Isn't is great how i keep talking about coming back to Xanga... but then keep failing? Facebook has stolen my attention. It's just so much more convenient to go on Facebook, update my status, find a few random things to comment on, and then be done with it. To post something worthy of Xanga's more... intricate standards, i actually have to put thought and time into the words i have clattering off my fingertips. So that is why my Xanga posts are so few and far between: I am just plain lazy.
BUT! not tonight. Tonight i have a cup of coffee coursing through my veins and a laptop i can bring onto the couch with me. So tonight is when i finally give some more attention to Xanga.
I've been bringing up the subject of cutting up in a lot of my conversations recently... it's becoming some strange fascination for me. I am continuously surprised by which of my friends have done it and which haven't. The reasons for cutting vary so greatly, it has ceased to be about depression in my mind. Everyone has a different reason, and a different method. They range from the nice blonde boy who seems to be all set just yearning for attention from the only girl who won't give him any; to the suicidal adolescent who does everything she can to hide the scars because help is the last thing she wants from anyone.
I'm also starting to view cutting as an incurable disease. you can stop the actual cutting, but the desire for self-destruction doesn't really go away.
The first time the issue of cutting was really brought into focus in my life was about three years ago when my sister told one of our friends that she had been diagnosed with depression, and our friend immediately checked her arms for cuts. "Well you're not emo..." the friend had said, but my sister replied, "You're just not looking in the right place."
Just over six months after this event, i came home late at night from some party or something a week before my birthday to find my parents waiting for me in the living room. They told me to sit down because they needed to talk to me... and i actually asked them, "Did someone die?" As soon as the words came out of my mouth i knew it had been a mistake because my mother burst into tears. over the next few minutes i learned that my mom's brother, Michael, had found her brother Jordon's body on the floor of his apartment. He had died about a week earlier and no one even knew. A few days later we heard that Jordon had died of a heart disease which he had complicated with alcohol poisoning. That's when i started cutting.
Almost exactly one year later, a short time after my birthday, my sister, overwhelmed by the different stresses of her life at that time, tried to take her own life. I told myself i would never ever do that to her and so over the next few months i cleaned myself up and finally kicked my cutting addiction. But no matter how much time goes by, the memory of the strange release the cutting gave me keeps whispering in the back of my head every time my parents yell at me or a supposed friend hurts me or yet another loved one dies. No matter how long i treat the symptoms, i don't think i will ever be cured.
But the point of this post is not to get anyone's attention or pity, it's not even meant to inspire anyone to stop their self-destructive habits. The point of this post is to ask a question: Is cutting wrong?
Perhaps i should change that to "a series of questions" because i need to be more specific: If it's helping someone to release whatever anxieties they may not be able to deal with by themselves, can anyone really tell them that they shouldn't do it? When no one seems willing to listen, why should we be aloud to talk down to the people looking for some path, no matter how "painful", to normalcy?
And lastly: Who are you to tell me what i should and should not do to my own body?
