I took a look at the scars on my wrist and to me it only resembled an old fight, a new story to be told and an old experience that made me the strong person I am today.
I know I am not alone and I’m not the only one who broke a razor to my skin on the nights I felt like I could no longer take another breathe and tell myself “I’ll be okay. It is all temporary. I got this.” Those were the few words I’d tell my friends to say when they were down however when it was 2am and my whole family was asleep those words did not feel right pouring out of my mouth. I was too depressed to understand what it exactly meant to be okay.
I would wipe my tears against hard brown napkin that I got from my school bathroom and hid my cuts under layers of cloth that would make me sweat more than usual on very hot summer days. I couldn’t take the stress of having to hide my pain from the people around me. I couldn’t keep a facade smile, not even in pictures. I wanted to finally tear off the long sleeve shirts I’d wear and show my cuts to someone and admit I was suffering all alone. “Keep it to yourself” This voice in my head would tell me over and over again.
The sadness I kept holding in was slowly making me forget who I was. I stopped doing the things that I once had done everyday. I was completely forgetting who I was. I forgot all the goals that I had set for myself and started doing bad in school. I couldn’t express how I really felt in words to my friends out of fear of what they would think of me so I wrote this poem below.
Sore lips,
fingers ache,
headaches,
what’s the point of this fight?
tears rolling down,
loud screams coming from between my lips,
back pains,
that I can’t even explain,
I’m falling without being pushed,
feeling all alone in the brightest city,
just a little longer,
maybe I could do it,
fighting a war,
with nothing to fight with,
battles after battles,
I can no longer take deep breaths and hope it will all be okay.
I was truly losing myself. I was all alone.
Everyone is capable of finding happiness within themselves and turning their pain into something beautiful.
At some point I finally decided to get help. I was desperate. I needed to talk to someone. People would ask me if I’m okay but I would ignore the pain and take a deep breathe and say “I’m fine. There’s no need to worry. ” I finally turned to someone but I was told that I was only doing it for attention.
It took a lot of courage to open up and when I finally did I was disappointed. From that very point my self harm addiction got worse along with my mental health. The pain I had experienced prior to telling anyone was not the same as being told that I was just an attention seeker with fake problems. At that point I wasn’t even sure if anyone truly cared for me.
I isolated myself from others and spent most of my summer at home, doing nothing. The thing I regret doing most is blaming myself. Blaming myself for being called an attention seeker. I wasn’t an attention seeker. I was in pain and that was okay, it wasn’t my fault.
As time passed I started to learn how to fight my self harm urges more. I used makeup and marker to write inspirational things on my wrist instead of self harming. My wrists weren’t covered with cuts anymore but they were covered with art and words. It felt better and it was exciting because I wasn’t putting myself through pain anymore but making some beautiful out of it.
I slowly started going out more. I started writing more poems to express how I felt and it was honestly the best coping mechanism. Writing helped me get all the anger in me out on paper instead of on my skin. I took something throbbing and I turned it into beautiful poems.
