Yes, I am a cutter, a hitter, a burner, a hair puller. Yes, I may be a creep or what my mother used to call me, "a freak". I love to cut myself with razorblades, kitchen knives, plastic knives, pieces of broken glass or mirror, scrap metal, combs or anything that I can find. As I reflect over my childhood I see it as being a dark nightmare tainted in blood and bruises. Burns strewn about my limbs. My poor child body, poor child skin mottled with lacerations, scars, black and blue marks and burns from cigarettes or from curling irons. I was a little girl scared and afraid of my parents and mostly, almost more painfully, myself. When I get home from school will I hurt myself again today? I remember when I was about 15 years old I took a rock from the outside garden and carried it to my room. There I repeatedly smashed the rock into my forehead, pounding away at my frontal lobe cortex, why? To try and kill my identity so I could be someone else. I caused scrapes and hematomas on my head that my mother kept asking me about. "So, I don't have to be your daughter anymore, Mom.", was the silent reply in my heart.
Now that I am a young woman, I look in the mirror and realize, that through all the cutting, stitches, burns, blisters, bruises and hair pulling, I realize that I am none of these. I am not a cutter, even if I did so, I'm not a hitter, even if I did it, I'm not a burner, even if I burned myself, I'm not a hair puller. I'm just me.
I'm just ConcreteGirl.