Sorry, who?

I sat in my bedroom last night and decided to do my psych homework, which also tied in with Lou's suggestion of getting a bit creative. I spread out my huge throw thing on the floor and then laid down on it with packs of pens and crayons and a big white drawing pad. What was I trying to do? Identity. I was trying to discover what exactly it is that makes me what I see as this despicable creature placing these words before you. I went for the red pen and started to write and write; all of the phrases starting with 'I' and all of them representing how I feel about myself. Then I wrote my name in a black pen all over the page. It was a bit of a frenzied mess but it felt like therapy, I sat up and looked at it and cried, a lot.

Dr H suggested that a lot of my 'issues' lie in my perception of myself (no shit...it took him 12 years to study for that?!) so putting them all down on paper visually seemed like a good plan. I've stuck an equally large piece of white paper on my bedroom door so that anyone who comes to it can write or draw something that they think represents me, in a week I'll compare my drawing to theirs. See if anyone writes 'I hate you' like the vitriolic little bitch I abandoned at 11 would.

I was also discussing with the old oracle the concept of physical self harm; by that I mean hurting oneself instantly - not through the use of long-term 'fucking-up'. I myself maintain that self-harmers are not intrinsically insane, or mentally unstable as he would have me believe. I believe that the only common theme we have is self-hate, a deep-rooted and crushingly angry deploration for ourselves which leads us to believe that hurting ourselves is deserved and something 'we just have to do'. I also believe that there are differing degrees of self harm; I have talked to a friend of my sister's who is 13 years old and has been scratching herself for about three years now. I meet with her once a week and we talk; kind of like a mentoring scheme. I can see the stark differences between her and myself. This girl is not trying to grow up too quickly, this girl has no trauma, this girl is pressured by what it is to be living. She's lost and self harm to her is an expression of the frustration she feels, but it is a frustration which, she tells me, diminishes day by day as she makes choices and grows in herself. I firmly believe that if I were to visit her after I've finished University she would no longer feel the need to harm herself; I think that the idea of the health system hospitalising her and putting her on medication is sick. Then again you never can tell; often self harm blooms and becomes something which will never leave the victim and (I'm not denying it) often it is a symptom of mental illness; I just don't think that society itself should be so quick to say "Ugh self-inflicted injury! Freak! Lock them away..."

There have been times when I've been a danger to myself; right now I'm the only true enemy I have. There are going to be times in the future when I'll be sitting somewhere wondering where the fuck it went so wrong, so young. But I wouldn't exchange my mind for one which doesn't need to tear itself apart; not today, anyway.