Butch Femme Planet - For those who self-injurer

In the culture I grew up in, and the faith I was raised in, adultery, divorce... those things never happened.

When my Daddy, cheated on Mother, and got my 17 year old best friend pregnant, all hell broke loose. I was 13 at the time. The scandal was nerve wracking. The shame, the unmitigated shame was intense. We felt pointed at and whispered about... sometimes justifiably.

Not only shame, but listening to Mother cry out that she wanted to die, begged God to allow her to die, tore at my very being. I hated my Daddy, yet loved my Daddy, I was angry at Mother for not fighting, yet angry at Daddy for not giving her reason enough to fight.

So, not only was I supressing any thought of being gay, not only was I dealing with the after affects of being molested three different times by three different people, I was now dealing with anger, shame, guilt and fear.

Shortly after my father left, he had started drinking and he and his new girlfriend were at a bar drunk. I was at his house for the weekend, their baby was with Mother. Complicated, I know, but please bear with me. I got a call from Daddy's g/f, "your Dad wrecked the truck, he's still in there, not moving."

I called Mother, she called an ambulance. Myself, and three friends went back the dirt road where we had been told they had wrecked. The area was known as "Harpers woods" and someone with lifetime knowledge of the woods, could still get lost for days, if not careful.

We came across the wrecked truck, but Daddy wasn't in it. I panicked, I began screaming for him, at the top of my lungs, I was racing through the woods edge, looking for anything, any sign of him, at all. I found nothing.

By this time, Mother and Grandma, with Daddys brother, were there, along with the fire and rescue squad. It wasn't until a fireman took my arm and approached Mother and said "if she does not stop, we will have to sedate her and take her to the hospital". It was only then that I realized that I had blood dripping from the inside of both arms.. I had literally dug them open with my fingernails.

That was the first time I self injured. It was not the last.

For me, it wasn't anxiety, it wasn't even necessarily fear, like the first time, that kept me doing it. It was a pain, a hurt so devasatingly overwhelming inside of me.. that the only way to distract myself from that emotional pain, was to induce physical pain.

I used a cross pendant I had gotten for Easter, the second time I did it.

I used a pencil eraser the third time. By the time I graduated to a blade, I thought I had hit rock bottom.

I sought counseling, through religious and secular means. The frequency dropped dramatically. I was "normal". When I finally admitted to myself that I was gay, I ran from the truth. I ran right into the arms of a woman who was, quite frankly, evil. I allowed her to do things to me, not because I loved her, or had any notion of that, but because, it was my guilt free way of self injuring. I wasn't doing it. She was. Canes, whips, floggers, flails... nothing to extreme... until I stopped consenting.

Then came biting till the skin broke, whipping until I pissed blood... but she introduced something that I have never even thought of. She took to burning me with cigarettes. I escaped her. I met another woman who, while the relationship did not last, taught me how to love myself.

Then, I met a woman who was nice, cute, outgoing and genuinely interested in me... or so I thought. I've come to realize that she was someone who simply did not have the capacity to care for anyone but herself.

One day, after she had hurt me so badly emotionally, I found myself hiding in my woods, cutting again.

Three months later, I was hiding on our back porch, lighting a cigarette and burning myself. Why? Again, not anxiety, not fear, just a pain so intense inside, that I had to get my mind off of it, or go insane.

I've not cut/burned/ or in any other way self injured in nearly a year now. I've not really felt the need. But I know, that deep inside of me is that dark part that reassures me.. "if it hurts too much, I have the cure".. and at times, that part is too alluring to resist.

The only way I can stop myself from wanting to do this, is to stop allowing myself to be hurt in ways that cause me to want that pain.

In a poem I wrote about what I was feeling... one line said.

I want to bleed so that my pain is no longer inside. I want to scream so that the keening of my soul can finally cease. I want to hurt, so that the hurting of my soul can be relieved.

Sadly enough, there is a huge part of me that still relates to that poem.