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Scars, As a Battle Wound
"So when someone asks me where I got the scars on my wrist, the answer ‘I used to be a cutter’ doesn’t seem adequate."
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By Chelsea Vargas
I rescued a baby from the jaws of an angry lion. I have a homicidal cat. I was chopping carrots and the knife slipped - a lot. For the past couple years, I have come up with tons of ridiculous, unconvincing explanations for the scars on my wrist. But the truth is that once upon a time, I was a cutter.
I have struggled to overcome that title, partly because cutting is a problem that most people don't quite understand. At least in my experience, people tend to equate it to a suicide attempt…which for me, it absolutely was not. There are a whole bunch of reasons why people cut and no easy explanations.
So when someone asks me where I got the scars on my wrist, the answer 'I used to be a cutter' doesn't seem adequate. On the one hand, I want to explain the cutting phenomenon in more depth and destroy the stereotype of what kind of a person a cutter is. But on the other hand, I don't want to trap myself into the role of spokesman for the cutters of the world.
For a long time, I was too embarrassed to even think about the possibility of ever being asked where the scars came from, let alone having to explain the psychology of cutting. So, I wore long sleeved shirts or bracelets and a watch. I gradually transitioned to thinner bracelets and one day I stepped out into the world bare-wristed. It was scary, and all day long I was amazingly conscious of exactly how my arm was resting, and whether or not my scars were exposed to the world. Since then I've gotten more comfortable walking around in short sleeves and without jewelry, and the questions that might come with that exposure.
I still sort of panic when I'm asked about the origin of the scars, and most of the time I resort to one of my old unbelievable stories. But every now and then, I get the guts to open up. A friend of mine who knows the truth says I should see the scars as a battle wound - that I should be proud to have overcome the problem. While I don't think I'm quite ready for pride, it looks like maybe honesty is on its way.
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