Dear me, this letter is sent to you from a 12 year old you. I want to remind you because I don't know where you're at or old you are when you read this. I want you to remember that you use to have tweezers and instead of shaving or waxing you would pluck your hairs out one by one spending hours doing this like it was a pastime or hobby, because the pain reminded you that you were alive. I want you to remember that you used to lay duct tape on your arms and peel it back so that you could feel the pain; but you weren't self harming though.
When that wasn't enough when, the pain wasn't enough you would slam your fingers in doorjambs, you would stub your toes on the edge of coffee tables. You would trip and fall and face plant, burning your skin on the pavement. But you weren't self harming though.
You promised yourself that you would never cut, that you would never do that thing that your parents always said that you couldn't do. You promised yourself that you would not be suicidal, that you would not hurt yourself to remind yourself that you were alive. So it was the duct tape, the tweezers, the doorjambs, the coffee tables. But you weren't self harming though.
One day you were helping dad in the kitchen when you nicked yourself on the edge of a knife and the pain didn't bother you because you were so used to pain, so used to feeling that sting, that burn, you were so used to it that you didn't notice the blood dripping from your finger, you didn't notice the blood splatters on the counter. Your dad did though so he put you in the car with a paper towel wrapped around your finger and he drove you to the emergency room.
You didn't understand what the big deal was, it was just a little blood, it was just a little nick, why is dad so worried it's not like the paper towel was soaking with blood. You went anyways. You went in to the doctors and you listened and you let them poke and prod and examine your finger. But they noticed the marks where you had peeled the duct tape back when you were still an amateur. They noticed that you had no hair at all and it wasn't because you had shaved. They noticed the follicles of your hair didn't exist. They noticed the bruises and the fact that you slammed your toe against the coffee table too many times to count.
That day you were diagnosed with depression for a reason unknown to you. Words like; suicidal, self harm, and dead, were passed around but you didn't understand why. Sure you are yourself because you need to feel something, but you weren't self harming though.
So when you got home your dad, he went into your room and he took everything. He took your duct tape, he took your tweezers, he took everything that made you feel while you stood there saying you didn't understand because you weren't self harming.
Your parents locked you up in your room with nothing. But when you started gouging pencils and pens into your skin when you started using paper to give yourself cuts on the tip of your fingers, they took those away too. You can understand why the paper because paper cuts were cuts and that could be self harming. But why the pens and pencils to because you weren't self harming.
When you were left in your room with nothing but a mattress and a pile of clothes, you started using your own body to hurt yourself to mutilate yourself, to cause the pain that you so desperately needed. You would use your nails to scratch yourself but then you realized that they would see that, so you couldn't do that otherwise they might take that away. Instead you banged your head against the wall and would pinch yourself but the pinching left bruises but it was better than scratches and scratches could be cuts and you were not going to be suicidal, you promised yourself.
Dad put you in a car and he took you to a hospital for the mentally insane. They put you in a white padded room and put you in a straitjacket. They fed you forkful by forkful, spoonful by spoonful, they fed you like you didn't know how to feed yourself, like you weren't 12 years of age, like you didn't know how to handle silverware. You didn't understand because you weren't self harming though.
You realized that if you wanted to be treated like you were 12 you have two stop being "insane" and "mentally ill" and "suicidal". So when you were good they took you out of the straitjacket and you had to fight not to bite yourself, not to claw at yourself, not to dig your fingers into your skin because they thought you were self harming.
But you weren't self harming though. You didn't cut into your skin with the edge of a razor blade, you did not take pills and overdosed on them, you did not try to drown yourself, you did not throw yourself off of cliffs, you do not hold a gun to your head, you weren't self harming.
Eventually they gave you your own room and you had to fight not to roll off the bed onto the floor, off the bed onto the floor, off the bed onto the floor because it caused pain and they didn't want you in pain but you wanted to be in pain, because it reminded you that you were more than your brain, more than your art, more than people labeled you to be.
Eventually you were released from the Hospital for the Mentally Insane. You went home and were given your tweezers, your duct tape, your paper, your pens and pencils back, you were given life back. You did not cause yourself pain though even surrounded as you were by temptation. You saved it for a time when you needed the pain because you could not handle living without it again for as long as you did. You weren't self harming though. You were not suicidal. It was just pain.
I'm writing this letter to remind you of the fact that when you were 12 you learned that self harm does not mean that you have to cut yourself with a razor blade, it does not mean that you hold a gun to your head, it does not mean that you try to drown yourself, does not mean freefalling, it does not mean taking pills, it does not mean not breathing.
Self harm; the act of hurting oneself.
Hurting, pain pain, hurting oneself, yourself, weself, ourselves, oneself, yourself hurting, pain pain, oneself, pain, self harm, hurting, hurting oneself, hurting yourself, causing pain to self, oneself, hurting oneself is self harm.
You were self harming though.
