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Self-Harm, Self-Blame and Self-Healing

Body art isn't always beautiful, but it is always meaningful

By Jamie JacksonPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Self-Harm, Self-Blame and Self-Healing
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

I was half-way through a telephone conversation when I got the idea to cut myself. One hand was on the cold payphone receiver, the other rotating a closed lock-knife in my jacket pocket.

I don’t know where the idea came from, but it appeared fully-formed in my mind, a decision already made. There was no debate to be had, conclusions had been drawn without me and cutting myself was what I was going to do.

My ex-girlfriend was on the line, I had phoned her to lament our break up. Again. Normally, I let these conversations draw out as long as my cash reserves allowed, or at least until her patience ran out, but to her surprise and mine, I wrapped it up so I could head on down to the fields, just me and my knife.

I didn’t realise it then, but I was hitting rock bottom.

No one takes 16-year-old woes seriously, even the 16-year-old, but I’d lost my girlfriend, had a terrible home life and lived in the shadow of a violent, alcoholic father who blamed me for the tumultuous events our family endured on a near-daily basis.

He would come home drunk, smash up the house and say to me "Are you happy now?" His mantra, reserved for my ears was: “Everything was fine until you turned 3.” I believed him, even though things were bad long before I was born.

I hated myself and I didn't realise it. All I knew was self-harm felt right.

It was a watershed period in my life; before the scars, after the scars.

25 years later and my arms and hip are still covered in knife wounds. This is my body art, my permanent and personal reminder of rock bottom.

I don’t remember cutting myself the first time, just the decision, but I remember subsequent times. Each time got worse, more vicious, the blade going deeper, blood pouring out of newly opened wounds that filled up with red ooze and overflowed onto on the muddy earth.

Self-harm is not a competition, some people scratch or poke themselves, others run a razor lightly over their skin. I dug for victory; hacking and raging at my limbs with a 4-inch blade in waves of self-loathing anger.

It became dangerous but I was trapped for months in this pattern. I visited the hospital when a wound on my thigh opened up alarmingly wide. The doctor saw it he said, “You did this to yourself. We see a lot of little girls cut themselves like this.”

I was a boy and he was trying to shame me out of it, a tough-love approach. In a way it worked, I slowed down, it had changed from a masculine endurance test to an act of weakness.

Here’s the thing no one tells you about self-harm: in the aftermath, it’s euphoric. I’m unwilling to admit it, in case it encourages others, but to deny this feeling is to underestimate its addictive nature. Pretending self-harm doesn't provide mental relief is as equally damaging as pretending there's no upside to recreational drug use. The truth must be met head-on.

Of course, regret, shame, and compounded self-loathing followed the short-lived euphoria and the self-harming cycle began once more.

The blade had allowed me to create a false ego to protect me from self-loathing. Look what I could endure. Well done me, I do have some value.

Today, I have the same euphoric clarity after a cold shower. I wish I knew that at 16.

During my cutting, there was some intervention. My sister saw my arms and told my dad, but I didn't want him to have anything to do with my business. Another time, friends unlocked a bathroom door from the outside as I was mid-cut, blood too much to hide. Later, one of them confiscated the knife from me as I lay sleeping on his sofa.

I’m now 42 and there isn’t a day where I don’t regret what I did.

Options for the permanently scarred are truncated. You can't work a job where you're required to wear a t-shirt, you can't tan your arms without the scars being visible from space, you can't be with new partners without some form of explanation.

Hitting rock bottom is scary and confusing, but it makes you realise more about life and happiness than success ever could.

I have no tattoos. No piercings. I dyed my hair jet-black one time and it went green when I tried to wash it out. That is the extent of my body-altering efforts. I already have my permanent body art, I do not need more. They sit on my skin and cover my limbs, a testament to a confused and troubled teen who needed to understand he wasn't a problem to be solved.

The scars taught me that. They taught me I am enough. They are testament to my navigation out of a storm. I survived. They are my tribal markings, my right of passage, my reminder of consequence, my calling to personal sovereignty.

We're in the most decisive days one can imagine, at least during peacetime in the Western world, we are divided and hate runs rampant. Blame is readily apportioned to Presidents, Prime Ministers, the left, the right, scientists and the media.

In 2020, no one has escaped the wrath and fury bubbling under society's shiny veneer.

But I know all about blame.

Blame is easy and feels good. I cut my arms because I loathed who I was and I might have been inflicting pain upon myself, but I was still projecting blame onto me, my arms, society. I was still avoiding confronting the fear I held inside, the fear I was not enough.

The only solution was to forgive myself, to love myself, to start anew. This is the only solution I can see to heal society's deep divisions. We must embrace personal sovereignty and be the change we desire, to make peace with our fears and become an ambassador for love.

This isn't easy, which is why blame is the addiction of the masses. Going within takes courage and hard work. But as Joseph Campbell said,

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

My scarred arms serve as a reminder, a chiming bell of truth to who I was and who I now am. My transformation. It is a reminder there is another way, that rock bottom and darkness can be overcome and that hate, including self-hate and all its various forms, hasn't solved one problem yet.

recovery
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About the Creator

Jamie Jackson

Between two skies and towards the night.

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  • testabout a year ago

    Good writing

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