Bruises green like grapes

Let’s have a conversation about self harm. Only, let’s not have an actual conversation because I don’t actually want to talk about it, I sort of just want to dump this here and run away. I don’t want to sit across the table from you while you ask nosy but well meant questions.

Yes, I am taking my antidepressants.

Yes, I am seeing my therapist.

Yes, I am going to work.

No, I am not drinking excessively.

Yes, I am eating and working out and sleeping.

I sound like I’m fine, right? I should be fine. I’m taking care of myself, I’m doing all the things I’m supposed to do to get better. Compared to where I was a year ago, I am much improved — to the point that multiple people have asked me what changed such that I am charming and well dressed and present again. I look like I fit in my own skin, like I own the space I live in. So why is my arm covered in bruises?

My arm is covered in bruises left by my finger tips from squeezing my bicep hard enough to leave round little hollows green like grapes on my white-blue skin. My arm is crossed with fingernail cat scratches when the squeezing wasn’t enough to stop the sobbing. My arm is dented with blunt black lines like tally marks when the sobbing turned to screaming and I pressed the thick, dull side of a decorative knife down through the muscle, deep enough to bruise the bones in me. Deep enough to anchor myself back to my body, deep enough that the bruises weren’t visible this morning when I pulled on a shirt and my morning companion who’d come over at 11 pm full of concern for me only saw the scratches. Deep enough that wearing my favorite leather jacket pinches and hurts like that dull ache after a flu shot, because this is my flu shot against my own brain, inoculating me against the dark and angry maelstrom of my mismatched chemicals and too deep feelings.

This is self harm. And this is depression. It’s not easily visible, and it doesn’t make sense. But if Jenny Lawson can write a book where she describes both the antics of a stuffed raccoon and pulling bits of her scalp off, bloody, to deal with her monsters, then I can hold space in my life for bruises on my bicep, too.

I don’t want to talk about it, so don’t call me worried. But damned if I’m going to hide from it, either. “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” — Justice D Brandeis.