In which I ramble a lot but I think it's worth it
TW: Psychological trauma, self-harm, Deep Uncomfortable Feelings, Me being less than perfectly poised and completely awesome, stream-of-consciousness babbling because this is way too much Feels to properly compose
When we were a deeply-troubled abused teenager, we came across a YA book that very literally saved our life.
At first it presents like a Horse Girl Story For Boys: Problem Kid and his little brother are forcibly relocated to a ranch, working with the animals and in particular His Horse teaches him to reconnect with his emotions, which lets him get through the climax.
But... It was real in a way we never expected. We didn't understand this then, but we were seeing the very first evidence that anyone else had ever felt some of the ways we did, that anyone else could understand.
It was the first time we'd ever seen anything say "yes you can be a dumb stupid fucked-up mess and still find happiness. Still deserve happiness. You can be all right again."
We read that book so many times. We were never without it, in the worst times. We read it long past the point where it was falling apart - I literally can't picture it without its cover delaminating and the corners rolled back half an inch.
(Fuck, I'm crying just thinking about it. Wish we still had it for Parker and Zukka, but if it still exists it's on my mother's bookshelf.)
There's one scene that sticks out in my head, all these years later. They had to do some fence repairs, and he - already pissed off, unruly, and not paying attention - forgot his gloves. The parental figure gave him shit for it, because now he'd have to waste half the day walking to the house and back, rendering him relatively useless.
In retrospect, I can see the trigger going off in his head. He throws on a cocky swagger, and assures her he'll get his portion done, and she moves on with the rest of the crew.
His first problem: There's no way he can back that up and get his gloves.
His second: He missed the bit on how to safely coil and weave a mass of barbed wire.
He goes "fuck it, can't stop me" and gets to work.
He pushes himself all day - burnt out from shoving around giant pointy springs, covered in assorted cuts, bruises, and scratches from when an incorrect weave exploded under tension, his clothes half-shredded, his hands basically giant balls of blood and dirt.
At one point, he talks about how he's managing this, what's keeping him on his feet and Doing The Thing: "Physical pain is the easy kind."
(Please note: This is not meant as a statement of fact, or an attempt to compare mental and physical health issues. Both are serious and deserve attention, and I'm not here to rank suffering I don't experience. This is about the mindset of a damaged self-destructive kid.)
Let me tell you, that line hit me so hard I'm still reeling twenty fucking years later.
(Crying again. It's That Line. It still hits that hard.)
See, here's the thing: I didn't have the tools then, but now? I see our own worst self-destruction in those scenes. Those moments when something makes us feel worthless and insignificant and we just have to scream "Well fucking watch me" and try to do the impossible.
And if it hurts, fine. It can't hurt more than that feeling of worthlessness. In that moment, we've pinned our entire self-worth to the completion of the challenge.
(Have we mentioned the time we got hospitalized for severe dehydration because Fuck You Mom, Watch Me?)
(Or the time Mom told us we were behind on Life Skills and we literally took off halfway across the country with plans to try and find a job?)
And in that moment, we're setting ourselves up to Suffer. We're trying to prove our worth in the most fundamental way we know how - by showing you how much we can Endure. It's the one bedrock value to others that we know we have. And it's the one arena where we know, on a bone-deep instinctual level, that we are among The Best. If torture endurance were an Olympic sport, we could suffer for our country.
Even I, who literally capitalize My pronouns and expect worship, fall back on this when I feel like my ability is in question.
(Fuck, this is why sacrifice is the highest expression of love to me, no time to unpack all that, moving on...)
(If this weren't already long and winding enough, I'd touch on That Scene from Gattaca here, feel free to ask me to expand if that doesn't explain enough but not this second)
We push ourselves, deliberately, into situations where we will need to torture ourself in order to uphold the claims we've made or prove ourself to others. And it's a functional coping mechanism when you haven't got anything better, precisely because hurting physically can make the psychological pain go away for a bit.
This is... A form of self-harm that's particularly difficult to address, because in the moment it feels like defending yourself from an attack on your self-worth. It feels good, gives you that same righteous adrenaline kick we've written about re: antis, other reactionaries, and fortress mentality.
And once you've nailed your self-worth to the task, especially if you've done so in front of other people, it is the hardest fucking thing in the world to take a step back, go "no, this isn't healthy or constructive, and leave the task incomplete. Even when you know it is absolutely, 100% the right thing to do. Because now you have that little asshole voice I the back of your head saying they were right, you buckled, you're worthless.
(Fuck, this post didn't even start out about this pattern, but now I'm seeing it everywhere. This is how discourse becomes self-harm, too - add that to the list of things to unpack if people want)
But here's the thing: You gotta. It's the only way out. If it helps, look at that as the ultimate challenge, the ultimate thing to prove: No matter how hard that little asshole voice tries, you won't buckle to it. You'll step back and actually take care of yourself. Because in the end, that's how you beat them. That's the ultimate defiance, the ultimate triumph over a world that wants to break you into compliance.
Let's show them how bright we can shine anyway.
(Last thing for the stack: The post about the "but they didn't hit me" phenomenon that this was supposed to be.)
(Okay, and a polished version of this when I have the emotional distance.)
(Yes, this is okay to reblog. I hope it conveys what I want to say to some of you, at least, à d would like to start a discussion.)
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