My scars have faded, but still, I feel bad
This article includes content that may be triggering to some readers, viewers discretion is advised.
Everyone has been through or is currently going through something and we all have our own ways of coping whether it be using a hobby as an outlet like painting, writing, playing sports or… causing harm to yourself. Now, there is definitely a better option between the two yet I find myself leaning towards the regrettable one.
Self-harm. The word itself is self-explanatory; inflicting pain on oneself. Many people may not understand that, they can’t grasp the idea that anyone, especially kids, teenagers, and their own children feels the need to hurt themselves. I know this because I didn’t understand why anyone would want to, I was like that.
It was painful, I didn’t like pain and I knew the people who did cut didn’t like it either so why did they do it? I would spend every night wondering what pushes anyone off the edge, little did I know one day, I would be the one jumping off it.
My life wasn’t bad albeit it wasn’t good either but I would remind myself, tell the younger me, “Hey! At least you’re living”. And I would find comfort in my own words because what else did I have? My mother didn’t care for me and my father worked in another country, all the care I received was from nannies who were being paid to ‘love’ me and they weren’t even doing that.
When I got a little older things in my life got worse, way worse, I realised that I wasn’t living, I was merely surviving and so I snapped.
The one thing I never understood was all I could understand.
I had kept a glass shard from a cup I accidentally shattered a couple of nights ago. Why? I don’t know, maybe there was something in me that knew one day I would need it and I did. I used it.
The first cut wasn’t good, after all, it was my first time and I still had that fear in me but it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would so I kept going until blood ran in rivulets down my arm.
For the first time, I had a feeling I never felt before, a weight had been lifted off my chest and I understood why people did it.
All the inner pain hurts a little less when the outside hurts more. But, this isn’t a forever solution. It is only a temporary release but I took that because it isn’t a thing you can easily let go of, it takes hold of your mind.
Could you blame me? It felt like the only way out when everything else required so much work, it was the easiest way out. Everything in me could only focus on one thing, I wanted this, I needed this, I deserved this.
I know now that every person I knew who did self-harm never really wanted to do it. They just felt like they had to. All the arrows pointed at the sharpest object they could find, along with the stars aligning to mirror the lines on their skin.
Despite all that, I got through it. I am clean, not completely but I am and it is hard to be. I thought that when I stopped. When I am clean, I’d feel proud that I made it but now I’m sitting on my bed, staring down at these faded scars and all my brain can envision is doing it all over again. It feels like once they’ve completely gone, everything I’ve ever been through will go away like everything was meant for nothing.
I’m supposed to be happy, I’m supposed to feel liberated from the shackles of what once held me down. These scars are made from what hurt me, everything that hurt inside was inflicted on my delicate skin. How am I still not okay?
What will it take to make me feel okay? What do I have to do?
I find myself asking these questions and of course, I’m met with no response. Everyone is just trying to find their ways of moving through life the best they can and the people I know won’t have the answers to this.
So what do I have? I have this aching feeling in my chest whenever I look in the mirror, this interminable sadness, and this knowing feeling that I might never get better.
My scars have faded, but still, I feel bad.
