Volume 11 Issues 6 June, 2021
THE CHRYSALIS
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
Carl R. Rogers
I was 8. She was my first friend in the new school and I was a nervous third grader trying to brave through thechange of situations. We had a fight. To my utter shock, she took a sharp pencil and started hurting herself. Iwatched as the pencil left dark red marks all over her forearm. I felt so helpless and I didn’t know how to makeher stop. I felt guilty that I was responsible for what she was doing to herself.
I was 10. I was carrying my 8-month-old sister when all of a sudden she jumped out of my arms and to the floor. The rest of the scene is a blur in my memory, though I remember that the impact had injured her head slightly. I remember how angry my dad looked when he grabbed me by my wrist, dragged me out of the door and left me out of our home. I remember how my mom pleaded with him to let me go as she tried to console my wailing baby sister. I remember guilt flooding my head, asking me to do something that will neutralise the event. I curled near a wall and bit my nails until there was nothing left to bite and angrily tugged at the skin of my fingertip until it bled. Was it enough pain? I couldn’t say.
I was 14. I talked back when my mom told me something that wasn’t very agreeable to me. I spoke so rudely that my mom got hurt. Her voice trembled when she declared that she would never dare speak to her own mother in such a disrespectful tone. She was about to cry. I had made my mother sad. It had to be set right. I didn’t know how to apologize. Something in me said, I had to punish myself instead, for the mistake I had done. I was angry with myself. I banged my head on the wall until the rage and guilt passed.
I was 19. I was in a toxic relationship where I was the clingy, dependent, insecure girlfriend and he was the manipulative boyfriend so full of lies. He would keep mentioning about a beautiful girl in his class that he liked and I would end up crying, feeling possessive and ignored. Then the gas lighting would begin that I was wrong to doubt his love for me and I would get overridden with guilt. One day, as the blaming game reached its peak, I decided I must suffer pain because I had made the mistake of doubting his pure love for me. I took a long steel rod, heated it and made sure it left a mark on my body. I thought, every time I see the scar, it would remind me to not doubt his love again. The same day, I consumed half a bottle of cough syrup and went to sleep, thinking it would help me not feel the pain in my mind. When my friends passed this information to him, he had asked, “Didn’t she die?!”
I was 21. I had had a difficult break up and was trying to move on. It was also the period when I became more aware and conscious about myself, the impulses, the thoughts behind the impulses and the consequences of the impulses. Like a rider trying to get hold of the reins of the horse that is running wild, I tried to control my mind, rather than go by its whims.
I was 24. I got married to a wonderful human who made me feel secure and safe. I could be myself with him. He had accepted me the way I am, inclusive of everything. I knew, I now can finally trust someone fully to let him see even the darkest corners of my mind. Whenever we would have an argument or even a trivial fight, the impulse would return, asking me to harm myself. Was it a cheap trick my brain had learnt as a means to get attention or was it a neutraliser for the guilt, I couldn’t fathom. But now I knew it wasn’t healthy for the relationship I am nurturing with myself and with my husband. I was a mother to a baby girl. I wanted to be strong for her.
I told my husband about the impulses of self-harm and cautioned him to just be near and keep a watch even as we argued. He agreed. In situations when he was not available, I would start messaging a close friend soon after the impulse starts. As my head keeps ringing, “Go harm yourself. Mind is hurting, so should the body. Punish yourself for the mistake you did”, I would ask a friend to talk something random until the impulse passed, and I am blessed to have friends who oblige, whatever the time of the day.
I was 28. I hadn’t harmed myself in 9 years, successfully distracting myself every time the impulse came to pass. But I also felt bad about having these kinds of thoughts in the first place. I wondered if I was normal.
COVID brought with it, a new opportunity. Many clinical psychologists opened their doors to offer free counselling. I decided to give it a try and seek help. I couldn’t muster the courage to say the first hello. The weight that I had been carrying all these years dragged my confidence down.
One day, with a little nudge from friends, I called a psychologist. I don’t even know why she decided to listen to me that day for three long hours, without even getting a consultation fee. She listened. She listened without judgment. She told me how thoughts were like waves, how they will keep returning with more force, the more I try to suppress it. She asked me to just watch the thoughts as they emerge, without engaging it, and then let it pass. She asked me to have pre-programmed responses that I can employ during moments of crisis. I felt a wave of release. It was ok to have such impulses. It may be a flaw in the mind, but it’s okay. Something need not be perfect for it to be beautiful. I began to accept myself wholly.
I still continue to have self-harming thoughts occasionally: whenever I feel responsible for a mistake, whenever I feel bad that someone got hurt because of my actions. But now I know what to do. I acknowledge the impulse and let it pass. I know I may not have the control over my thoughts, but I have a control over my responses to it.
It is a long and difficult process. But I am taking one step at a time. With acceptance, has come a profound love for myself and for life.
The next time I feel the pressure to go hurt myself, I know I am strong enough to say,
“Ssshhhhh…I love myself so much that I ain’t gonna do it.” I can either break from the pressure or metamorphose and grow wings to fly. I think I have made my choice.
-Abhaya (pen name)
