![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Self-Injury Awareness Day (March 1st)
Mar. 1st, 2006 01:40 pmMarch 1st is Self-Injury Awareness Day. As I did last year, I'll start by mentioning that if you read this journal, you know someone who has self-injured.
The last time that I had to explain some scars to someone, he actually explained it for me -- I was trying to find the right words and he said, without prompting," You had a bad day?" And I said, "A really bad day." He wasn't pitying me, he wasn't being hurtful -- he was concerned that I had very obvious cuts and wanted to know what was what, in a very matter-of-fact way.
I have self-inflicted wounds and they've left scars. Tiny white lines on my thighs and I'm probably the only person who could pick them out. Light brown lines on my left arm from my last very bad day (which was months ago, maybe six) that mostly just look like slight indents, like I leaned up against something long enough to leave small marks.
They're part of who I am (and that's a good thing). There was a time in my life when I really did hate myself, when I couldn't understand why anyone might like me (and, by extension, anything that I might create), a time when I felt numb and lost and the only way I even knew I was still alive was to feel pain (here it may be obvious why I identify with S6 Buffy so much -- "this isn't real, but I just wanna feel").
I'm a lot healthier than I used to be (and I'm continuing to work on becoming healthier still) and not nearly as... fragile (this may be the wrong word, as I never did fully break, at least not to the point where I was actually irrecoverable). But it's good for me to remember where I've been, because everything used to feel grey and dull and now life is infused with more colors than I can name. The contrast makes them all the brighter.
In my particular case, I do believe that pain brought some measure of wisdom. And so I can't condemn or look down on the girl I was, just... finally, finally I can love her. And that's a very good thing.
The last time that I had to explain some scars to someone, he actually explained it for me -- I was trying to find the right words and he said, without prompting," You had a bad day?" And I said, "A really bad day." He wasn't pitying me, he wasn't being hurtful -- he was concerned that I had very obvious cuts and wanted to know what was what, in a very matter-of-fact way.
I have self-inflicted wounds and they've left scars. Tiny white lines on my thighs and I'm probably the only person who could pick them out. Light brown lines on my left arm from my last very bad day (which was months ago, maybe six) that mostly just look like slight indents, like I leaned up against something long enough to leave small marks.
They're part of who I am (and that's a good thing). There was a time in my life when I really did hate myself, when I couldn't understand why anyone might like me (and, by extension, anything that I might create), a time when I felt numb and lost and the only way I even knew I was still alive was to feel pain (here it may be obvious why I identify with S6 Buffy so much -- "this isn't real, but I just wanna feel").
I'm a lot healthier than I used to be (and I'm continuing to work on becoming healthier still) and not nearly as... fragile (this may be the wrong word, as I never did fully break, at least not to the point where I was actually irrecoverable). But it's good for me to remember where I've been, because everything used to feel grey and dull and now life is infused with more colors than I can name. The contrast makes them all the brighter.
In my particular case, I do believe that pain brought some measure of wisdom. And so I can't condemn or look down on the girl I was, just... finally, finally I can love her. And that's a very good thing.