Scars - 3/1/2002

At first there were nicks and scratches, nothing much it seemed.

Then they went deeper. Across veins. Opening arteries.

I was 13.

Oddly..... it was March. March 15. The Ides.

I watched the blood pump out of my arm. Fascinated. It dripped over my wrist, and my hand.

I was curious.

I wasn't curious about death. I knew what death was, I had no desire to go there quite yet. However, I was curious about what just happened, exactly, when you split open your skin, micrometer by micrometer. I sliced over 20 times, in that one spot. Cutting it a little deeper every time.

I remember moaning...... because I liked the pain. The control I weilded.

I watched the blood for a little bit longer, as it slowly surged. Then I forced it to stop, coagulate, the physical byways to constrict and cease the flow. I cleaned and disinfected myself. I made little butterfly tabs out of duct tape and closed the wound. I wrapped up my wrist and pretended I sprained it playing volleyball.

I had been prepared, yes. This was a planned experiment. I had even gotten a hold of a very fine disposable, sterile scalpel.

My parents didn't find out until about three weeks later, when I had the wrap off and my mom saw the almost healed scar. That, and a few other things, combined into a situation that tossed me into therapy the first time.

I saw no reason to go. I wasn't suicidal, yet I could not convince them of it. I felt I had no reason to talk to the doc, so I did not talk. He tried a trick with me, once, to get me to relax. Imitated the way I was sitting, then asked why I was sitting like that. I told him because it was comfortable. He told me to not get defensive. Strike. One.

He wanted defensive, I gave it to him. I made him angry. Second visit I didn't talk to him. I didn't even go into the office, stayed in the lobby. My parents went into talk to him, and I just waited, silent. Another doc there commented on some of the sketches I was doing, I looked up with a bright smile and thanked him, politely. The third visit, I didn't even go into the office. I stayed outside on the bench with my walkman and spiral notebook. He came outside to try to talk to me, I didn't look at him. Again, my parents went in to talk to him. I refused to go back.

The guy was a fucking idiot.

I still cut, now, but it's not aimless scratches. I have patterns now, on the inside of my arm, and on my outer thigh. The Body Modification movement now calls this patterned, decisive cutting "scarification."

It has become cool to have scars.

Maybe.

Maybe it's just my own way of turning something destructive into something constructive. I like the way it feels. I like decorating my body. Body Mods are an addiction..... but a controlled one.

As long as the majority agrees to the decoration, of course.

There are others, inside, that injure to hurt. They injure because they have no other way of coping. The only reason they can fathom to make the body stop hurting, is to hurt it more, until it goes numb. That's what happened when we were children, so maybe it will work again. It's hard to keep a leash on them. But we've managed so far.

The masochist is the hardest to keep control over. The one that enjoys pain more than me. The Fiend. But he works through his desires. He, so far, is content with what he gets.

They and I have agreed, then, their urge to cut becomes my planned modification. It is constructive, it is controlled..... it's not busting open a vein anymore.