My skin is a map of what has happened in my life. Engraved with sad and unfortunate events, a series of memories are etched on every sliver of my flesh. The internet calls them ‘scars,’ a symptom of my ‘self harm’ as a result of my ‘trauma.’ But at the end of the day, I don’t see it as harm at all.
My nails trace the grooves of my skin as a child grips its blanket, seeking comfort and peace as chaos swirls around them. I’ve been ‘picking’ since I was a child, seated in the bathroom long after the flush as my tiny hands sought out ugly bumps and dips. These impurities, manifestations of my inner mistakes, seep from my soul in dark red drops, staining the lines of my palms. It has always been this way for me, a release of what is bad on the inside, attempting to relieve myself of whatever made me the way I am. I know once it’s gone, when the evil entity inside me disappears, I won’t need to do it anymore. But considering that the itch in my fingers remains, begging me to search for new bumps and spots, it seems that this has not yet happened.
I went for a time believing this act to be bad, and deep down I know it is true. When times are bright and pure, joy ringing in my ears and wrapping my heart in its light embrace, my hands rest for a time, choosing to occupy themselves in other ways. Perhaps they’ll wash my hair, stiff and tangled after days of mismanagement. Blend creams and pigments into my skin, concealing the darkened circles and red puffs lining my swollen eyes. They may even slice and stir with culinary mastery, preparing the first proper meal I’d consumed in a good while. These moments are when the bad thing fades, hiding itself deeper down within me, down to the tips of my freshly painted toes. Yet as always, it returns. The paint chips and scratches return to my arms and legs, my torso and behind soon to follow. The darkness rises like phlegm in my throat, choking me out in the middle of the night as I lay on my tear-soaked pillow, unphased by the slumber ‘regular folk’ so easily succumb to. Indications of my badness appear all over, covering my skin with innumerable monsters to slay.
Picking and scratching, pulling and squeezing, my hands work their way down my body, following a choreography set long ago. As time passes and the work continues, the pressure falls away. My throat releases as cool, fresh air flows down, coating my aching lungs. My eyes dry and close as my slowing breath fills the silent room, ushering sleep to take me away for the few hours I had managed to reserve before the sun decides to return. My dreams are dark and muddled, filled with the faces of those I had disappointed, and who had disappointed me. I listen closely as voices enter my mind, reminding me of the truths of my very existence. How my kindness is truly manipulation, my innocence rather a manifestation of ill-timed ignorance. I am stupid, dumb, rude, and cold. Being myself is not enough, not until I warp it into the correct, perfect form.
The words and images scald my brain with honestly dishonest truths, smoking and swelling until the heat is unbearable, flinging open my tired eyes to the sunlight dancing across my bedroom walls, welcoming me to another day of internal solitude. I stretch, yawn, and arise, moving my body in either direction to release the tensions of the night. I greet God through my window and head to the bathroom, hands already moving hungrily up my red, swollen arms.
This is how I remember every day and night to be, and why this relief is so important. The way that it carries me through the night into the morning sun, shielding me from the demons that lie within and beyond my punctured psyche.
My hands guide me to a world beyond this one, a place where every harsh word and painful act is resolved with a simple movement of the ends of my fingers.
How could I choose to abandon this world, leaving it behind for some artificial semblance of ‘healing’ and ‘recovery,’ knowing how undeniably temporary these states of being are? I couldn’t. Not now, not ever.
So is it really harm, a symptom of my trauma? In layman terms, sure.
I see the pain in the eyes of those who don’t understand, their faces contorted with confusion and anger as they catch me leaning over the sink, anxiously picking under the warm light. The questions in their mind travel across their brow and frowns, wondering how someone could expose themselves to pain as a way to relieve it. They ask what I’m doing, I say nothing, and they nod as their hands encompass mine gently, an attempt to silence my mind, save me from myself perhaps. They don’t seem to get what it is like, to need a catharsis so badly that all you’re left to use is your own skin. Of course it’s not harm, it’s medicine; a cure to the constant darkness clouding the corners of my vision, to the ache lying across my spine, weighing down every step. When painkillers and depressants don’t work, when their effects no longer dull the sharpened edges of past acts, past words, past faces that torment me through the night, I am left with the tools on the end of my arms, already exhausted from carrying their daily load. With every scratch and poke comes the relief, better than any prescription or appointment that could be given to me, better than every tear I have ever shed in hopes that the bad things were leaving with them.
Really, all I have is my skin. And how could I stop, when it already holds the secrets and memories of my life thus far? How could I stop the book before the ending, especially when it’s been so good since I cracked it open?
No, I couldn’t, not ever. It is my relief.
However, despite my indignation or ‘stubbornness’ as some like to say, I do think to the future. The time when I can pass the book along, as so many others do. When a tiny creature with my eyes and his nose catches me writing down the difficulties of the day, adding punctuation and grammar across my forearms and thighs? How can I look at her and lie, tell her it doesn’t hurt? Omit how deep the writing can go, scraping the letters of hurt and sorrow into the weakened pages, oftentimes ripping through.
How it feels to look in the mirror at the end of a long day, the compulsion staring back with a sinister spotted grin, reminding me that everything I see across my skin I did to myself. The drop in your chest as hardened scabs are littered across your elbows and knees, signs of how hard it was to get through yesterday, how much harder it will be for them to go away.
How could I stare into her round face, untouched by the bad things, by my bad thing, and introduce her? Stare at this little person, so beautiful and light, a sign of all of the good inside of me, and tell her that there is a bad in me I have to get out?
Is there even a way to tell her without teaching her the same, that the bad in me has somehow passed to her? And ultimately, how could I do that to her knowing full well that once you start, it is near impossible to stop?
No, I wouldn’t. Not ever.
Maybe they are right, just a little bit. Maybe there’s some truth to the harm of my relief, like the remnant burn from a shot of rum. Maybe I should try to stop, seek out other options to relieve the bad thing inside me, work to unweave it from my stained and pitted brain. Maybe I could do it, work to make myself all better, not just for me but for everyone else who cares, those here and those to come. If I could just drop the ugly habit, this compulsion I’d known since youth, perhaps I could end up alright. Maybe my manuscript, the details of my life, the recollections of hard times and tough moments, perhaps they could eventually go away too, leaving me with an unmarked page of renewal from head to toe. Maybe it could all be all right if I started today, right now, right this minute, to get better.
But that then leaves me with the dilemma, the wall I have always encountered when I wanted to quit: How can I do it, make it through each day, make it through this miserable, difficult life, without it?
How can I knowingly expose the people I love to my bad thing without at least trying to eradicate it? Ensure it is gone for good, and every mark and bump that comes with it?
I cannot, and as such, I cannot quit.
Maybe one day, when everything is okay. When that tiny face is shining its light onto me.
Maybe. But just not yet.
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