(no subject)
I'm not in the best mental state because of this below.
She's cutting her arms again.
It just makes me hurt inside--in the marrow of my sternum--to see that Tough-Strip band-aid on her arm and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn't just "slip on the steps" or "bump into a door" or "have an accident in the prop room."
I grabbed her wrist when I saw the band-aid, and she tried to pull away and I held on. I hugged her because there was no way of saying "I love you dearly, my friend, but I can't stand how this makes me feel." Now, with her not here, I can say it . . . but I couldn't look into her eyes and tell her.
It's impossible to feel as though I'm not responsible for the way the world comes about. As someone said today, one must take responsibility for one's own actions--for one's own emotions, too. I am sad because something in me is screaming and huddling in the dust at the thought of someone I love causing herself pain. That's just how I am--that kind of thing grieves me.
And it's absolutely foolish to assume that the world can't cause emotions, as well. Even if my sadness is my fault because I am a person who grieves for self-injury, she is making me sad as well by waking that aspect of myself.
Everything is reciprocal. Every time something stirs in the great bed of the world, something else wakes at the motion.
If that's so, then I bear some responsibility for her grief just as she bears some responsibility for mine.
And there's also the moral conundrum. Who am I to judge her actions and her joy in the pain-feeling when it's something that I enjoy as well? I've never cut myself or scraped myself raw until the raw skin bleeds . . . and yet I like the way fingernails burn furrows into my skin, and the way it feels to press these scratched places against the wall or the bed or the back of a chair and feel an echo of that burn.
Who am I to judge her? What's the difference between running to pain for solace in times of sorrow and casually, flirtatiously engaging it? How is my pain any less dangerous to me, ultimately, than hers is to her?
Everything is reciprocal. The giver cannot give without a receiver; the waker wakes at some stimulus, imagined or real; the hurting girl feels pain because something has caused her pain, even if that something is herself.
If she hurts me by hurting herself, then I may be hurting her by being hurt by her.
I love you--all of you who read this, and all of you who do not read this but know of what I speak.
She's cutting her arms again.
It just makes me hurt inside--in the marrow of my sternum--to see that Tough-Strip band-aid on her arm and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn't just "slip on the steps" or "bump into a door" or "have an accident in the prop room."
I grabbed her wrist when I saw the band-aid, and she tried to pull away and I held on. I hugged her because there was no way of saying "I love you dearly, my friend, but I can't stand how this makes me feel." Now, with her not here, I can say it . . . but I couldn't look into her eyes and tell her.
It's impossible to feel as though I'm not responsible for the way the world comes about. As someone said today, one must take responsibility for one's own actions--for one's own emotions, too. I am sad because something in me is screaming and huddling in the dust at the thought of someone I love causing herself pain. That's just how I am--that kind of thing grieves me.
And it's absolutely foolish to assume that the world can't cause emotions, as well. Even if my sadness is my fault because I am a person who grieves for self-injury, she is making me sad as well by waking that aspect of myself.
Everything is reciprocal. Every time something stirs in the great bed of the world, something else wakes at the motion.
If that's so, then I bear some responsibility for her grief just as she bears some responsibility for mine.
And there's also the moral conundrum. Who am I to judge her actions and her joy in the pain-feeling when it's something that I enjoy as well? I've never cut myself or scraped myself raw until the raw skin bleeds . . . and yet I like the way fingernails burn furrows into my skin, and the way it feels to press these scratched places against the wall or the bed or the back of a chair and feel an echo of that burn.
Who am I to judge her? What's the difference between running to pain for solace in times of sorrow and casually, flirtatiously engaging it? How is my pain any less dangerous to me, ultimately, than hers is to her?
Everything is reciprocal. The giver cannot give without a receiver; the waker wakes at some stimulus, imagined or real; the hurting girl feels pain because something has caused her pain, even if that something is herself.
If she hurts me by hurting herself, then I may be hurting her by being hurt by her.
I love you--all of you who read this, and all of you who do not read this but know of what I speak.