Thoughts and experiences of life and mental health

Self-mutilation Part 9

Every blade I take is another scar left on the edge of my soul

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Most people declared I self-mutilated because I had been seeking attention. This cant be further from the truth, why would I then push through extremes to conceal the lacerations?

I self-mutilated because I felt that I deserved the pain, the humiliation, and the scars that were left on my body. I felt as though I was a defective human being, and therefore I deserved what I received in life.

On the one hand, I didn't want to commit suicide because I wanted to live, on the other, it felt as though I did not deserve to live.

Hurting yourself isn't a weakness. Can you comprehend how much strength it takes for someone to inflict pain on themselves? To take a blade and press it into the skin? To test your limits on how deep you can cut before you hit the important arteries?

Sitting afterward and observing the crimson fluid as it oozes from under the skin, or a heated item is taken and pressed to the skin? The smell of burning flesh becomes nauseating, glimpsing the skin melt away under the heat.

That, to me, isn't weakness, that takes more strength than most people could ever imagine. The lasting damage a scar creates is not merely those that can be seen with the eyes, the emotional damage that self-mutilation leaves are much more complicated than the damage that's left on the skin.

I arrived at a place where I could not sense the physical pain anymore, every time I sliced a bit deeper, a little closer to the arteries, a little closer to see if the blade could skim my essence, to see how far could I push myself.

Trying to prove a point, showing that I am more than just a physical body and the pain my body could endure.

Today I sit with these scars, seeing them as I wake up, seeing them when going to bed. Every second person I encounter asks about my scars. "a memory best forgotten" I would say.

It's never too late to ask for help. In my darkest moments, I thought there is no help for someone like me, but I accepted help.

Hurting yourself is rarely the answer to life's problems, no matter how dark this life seems to get. Remember that the scars that stay behind, cut deeper than the physical cut.