They say you can’t cure someone else’s depression.
You can’t fix anyone; they must do it themselves.
What they don’t tell you is how you feel responsible anyway.
That when they’re struggling,
you feel it’s something you haven’t been doing well enough.
You aren’t enough.
Saw some scars on a friend of mine today.
I was aware he did, but he’s good at covering it up.
Just kind of a mild surprise. Kind of interesting, the conversations that happen between those of us who do self harm. The excuses, cover-up methods, etc.
“Usually I say catscratch. I don’t even have a cat.”
“Oh, I blame it on the woodsplitter. You’ve seen the size of some of these…a cat can’t do that.”
“Yep.”
He holds my hand in his, and holds my arm in his other. My forearm feels so small in his gentle grasp.
His fingers run lightly over the raised white bumps of flesh which used to be red, angry gashes. He’s kissed the same lines before.
He looks at me and sighs.
“One of these days,” he whispers, “I’m going to kiss all of them better.”
He begins to pull up my sleeve.
“No.”
His eyes are quizzical.
“You won’t like what you see.”
He pulls up my sleeve and kisses the topmost cut. Meeting my eyes, he pulls it back down.
“I still love you, no matter what.”
| — | Tix, “My Mad Fat Diary” |
So, I still like touching his wrists…and whenever I do it, he gets it and just lets me. He sobers up a bit because he knows why I like to do that but it’s all in all a very touching moment between us.
So today I was doing that and later he’s holding one of my hands in both of his and he starts moving his thumb down my hand and VERY LIGHTLY runs a thumb along some of my scars.
I can’t even…he doesn’t even like to acknowledge them for the most part.
I swear to god that gave me more butterflies than anything he’s ever done. And he’s the sweetest thing on the whole damn planet.
