[A/N: Originally published 22/2/2009. - AK, 18/7/10]
OK, so I was reading Lola’s latest, and I got curious. I wondered if there was a self-harm equivalent to pro-Ana and pro-Mia sites. Well, I can say for one thing that the phenomenon is not nearly as prevalent. Or at least as overt. If you google ‘pro self-harm’ or ‘pro cutting’ (actually the second one’s results are mostly carpenters), most of what you’ll find is heavens no we’re not pro self-harm disclaimers. But there are a few places (mostly with a crossover audience from the very same pro-ED places).
It’s worth noting at this point that as a misanthrope I find it helpful to apply Sturgeon’s Law to humanity: 90% of people are shit*. Accordingly, the people in these groups are almost always idiots. I realise I should probably be sympathetic and oh they’ve been misled and inner demons this and tormented that, but fuck ‘em, they really piss me off.
Thing is, they’re living up to the stereotype. Which is all well and good, but it makes people think that all people who self-harm are teenage girls with stupid hair and names like Kristyn and Emilee who go on about the perfect crimson agony of it all. If I may be permitted to play them at their own game of cutting oneupmanship, these are the people who cut themselves once. With a butter knife**.
I wouldn’t mind, but for three things: that it makes it harder for people who aren’t a 16 year old girl with a misspelled name to seek treatment, they make it easier for people to stereotype people who self-harm, and that they are incredibly, incredibly thick. I mean, serious cranial injury thick. Deprived of oxygen in the womb thick.
So, yeah, they get on my nerves a little bit. I think I gave up all hope for the future of the human race about the time I entered one site’s ‘gallery of pain’ (castle thunder) and saw a sketch of a furry with anime hair, bleeding, entitled Angel Bleed In Silence. Now I might have written some wank in my time (actually I’m surprised I never used the title of this post), but for fuck’s sake.
[A/N: The drawing did exist, but was taken down some time after this post went up originally. I stand by the angry, but singling out individual people like this was, in hindsight, Not Cool. Nonetheless, at time of republishing here, this was one of the most widely-viewed posts on Teen. Mis., most of the hits having come from googling 'pro self injury' and the like. I got some emails afterwards of the 'thanks for writing that, it helped' variety. Which is why it's here.]
Thought I wasn’t going to post it, didn’t you? Well, I went there. I mean, Christ, just look at the fucking thing. Incidentally, a warning. If you were offended or triggered by the prior image, don’t have looked at it.
I’ve always been disinclined to believe the received wisdom that self-injury is ‘a cry for help’ or ‘attention-seeking’, in part because I worked very hard to avoid having anyone know about mine. That said, some of these people make me wonder.
To a certain extent, I empathise with wanting to find somewhere on the web SI-related that won’t preach to you. I mean, I think TWOLHA and RYL are cunts too, but gathering together your own little cutting party/circle-jerk? Probably not the healthiest alternative.
And they have such bullshit reasons, too.
1) It’s not hurting anyone.
Well, it’s hurting you. I mean, that’s rather the point. Not to mention your family and your friends (although personally I couldn’t give a toss about either of them, but it’s the principle).
2) Let me just quote this in its entirety.
i dont know if this is appropriate…but… i took a bath last night. i cut and let the blood drip into the water. it was beautiful.
This, along with all the other wordy bullshit about how it’s artistic and sensitive and all that bollocks. You are not Sylvia motherfucking Plath. Blood is not beautiful or of any particular significance. Quite the opposite, in fact. I like to think of it as a reminder that we’re all meat on the inside. Granted, that seems a little over-dramatic too, but it beats hubris.
I want to slap these girls (and it is always girls). Actually, let me amend that. I want to slap these girls with a brick.
it’s educationalI want to slap them with a brick, and tell them not to be so fucking stupid. Self-harm is not harmless. Given that it’s pretty much responsible for me being expelled from school and shut out of the only job I’ve ever wanted, I’d say I have some unresolved issues on this matter. But more than that, it’s a symptom of all kinds of mental-health issues, all of which can be helped by seeing a professional. A lot of the preachier self-harm help sites are cunts, but at least they’re well-intentioned cunts. And at least they don’t try and assign any great sense of drama to something that is fundamentally mundane.
It’s Self Harm Awareness Day on March 1st. I might write something special for it, or just repost Love Is Not The Movement, because it’s one of the few pieces of SI-related writing I’ve done that I feel genuinely proud of having written.
* Would I place myself in that category? Well, I could hardly be objective, could I?
** There’s always an element of competition when self-harmers collide. Maybe it’s because everyone who self-harms wants to feel at that moment that they’re the worst-off person in the world, and they don’t like having those illusions broken. I know I didn’t.
