Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

(Guest post brought to you by Birmingham)

Don't try this at home!

Self-injury: You are NOT the only one

If you cause physical harm to your body in order to deal with overwhelming feelings, know that you have nothing to be ashamed of.

How do you know if you self-injure? It may seem an odd question to some, but a few people aren’t sure if what they do is “really” self-injury. Answer these questions:

  1. Do you deliberately cause physical harm to yourself to the extent of causing tissue damage (breaking the skin, bruising, leaving marks that last for more than an hour)?
  2. Do you cause this harm to yourself as a way of dealing with unpleasant or overwhelming emotions, thoughts, or situations (including dissociation)?
  3. If your self-harm is not compulsive, do you often think about SI even when you’re relatively calm and not doing it at the moment?

Or maybe, just maybe, that damned kickball had it out for you! Maybe it knew that you were about to kick the FRACK out of it and send it sailing over Tucker’s head into left field. Or maybe the ball knew that you were not ready for the Zen mastery of the “spinning back heel-cross rotational-triple Lutz” kick that you were attempting. Or maybe the kickball was never good at sports, and felt pressured into a sports career by a domineering father and an unsympathetic society that would never understand the kickball’s inner passion for interpretive dance, so it had to sell it’s dreams short and follow the suffocating path set out by mistakes and failures of it’s father’s sham of a life, which would only lead the poor kickball to a life of lies and failed relationships with abusive equipment managers who only cared about cheap thrills and an easy…. well, you know what I mean.

Or dear Noelle, maybe there are easier ways of of excusing the eating of Haagen-Dazs all day.

*This has been a public service message brought to you by the Coalition of Friends of Noelle Tannenbaum’s Speedy Recovery Association.

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12 responses to this post.

  1. Posted by Birmingham on November 3, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Rest in peace, Noelle.
    I mean get well soon!!! There are a lot of people all lined up to pamper you.

  2. Seriously, why do you hate your ankle so much? What did it ever do to you?

  3. Oh, Birmingham….I gave you a shout out the other day!!!!!

  4. Sorry to hear of your season-ending injury. But think of it this way, now you’ll have tons of material for NaBloPoMo 07?

  5. Ruh-roh. At least now that you’re laid up you’ll have more time to repeatedly vote for Bossy as Best Humor Blog over on the Weblog Award site. Do you think it’s possible to break one’s Shamelessness?

  6. I had to Google that title, and now I am ashamed, because someone recently burned five different Leonard Cohen CDs for me, so I really probably should have recognized that.

    I think your theory about it being the kickball’s fault is right on. But either way, I hope you’re on your feet again soon.

  7. If I break my ankle, I get to eat all the ice cream I want? Count me in!

  8. I don’t know, this sounds fishy. I don’t think you can break anything on a lil ol kickball that even 2nd graders use. I think someone hurt you, and all this SI talk is al elaborate cover-up to protect the perp. Who really did this to you? You can tell me. It’s not your fault, what happened is not your fault, and we can break this silence of kickball violence.

  9. [...] understand t…Or maybe, just maybe, that damned kickball had it out for you!… source: Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when t…, The Daily [...]

  10. Yes, thinking of what i can break to get the Hagen Daz too. and can somebody bring that girl her laptop.

  11. Christmas Tree, rest assured that if you read this, I am working on a new fauxcabulary word — something as good as “shinjury” — to describe this new, painful wound of yours.

    You deserve nothing less than the gift of fake words, yo.

  12. FEEEEEEEEEEEEEL BETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTER.

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