Self-Harming on Sharp Objects
I was fourteen years old and crying was not working. I had been crying every night for the past week and a half, and the very few minutes when I was overwhelmed and snuck into a bathroom during the day. I was tired of crying because it left me exhausted and yet the issues I was crying about remained unresolved. Feeling and spending all my time alone, I went online looking for a distraction and saw my friend M’s profile. A conversation we had had earlier before school closed came to mind and I tiptoed to my bag. Rummaging through my stuff, I found it; the mathematical set compass. I climbed back into bed, took deep breaths and with a shaky hand, I ran the compass on the skin on my left thigh. The first stroke and small drops of blood pooled on my skin. I ceased crying and could not look away from the scar. There was a pause where emotions I had never felt overcame me, and so I run the compass on my thigh deeper this time. Again and again and again until finally there were lines of blood and I could not see a surface to continue on, so I went to the bathroom and cleaned up my mess.
Eight years later, living alone and in one of the many immobilizing depressive episodes, I was binge-watching Sharp Objects for the third time. In my defense, the first time I was using it as white noise to my dissociation and missed the plot of the story. The second time I paid attention but I must have lost it somewhere because I missed the scenes that would allow me to link the show to the last scenes of the final episode.
Without giving too much away, the show is based on and adapted from Gillian Flynn’s debut novel by the same name. The main character Camille (played by Amy Adams) returns home to investigate a murder and lives with her overbearing mother Adora and popular younger half-sister Amma. Throughout the story, Camille’s history with self-harm and a life riddled with triggers (the foundation of the story) is told to us through flashbacks during her investigation. Her body is literally covered all over in words she carved during her younger self-harm years and her struggle with it that lead to her admission in a psychiatric ward. As a self-harmer (a label I hope to get rid of), I have not seen anything in media that depicts self-harm so accurately. The self-harm depicted in the show is cutting…but there exist more forms of self-harming/self-mutilation that I will not mention due to the possibility of inspiring copycats (like me). There are two scenes that every self-harmer will relate to and open the eyes of someone with no experience with the matter.
In one of its many haunting scenes, it captured the intense frenzy one experiences when triggered. Camille walks into her room in the psychiatric ward and finds a gruesome scene involving her roommate. At the moment, she runs to the bathroom to throw up, and scrambles under the toilet bowl, after seeing then loosening a screw and raises her sleeve. The nurses come in a few strokes later and Camille is carried out screaming and bleeding.
There are emotions, obviously, that every human goes through and have outlets they use to expel negative emotions. These range from sports to writing (ha ha), drinking and self-harm. When overwhelmed with emotions such as rage, grief and anxiety, or experiencing emotions in a new and/or troubling environment, in that vulnerability there is an unavoidable feeling of loneliness even when surrounded by loved ones. Self-harming takes anywhere from 30 seconds to at most 10 minutes, the length of time being affected by taking breaks (due to the pain probably), one’s method of self-harm and if you worry about being caught. Immediately one stops the current self-harm ordeal, there is a release. You can physically feel pressure from your abdomen, shoulders, hell the entire body leaving you. This is where your brain comes in and that release becomes a high then an addiction and like all addictions, you hide it: long-sleeved clothes, no shorts, avoiding swimming and the like. Camille wears long sleeves throughout the entire show despite having outgrown her self-harm phase. Adora, however, finds a way to bring back these negative emotions. Adora, Camille, and Amma go shopping and while Camille tries on clothes for a party, her clothes are taken. Adora yells at Camille to stop being a bother and try on the short-sleeved clothes she selected. Camille is forced to leave the changing room and we see the extent of her scars and from Amma’s face mirrors the audience's shock at just how many words have covered her entire small frame.
Staying on topic of hiding the scars with clothes, what happens when it’s actually time for the clothes to come off? Camille meets Richard, the lead detective on the murder cases she’s in town for. They strike up an unlikely friendship that eventually turns sexual. During their sex scene (a sex scene is not reaalllyy a spoiler…), Camille is hesitant to remove her clothes despite Richard’s assurance that seeing her body as is, was not going to change his feelings for her. Trusting him yet aware of what he might see, she switches off the light.
Being an adult woman who has scars on her arms and thighs (and some people self-harm in other areas) and still struggles with it, navigating bedroom affairs is always challenging. There are so many things that can happen and they unfortunately do. A partner may feel like the sex is better or more intimate when there are no cloth barriers separating you two. Convincing a partner to let you wear clothes without giving them a reason interrupts or kills the mood so you have to have that conversation before…which. And when they see the scars? Lord…you can see the curiosity and bewilderment on their faces and the silent insulting question on their face “Are you crazy?”. After this…the self-consciousness sets in or you get triggered into what…yeah exactly. And this was just how Richard looked at her when he finally did the scars.
It is a beautiful show with amazing storytelling but LOTS OF TRIGGER WARNINGS. Or read the book or both.
Earlier in this essay, I said I was tired of crying because it left me exhausted and yet the issues I was crying about remained unresolved. Now I am tired of cutting because it has left me exhausted and scarred and yet; the issues I was cutting myself for remain unsolved.
