Question to the ones with self harm scars on arm(s) or anywhere really. Curious.
How do you do it, hide it all the time, or do you? Do you let it show?
If you hide it all the time, does there come a time where you must wear clothing in which you can no longer hide?
I was thinking about this one the other day too: What if you needed to see a doctor? They like to do physical check ups once in a while and especially if you haven’t been in for awhile. They’d see. I don’t know how to feel about that.
When I started, I started just below the elbow on the top of the forearm. With a few noticable big scars and slight discoloration of the skin from the few hundred times I cut myself there. 8 months into doing that, I moved down to my wrist. At this point, it was summer, and wearing long sleeves was no longer an option where I work, just too hot to handle. I got comfortable with allowing the forearm scars to show, because after everything I had done, it doesn’t even look a tenth as bad as my wrist does. As I had to wear short sleeves so I wouldn’t feel like I was going to pass out, I cut sparingly on the wrist, bandaged when several were clustered near each other, left visible otherwise. Over time over the course of the summer I cared less and less and less, which began more cutting and cutting and cutting. You would be surprised how OBLIVIOUS people are to bright red cuts and pink outlines of scars with a visible wrist. Now that it’s winter, some question why I wear one sleeve down, and the other up. Oh well. I wasn’t seeking attention though, I never have. I just stopped caring as much. Was actually very self-conscious though, turning my body away a lot of the times so nobody could see, or twisting the arm a bit. Anyways once Fall hit I of course went back to long sleeves. More harming no surprise there, then hits October. Read another one of my previous posts if you wish to know what happened in late October. 1 year 2 months later from the start of self harm and here we are in December of 2016. Wrist status: fucked. About 500 cuts (+ or – some of course, impossible to count that exactly). I don’t really care if anyone sees my arm (besides my family, they don’t know anything and it shall stay that way), but I also DO.
In honesty, I don’t want to burden anyone with what I do, or having to “worry” if they were to see my arm now. Not that that’s really a concern now seeing as it’s pretty cold for another half year. I wouldn’t like a doctor to see though, not sure what they’d say. Just some thoughts on a boring day.
I ask those commenting to not give advice, I am not seeking advice, merely intellectual conversations and answers to the questions posed. I want to see what others do and think about their self harm. If they hide it, or care or not. Give some background if you wish? I’ll try to comment quickly.
~Oathkeeper
20 comments
I can’t give an intellectual answer to you I lack intelligence. I can respond with yes I cut and let it show. Show them whoever comes to ask to the close minded I say these are when I fell down on the floor they believe it open minded intellectuals I tell them ‘people bother me I cut to feel’ and they give me a relaxed look and say to other intellectuals ‘she is highly disturbed’. End of the story
Oh I just meant intellectual in the sense of, well, relevant and not going off on some tantrum about “help” and stuff like that.
Anyways, yeah aren’t people just the best?
I don’t do that. So you’re lucky
What do you mean by just the best?
Just throwing some sarcasm out there
Sarcasm. Now I find it
Been looking? I can throw out jokes and sarcasm all day long.
Don’t. Sell a book on those jokes
Nah wasn’t going to, just saying I could thrive on it, don’t worry you will be spared badly made witty jokes. Just lookin for comments and people to reply to, so thanks.
Hoe disturbed are you ? 1- 10
Hmm…. I wouldn’t use the word disturbed to define it, but here’s your answer: hanging off a ledge and don’t feel like pulling myself up. If I had to put a number to how much I don’t give a fuck about myself, I’d say 8-10.
Good
10 – edge of insanity/insanity
I don’t mind people seeing my scars, but I tend to hide my fresh work not sure why but once they are healed it doesn’t seem to bother me what people see.
Try a combination of vitamin e oil and cocoa butter if you want to get rid of the scarring. For doctors, (I’m not a cutter but I’ve had marks and things that I’ve needed concealing) invest in a thick foundation, doesn’t need to be a very good one, a shitty one will do unless your doctor is physically rubbing your skin.
I’ve always hidden my marks but they were never all that difficult to hide for me. My scarring is mostly located on my thighs and the few on my arms are easy enough to hide. I hide them because I don’t want my doctor or my family members interfering. I also don’t want people thinking poorly of me for the things I do to myself.
Thanks for sharing. I’m not sure why, but, I don’t want to make them go away. They are part of me now, they show how broken I am. I guess…
Don’t seek validation
Not how broken you are but how much damage has been done. You’re not broke. You’ve been damaged.
Maybe…
I haven’t cut in a while, I’ve got the urge still, seem to top now and again, but I just feel so crushed not even that helps anymore so I don’t do it, I just don’t feel it.
I’m 29 now, started at 15, used other selfharm means before that. Haven’t cut in 7 months 19 days,
incidental, around the time I went off meds
I never used my wrist/arms, that was a sacred place for something else, so I used my thigh. Also seemed more sensitive, at least back then, it’s mangled and numb now.
But I never cut below my underpants line, boxer shorts, or what they are called. This way no one would ever see during an activity, season, sleeping/waking up zombie walking out bumping into someone. And when taking showers in the gym, have the towel around me all the way up, stepping into the water with my back to people, and quickly wrap the towel around again when stepping out.
Even when getting examined it was easy to hide, just only step out of the underpants with one leg, and cupping the genitals, while thus discretely holding the other side of the underpants up covering the thigh, doctor just thought it was regular shyness. poor fool, sweet man.
Since he was trying hard to help me with the other things, eventually I didn’t even mind, and just let the underpants down and allowed him to see everything.
Now I never hid, or tried to hide it because I was ashamed or anything, but because of the fallout, I had seen what happened to others, what could happen, and for the rest of the people, I just didn’t want to be bothered by stupid questions or the lack of understanding in their looks.
Surprisingly easy to hide from some girlfriends too even. just whip “it” out while keeping the underpants on, acting like you were too eager to bother taking them off, when you really just didn’t want the look in her eyes to change.
I do not show my scars on my thigh to anyone, but I’m not really trying hard to hide them, they are me, and just like me, people mostly don’t see.
The 1 girlfriend that I did allow to see, was something special. maybe that was why I let her. And she didn’t mind, she would just caress them or kiss my thigh, and wake the dead nerves to life.
The 7 scars on my arm and wrist, I display proudly, like a badge of fucking honour,
I would never wear long sleeves to try and hide those, not that they are easy to see, but they mean a lot to me… my greatest success…