Drops of MY Blood Speak*
I cut it many times
You see this, this when a spell of anger took over me
I want to do this to myself. Now.
I did this then
I think of doing it now
For it does not hold any fear, anymore
to see the blood trickle down in drops of life
I pick up the razor
Else I want to noose around my mother’s sari
The one that she used once before
I have seen it hanging – mother and sari
Each mark on my body
is that cut. the skin has grown right back.
a bump around the craves on my wrist, arm, thigh
see my hands the bangles cannot hid it anymore
I look at each of this. this was done for my mother
And this when father left us three
This one here, when sent to a children’s home for care and protection
There I designed the next
I know I am alive
I am real. in control
I have my life in my hand.
The blood trickles down when I want
This is all that is mine
~~~*~~~
This is the journey with a young adult who has ideations of self-harm. The ideation of self harm has lead her to cut herself many times in the past few years. It has bogged me down for a long long now, the thoughts and feelings that overcome her when the blade is close to her skin,penetrating slowly. This reflection is a journey towards how as a counsellor I can derive meaning and help in the meaning making, of the conscious and unconscious motivations of individuals who are driven to self harm.
There are several meanings behind self-harm – a term that describes self-inflicted physical attacks on the body. The cutting of the skin, to see the blood trickle, to appear to be fearless, hitting the body and striking at all that it is and yet not. Being in a therapeutic journey with Shwetha* (name changed) for a while now, it is for me a realization that the body of S is going to be deliberately and habitually being destroyed, pained, wounded rather than being destroyed or killed in an instant – and that is harming the Self.
I ask myself, why do people turn to their bodies in this way, repeatedly inflicting such painful damage on themselves?
