Angelic Failure
A Discussion on Self Harm
I was taught that everyone has a guardian angel as a small child, and as I matured, I figured that these angels drop the ball fairly often. This I classify as developing of mental illness. Mental illness: one or more diseases that make you feel like your brain is quite literally rotting inside your skill. Insomnia is what keeps you from ever resting, depression its partner who pushes you past the brink of exhaustion around the clock. Anxiety is a flurrying hurricane of symptoms that take you for a spin no matter what you do, anorexia the demon that brings you back your control. All of this comes at a cost that is nonrefundable.
Which brings us to self-harm.
Nowadays people who know what they’re talking about are likely to tell you it’s okay not to be okay; this, in my opinion, is false. While it is so strong and so brave and definitely alright to admit you aren’t okay, it’s problem to not be okay (in its definition). It isn’t your fault and it isn’t a battle you can’t win… that’s what I tell people struggling with mental health. People just like you who think they’re all alone because they don’t see you and me. They’re hiding and, in a way, chances are you are too.
Like I said. Self-harm.
Kitchen knives, scissors, erasers, fires, and the victim’s own body weaponized. I’m talking about the fact that some people are alone in the bedrooms, hiding out in bathrooms, with the mantra harm to heal. It can never heal because it’s a monster that’s sole purpose is to hurt more viciously than most people can imagine and does it ever. To see them. To hear their stories. Of all the subjects under mental health, self-harm is one of the hardest- if not the hardest- to discuss.
This sick feeling in the pit of my stomach mandates that it get the spotlight.
My first and most major misconception was that it is nothing more than a precursor to suicide (sideways for attention, longways for results is the phrase for a reason). However, it is crucial to understand that it’s a coping mechanism for depression, personality disorders, eating disorders, PTSD, and others. It results from hiding difficult emotions and an overwhelming stress. And what shocked me is that self-harm serves as a release for all this to children, teens, and young adults. It’s a coping strategy, but when shame and guilt roll through behind, it becomes a cycle that feels so all-encompassing you don’t know how to break it. I want to share with you something that really affected me:
“Most people don’t stop until their 20s / I didn’t. / I couldn’t.”
Second, I must address the most common and most dangerous misconception: you only do it for attention. This is a pathetic way for people who do not want to understand to classify a broad thing that scares them when they think about it. By way too many young people, all the marks are hidden in physical and emotional ways.
I don’t claim to be an expert, but I lived through certain realities and have witnessed the terrible truths of hearing one story after another. I can only describe the vivid pictures in my mind as sad. The time was dark and the girl isolated. I felt a sense of calm that for a long time I’ve been unsure how to properly articulate. It was supposed to be a major change in who I am, but my identity was mostly static. Suicidal ideation is one thing, anxiety is one different thing, and the desire to self-harm is another thing entirely when it lurks beneath the surface- all very serious things that dictate the extent to which you need help- but actually carrying out an act is on a whole other level of severity in the field of mental illness. Well, it seemed like I’d climbed a stair rather than a flight. Cutting was just something I did at night, with increasing frequency. It started with the glint of a silver blade under warm yellow-gold light. A slow scratch of said blade along hardened skin; a deep breath. A frenzied, unrestrained explosion of swipes straight to the brain. By the time it’s over, I have a brand new sensation coursing through my body, but it isn’t long before the physical pain isn’t a remedy for emotional pain to the point of numbness anymore; it’s just pain in my flesh and the need to clean myself up. But about the ending itself. A session of shredding my skin like confetti would end in one of a couple ways.
Sometimes it was sudden. Like the worst of the storm and sunny skies being back to back. I’d be on fire in so many ways, but then a wave would extinguish me. And this wave froze me, it manipulated my hand. Stop. Drop. Pull away. Feel your pulse. This was wild and the experience felt so bizarre that I really can’t compare to any other I know of.
Sometimes it was not so sudden. It would build up and wind down. I was often very tired and started feeling sick a couple of these times; I was beyond a brink of my own making when these endings came and left me, but felt right- like it was a natural and normal thing, as if the entire sequence of events made perfect sense.
I felt at peace, and I was comforted. Don’t think that means I condone self-harm. It’s nothing more than a manifestation of the emotional torture which only can be classified as pre-existing condition. I think of it like this: chemotherapy is exclusively used on someone who already has cancer and is said to be a brutal ordeal, but an effective treatment while self harm is easier to go through but will only worsen things. It has affected me in ways I hope to one day write about; the shame, the guilt, the burden of secrets, the troubles I still feel in my days, and the confusion of it all amounts to a tremendous emotional weight.
It’s overwhelming and painful to talk about because it’s personal pain and a broad topic you can never fully understand. What I hope you got from me sharing parts of my story is the encouragement or inspiration you need to do the same.
Thank you for reading. I hope you found this worthwhile for one reason or another. Remember always that, whatever it is, you can get through it and you have help available to you. Please take care of yourself; it’s the only way to live.
For a resource to learn the facts: https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/related-conditions/self-harm
For a resource to talk: 1800–273–8255 is the national hotline; there are others if you need them.
For the full poem I quoted here, which I’ve revisited several times since first reading it several months ago:
For a previous article of mine:
…BRD…
