In this weeks Love Every Body I want to tell a very personal story.

We are writing about our hands, arms and shoulders and I want to focus on my arms.

From I was in my late teens and up until about ten years ago I used to cut my arms and wrists in self harm. Hurting myself physically so that my inner pain wouldn't be my main focus. For a long long time I used self harm as a medicine to overcome my illness. What at first was careful scrapes with a needle or a knife in my skin developed into deep cuts and long scars. Sometimes a daily "help" to the pain I felt.

So I wanted to share a poem I wrote some years ago about it. I have translated it from Norwegian that I wrote it in so therefore doesn't everything rhyme. I'm sorry about this.
  
The marks on my arm,
as a map of a life
you have chosen to live
black and white negative
 
Razor, knife and a piece of glass. 
tools of pain
as a silent punishment for everything. 

My torment is private
but you really want to help 
you don't want to leave me without knowing I'm safe

The pressure from myself
is the heaviest burden to bear
I've dreamed a thousand dreams
dreaming of everything people want to hear.

But hear me, dear friend
what I have to say
You do not have to worry
I will be safe one day

It is the power of the knife
which makes the joker trick me 
but I've got all the strength 
and I'm using it on scars.



 

I wrote this poem after a night I had harmed myself so badly that my friend found me laying on the floor bleeding and crying. He drowe me to the hospital and I had to be stitched up. I had cut my wrist. This time it wasn't just to feel a pain stronger than the one I felt inside, I thought I wanted to die.

I used to scrape my face with needles and knives. My arms, wrists and thighs I cut with razor blades. I did it often for some periods and sometimes it could go a year between each time. The last ten years I haven't done it as I've had such a great support around me. I feel pretty certain that I have come so far that I don't need to do this to myself anymore, which I hope I'm right about.

Last year I decided to get a tattoo on my writst. I chose the one I had cut the most. Not to cover up my cuts, but to put a positive mark on something that before was a very sore spot of my body.



My scars has faded and can hardly be seen, but on my left overarm you can still see some scars, but I don't care if people see them anymore as they are part of my past and I'm not ashamed to tell if they ask.

Thanks for reading my story and please feel free to share your stories if any of you have been through the same.

xxx