Allow me to preface this with one thing: This has a strong likelihood of turning into a melodramatic recounting and rant. Sorry.
I was roaming around youtube tonight, and I looked up the song The Way She Feels by Between the Trees. Multiple videos relating to self mutilation also popped up. I watched a couple, both of which hurt me to see but at the same time made me thankful for my healing. And then… I read the comments. I don’t really know why. I knew what was coming. But I did anyways.
As I predicted, trash talk about “emo” youth and “attention whores”.
Several incredibly long, and almost unbearably rude conversations tearing down people who cope with their emotions through self harm. I wanted to scream at them to shut the fuck up, they had no idea. But that’s… So pointless. So I didn’t. (Anyways, I can’t say too much in only 500 characters.) But it hurts to see things like that.
It was one of the reasons my depression deepened, and my problems got worse. Because of the people who assume that, if one “cutter” only does it for attention, everyone must do it for attention. I switched to the “invisible” parts of my body because of comments such as that. Only when I was completely out of my mind on drugs did I venture back to my arms, back to where it felt the best. (It’s where I still crave to cut. I can trace the lines where the razor should draw blood, even though I never give in to the urges. 13 months and counting.)
How can they say that? How can they look at self mutilators that draw that much blood, that cause that much pain, that cut that deep… and call them attention whores? It is not in the nature of an animal, which humans are in their deep seated instincts, to cause yourself that much pain. It takes discipline and will power. Someone seeking attention may scratch oh so lightly, barely drawing a few beads of blood, and then make a huge deal out of it. But someone truly in pain? No. We cut. We don’t just touch the surface… It isn’t enough. A razor does not hurt if you accidentally draw it across your skin. It takes effort to cause pain with a razor, and effort to cut at all with scissors and most knives. (Both of which, in my experience, cause pain as soon as you draw blood.)
We are not attention whores. Don’t you dare call us that. Those gashes in our arms, the deep scars left on our wrists, legs, abdomens… They are our method of coping. Our sanity, even though it is a lie… What we do is insane, though we refuse to admit it. If anything “dramatic”, they are a silent cry for help. But not for attention. We become masters at hiding the wounds. I went for three days without anyone seeing my suicide attempt. As I said, masters. Because we don’t want anyone to know. We don’t want to be thought of as “freaks”, “problem children”, “dramatic”, or “attention whores”. We want pain, not someone trying to stop us.
So please, if you are one of those people, who tear down cutters or anyone who self harms… Remember this. And, excuse my language, shut the fuck up. You have no idea.
Posted in Midnight Wanderings
Tags: abuse, cranky, daily life, depression, empty, healing, moods, pain, rambling, remembering, sadness, searching, writing