Fifty-Four Days Without Pain
Originally written and published 09.11.20
As of today, I have made it 54 days without cutting myself. Don’t congratulate me yet. I have spent the waking hours of this last week with a craving for white-hot pain so strong that I can barely stand it. I was going to feed that hunger, so I checked how long it has been the same way people check a wine’s age—some numbers bring more pride than others but none of them stop you from opening the bottle. By some grace, I decided to write instead.
The stigma around self harm in the form of mutilation makes it borderline impossible to talk about, which is exactly why it is so important to do so. The reasons for the negative reactions to self mutilation are all tied to one thing: the visceral reaction humans have to blood. On a primal level, we associate blood with life and death. Bleeding almost always means something is wrong, on a base level the sight of blood is registered as Death’s calling card. Bruising, wounds in the process of healing, bandages, stitches; all these act as memento mori.
I have been a cutter for 14 years. I did not start cutting because I wanted to die. As a matter of fact, a hefty percentage of people who self harm are not (actively) suicidal. Have I considered suicide at various points in my life? Of course, however cutting is never how I planned to die. Quite contrary, for many years cutting was the only reminder I had that I am alive, that my body is mine, and that I have any power of my own to speak of at all. When blood is a symbol, bleeding becomes a statement. The only way out of the numbness and rage I had back then was through a jungle of flesh.
Do you have any idea what it is like to only feel alive at the sight of your own blood? How do you think it feels to choose to hurt yourself because you have been taught that power is signaled by the infliction of pain? I picked up a razor because it wasn’t fair that everyone else could do whatever they wanted with me while I could do nothing. It made me deeply angry to be so powerless and to know it. So I took myself back; I started choosing my pain as an expression of power, self-ownership, and agency. I fancied myself both high priestess and voodoo doll, every cut freed me from my hatred and pain while simultaneously destroying whoever I had in mind.
I paid for total ownership of myself in blood without reading the fine print. I couldn’t have known that by doing this I was making myself into something new. Far too young for foresight and contemplation, I indulged relentlessly. Pain became pleasure, blood signified freedom, happiness and love. Scars turned into benchmarks for both tolerance and rage. The secrecy required of my razor rituals led to me knowing myself intimately and distrusting everyone else violently. As I rejoiced in the freedom of knowing that nobody could ever hurt me better than myself, I was blind to the fact that nobody could ever know me better than a blade. By the time I realized this, not only was it far too late to change, but I had too many negative experiences with what happens when other people want to be close to me to feel like I had lost anything.
I have seen every reaction to mental illness that the human race has on offer and almost all of them are devoid of compassion and humanity. Society devalues the sick and despises the abnormal, people internalize that and then dehumanize themselves and each other. We are taught to shun and shame whatever is not typical, forgetting that our idea of normal is informed only by how we have lived. Breakfast for a spider is torture for a fly. The illusion of widespread normalcy is killing all of us.
We punish people for their seemingly inhuman behavior while ignoring the conditions that created it. We point and laugh when people fall out of step with this constructed ideal, all the while breaking a sweat to secure the title of “acceptable human being” for ourselves. We are all guilty of feeding the beast that is the shame economy. Have you ever hid what you felt because you didn’t want to be a burden? When did you learn to stop asking for help? Who taught you how to hide your feelings? How much time do you spend pretending you aren’t a piece of walking wreckage?
I try to pretend and I fail violently, and I am not ashamed. I know that people who love me wish they could hide me from myself sometimes because I will always find out what they’ve done with the sharp objects. I know that the only reason I try to stay clean is because I don’t want to deal with upset people who love me but can’t understand this part of me. The things I give up just to have a minor part in another person’s life are things that I know make me seem inhuman to others but are the only humanity I had for a long time. I absolutely refuse the idea of being ashamed of how I exist. It is only shameless self expression that has saved my life. When you feel like you aren’t allowed to exist as you are, then you slowly stop seeing the point of existing at all.
By refusing shame, not only do we validate and reclaim ourselves, but we make it possible for others to do the same. If one is willing to accept the consequences, they are free to do anything—even be themselves.
