or that the box cutter was symbolic of my father’s penis and the repressed desire that I want to fuck him. It was neither of those things. It was merely convince. It was sharp, close by and it was something I knew that could get the job done. I have no real feelings toward my father, he is what he is. Fuck him. He wasn’t involved then and he isn’t now. Its sort of one of those coin flip things, you know? Meaningless and empty. I learned early on that I’d never gain his approval, so I stopped craving it.“ She leans back in her chair. „You’re very insightful. Its amazing that you know all this and have such an understanding.“ „I know I look like a dunderhead, but I’m far from it…now back to the cutting shall we? I turned on a record that summarized all I had felt and was feeling. It was „In Love and Death“ by the Used. The moment they struck the first cord of the first track, the blade dug into my skin. It was a sharpness I was unfamiliar with. I’d never used anything this sharp before. It was virtually painless. One cut became six and I couldn’t stop. I was in an emotional frenzy, slashing any part of my body that I could reach. By the time the record ended I was slashed from shoulder to wrist on both arms, my thighs were slashed and my lower stomach was layers with horizontal wounds. I was soaked with blood, but I never felt more alive. I showered and fell asleep faster than I ever had before.“ 

„What happened after that?“ „I got caught. Frau Gustafson caught me. I was leaving after first period and she’d seen little bloodstains around my wrists. She asked me what was wrong and I’d said nothing. She didn’t want to push me, but she knew something was wrong. She edged up my sleeve to see dozens of gouges in my skin. Even all these years later, her gasp still echo through me and I remember it in the most quite of times. I as granted a sympathy that I didn’t deserve and a concern that I’d never seen before. I was sent to the medical room to have the cuts attended to, as I hadn’t covered them with anything but the sleeves of my pullover.“ 

„I showed all my friends. On some level I was wanting their attention, to show them what they’d done to me, but I also wanted to show my strength. ‚Look what I can do to myself. You have no power over me. Look what I can endure.‘ Two of them met me with looks of horror and confusion. They didn’t say anything about the cuts and I explained them away that I’d been in some sort of knife fight and came out on top.“ „What happened with the nurse on your campus?“ „She cleaned the wounds and dressed them, which I detested. Still to this day, I don’t like to cover the wounds. They’re for women and children. I want them to breathe into me just as I’ve exhaled into them. She sent me to my lessons for the rest of the day, but I didn’t know that she’d rang my mum, who’d in turn told my dad. As I was leaving Frau Gustafson pulled me aside and told me that she was there if I needed to talk and that my parents had been called.“ My heart sank. Thats just what I needed. I knew that as soon as I walked through the door at home the torture would commence.“ „Torture?“ „That I would be made fun of for being strange and abnormal. That I had offended them with my self harm. As if they had any real idea of what it means to be offended.“ „I sense anger.“ „You’re damn right I’m angry. Instead of comforting me, I was belittled. I was told that I was some kind of freak for doing that to myself, that that was the reason my peers didn’t want to spend time with me. I was paraded in front of my younger siblings, exposed  and they taunted me. ‚Look at this! Do you want to turn out like this?’ The memory is still just as vivid and painful as when it was occurring.“ „What happened after that?“ „I was sent to take a bath to wash the cuts and then to my room. The emptiness and shame that I’d been caught echoed through me that entire night that I laid awake.“