I tried not to wince as I hauled my body onto the couch last Monday.
I had spent the day explaining to concerned colleagues that I had pulled a muscle at the gym.
In fact, I cut so badly that one of the wounds wouldn't stay sealed. Each time I showered, the steristrips peeled off and the cut was left gaping again.
When she asked where I had cut, I put my hand against it.
"The groin", she said, nodding knowingly.
(It might just be me, but therapists seem to have an extraordinarily irritating habit of nodding and 'yes'ing when you reveal something.
To my mind, this seems to be a smokescreen which hides the fact that the therapist is buying some figuring time, whilst simultaneously convincing the client that they are, in fact, omnipotent and had known the thing they had just revealed well before they said anything).
I digress.
Later in the session she announced that she was concerned I was cutting so close to a major artery.
Something in me froze.
My knowledge of anatomy not being as it could be, I had completely neglected to recall the fact that the area I cut is home to the femoral artery.
I'd only have about 3 minutes.
It's a horrible place to cut.
It only occurred to me after I left that her twisted therapists' mind probably decided that the fact that I cut there is because I have some sort of repressed sexual aggression towards my mother... or some such rubbish.
In fact, the reason I chose to cut near the groin is purely practical.
It will not be seen.
Even a (not too skimpy) bikini might hide the worst of the scarring.
Personally, I'd much rather use my feet (as I used to) or my arms.
But they are both so visible and I would probably rather die than have someone who knows me find out about self harm.
I couldn't ever go to hospital because I'd never cope with the horrible shame of someone seeing.
It has then, come as rather a shock to realise just how close I was when I cut the other night. And how close I must have been so many times before.
I looked up diagrams of the femoral artery in order to see where it is and it is hard to find something which specifically shows it in relation to the rest of the body. Suffice to say that I must have had some lucky escapes.
Ridiculously and somewhat inexplicably, I'm on a cutting spree at the moment.
It is desperate and painful and calming.
I am having to monitor the depth carefully and that is a real battle when a part of me wants to get right to the core of me.
A week later, the wound I refer to is, strikingly, a mouth.
No longer bleeding, but not properly sealed, it keeps emitting pus, despite my half hearted efforts to disinfect.
The pain from the cut is deep; which leaves me confused as to why I would find it necessary to cut again two days later, albeit far more times and far less deeply.
I suspect that even the most understanding of people might struggle to understand how on earth a person could inflict damage upon themselves in such a way.
The concept feels lip curlingly revolting to me... and I DO this!
I can well understand those who find it nauseating to imagine. I can understand the disgust and anger others may feel.
I myself have a part of me which identifies very strongly with those who may view the deliberate damage and mutilation of areas of the body as a terrible act of selfishness and hopeless self indulgence.
Ultimately, self harm is a silent, violent scream.
It is a way of putting something desperate on the outside.
It is a way of crying without heaving and sobbing and worrying about your eyes being red.
It's a way of safely taking the top layer off the toppling tower.
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