Scars. On the inside and on the outside.
Wounds heal, scars stay. Forever.
There are scars all over my arms. Scars all over my lower legs.
Especially those on my arms can easily be seen by other people in summer. I remember my teen years. I was anxious to hide any hint of self injury. And I was so embarrassed when I failed. I thought of the most creative lie for any injury. Not just the neighbors’ cat. That’s lame. My father was building a wooden summerhouse (true part) and I feel and hurt myself on a wooden board with nails on it (lie…). There were more of those lies. But I didn’t keep it up for a very long time. There is a difference between wounds from self-injury and accidents. And once there are too many of those wounds… there’s just no other explanation.
I was always suprised that people would still ask what I’ve done. I am sure they wouldn’t have asked if they had know for sure that the scars were from self-injury. Well, after a short time, I stopped lying. Things were just too obvious, I couldn’t stand thinking of new accidents anymore and actually, I just didn’t care what people would think.
So I told them. “Yeah, this IS what it looks like! This IS self – injury. I DID cut myself. And people were like “Oh.” More often than not, that was the only thing they said on this topic. That was fine with me. Actually, I wasn’t embarrassed anymore. I would have talked to them about it. It became easy for me, I was frank with anyone who wanted to talk about it, it wasn’t awkward anymore. But I think most people just can’t take it. They don’t want to hear anything about these things. It doesn’t have a place in their ideal world. That’s okay. It’s not my concern.
A few weeks ago, something strange happened. I did cut myself again, on the backside of my lower leg. That’s bad enough, but okay… you all know, there are relapses. Always. And I am pretty sure there are still gonna be relapses for quite a long time. But they become fewer! That’s the good part!
Anyway, I did cut myself again. And it is summer. There were some really hot days. I do love the summer and I really don’t want to wear long clothes when it’s that warm… I love to feel the sun on my skin. And I didn’t want to bow. So I put on a summer dress and covered the injury with a little make up. I figured that most people wouldn’t look at that spot anyway, everyone is so busy with themselves… For the bigger part, I was right. But there was this one moment. Two friends and I were going to a bus stop. The street was steeply rising and I was going in front of them.
A mistake. But I simply forgot.
One of my friends was like “Devi, I just see this as I am walking behind you… what’s that on your leg?”
The other friend asked “Was it a cat?” (she was SERIOUS, no ironie or sarcarsm… I guess she doesn’t know it is a lame excuse for cutting yourself)
And at that moment, I noticed… it is much more difficult to talk about it when you see the actual injury. When you can see crusted blood instead of scars. When it is fresh. I have never been in that situation before! It was awkward. My voice was very cool and dismissive. I simply said “Yes, it is what it looks like. No cat. It was me and my scissors.”
My friends reaction:
“Oh.” “WHAT?” (very shocked voice)
Up to this day, we never talked about it again.
Tags: addiction, anorexia, borderline, bulimia, cutting, depression, eating disorder, fear, food, intuition, mental disorder, pro ana, recovery, relapse, self injury, therapy
