what's the harm

trigger warning: this post discusses self-harm, references some details of abuse, and portrays some graphic imaginings that occur in a dark mental state. please read with care.

If you have never felt a pain so deep it feels unprocessable or the suffocating darkness of self-loathing, then you might wonder how anyone could hurt themselves. You might wonder what goes through the mind of someone who self-harms. Are they just doing it for attention?

In one of my darker times, while struggling through re-living memories of when my abusers would force me to hurt other children and small animals as part of religious rituals, I was constantly precoccupied with hurting myself.

My therapist called it my "stabby part" because I would go through the day imagining a knife stabbing all over my body. There were only a few times that I actually physically harmed myself (not counting an eating disorder, which I definitely used as self-harm!), but that wasn't because the self-harm desires weren't there. Instead, I stuck with mental self-harm because I knew if I actually did physical harm, it would get noticed, and then I would have to stop.

When it was all in my mind, I could keep the nightmarish daydreaming my own little secret.

The mental self-harm I inflicted was pervasive and consuming, and it also gave me a sense of peace that nothing else would.

I know that doesn't make sense. But when you truly feel like you are worth nothing, and when the pain inside of you is an unimaginable, unexplainable, unending cavern, somehow it begins to make sense that you should just hurt more.

Thankfully, with a LOT of help from my therapist, "stabby part" doesn't come up much anymore, and when he does, I know how to help him. But, I wanted to share this excerpt that I wrote when I was in that dark place - when self-harm was what made sense - because I hope by giving you a glimpse into what my mental state was during that time, then maybe, if you know someone who is struggling with self-harm, you can have patience with them and sit with them with a little more understanding.

When you're hurting so deeply, and full of so much self-loathing, self-harm is what makes sense, even if it doesn't actually make sense.

And if you are the one struggling, I hope maybe this will help you not feel so alone, and I hope it will encourage you to get help. You don't have to stay in that dark place alone, and you don't have to stay there forever. There is help, and there is hope.

***

If I imagine stabbing myself, does it count as self-harm? Actual cutting would be noticed by my husband, who sees my naked body daily. I don't want to get caught - then I would have to stop. My family needs me to be unscathed.

Instead, throughout the day and lying in bed at night, I imagine all the atrocious acts of violence I would commit if I could get away with it. I imagine my sternum cracking as my ribs stretch out to reveal my organs. My arms are pinned down like a butterfly, caught. My face is scratched off, and, with satisfaction, I imagine the knife plunging in. These daydreams bring me a strange sense of calm and grounding.

I know I seem unstable and crazy - another feeble-minded woman who has finally cracked. A century ago, I would have been institutionalized.

But I feel curiously peaceful during my delusions.

There comes a point when the human mind gets pushed past the brink of what it can handle. The evil it can experience. The horror it can witness. I've crossed that line over and over and over again as flashbacks of my childhood rise up and terrorize me. How can anyone endure for long the relentless, excruciating recollections depicting the gruesome acts of human trafficking? The hellish nightmare of ritualistic torture?

The human mind is not meant to take in such vileness. There's a reason my mind shut it out for so long.

And yet, through immense determination, I have staggered through the memories - one moment by one moment. I have crawled through the agony with hope hanging on the promise that there would be healing in the end. Hope that I would dig through the layers of evil and torment to find myself underneath - my wounded, child self. Hope that I could find her and heal her. That I could finally be free of the torments of my past.

As layer upon layer has unveiled itself, rather than finding that wounded child, I have found more memories. More evil. More grotesque scenes to add to the litany of my agony.

I look down at my hands, and I see blood and vomit.

Recently, I peeked under a layer and finally saw my wounded self. But she wasn't the tortured, broken little girl I thought I'd find. She is a mutation. A dung-colored slug with a robotic arm. Her stench fills my nostrils with revulsion - leaving my tongue recoiling in disgust. I stare at her and see no redemption there. My worst fears have come true. I am degenerate, irredeemable.

And so, the stabbing seems necessary. I cannot be saved, so I must be punished.

I know my body needs to stay whole to take care of my family, so the imaginings are my outlet. My mind finds the fantasized cruelty soothing.

So, I ask again: if I imagine stabbing myself, does it count as self-harm?

Or maybe the real question is, if my real self is a worthless, mutated slug, then what's the harm with self-harm?

***