feature: smooth bumps – a powerful photo series on the darkness of self-harm

Sometimes there are times when people are exceptionally hard on themselves.

As a psychology student, I didn’t think I would suffer from mental illness or self harm. I naively thought I could “cure” myself from any symptoms of depression or anxiety. Many times I thought “I should know better. I shouldn’t hurt myself. I shouldn’t starve myself. This is not okay.”

But my mind didn’t care. The darkness was not swayed and depression did not back down. Cutting became an escape and a punishment to myself for allowing myself to be sucked into a dark place. I remember watching Ellie Nash, a character from Degrassi:The Next Generation cope with cutting. I remember watching that as a young girl and not understanding the urge to mutilate yourself. I thought it was stupid. I thought it was gross. At the time I didn’t feel sympathy.

At the time I also ignorantly thought mental illness and self harm was a “white people” thing. I’m here to tell you, as a young black woman, that that it is not true. Depression and mental illness affects everyone regardless of age, gender, or race. In fact, the number of depressed and mental ill people of color may actually be higher than we think. In my own experience, I have felt depressed due to the secondary trauma of seeing my black brothers and sisters be unjustly incarcerated or killed my the police. I have also felt depressed due to the constant micoraggressions and racist acts I’ve experienced. At the time when I started cutting, there was not much discussion in my family about mental illness or depression despite the different occurrences in my family. So at the time, I was dealing with depression as well as trying to hide my symptoms and my scars.

The thing with self harm is that some of us don’t believe we have any other options and some of us think we genuinely deserve to be punished. Some of us long for the three seconds of relief we feel once we start to see the blood ooze out from underneath our skin. In those three seconds the darkness is gone and you feel complete for punishing yourself like you thought you deserved.

Then the shame washes over you. The guilt. The disgust. The darkness returns full force and your left with an even higher feeling of inadequacy than before. You realize the three seconds wasn’t worth it and now you’re left with a mess and another scar. Depending on where you hurt yourself, you have to consider what type of clothing to wear to cover up your scars so people don’t ask. It becomes a cruel game of hiding in plain sight.

I’m still learning to not punish myself for the darkness that overcomes me often. I’m still learning to be kinder to my body, my mind, and my soul. I realize that this is the only vessel I have to house this soul and I must treat it with respect and kindness. I have to protect myself from the bad thoughts and learn to fight instead of succumbing to depression. Sometimes it’s scary to unlearn destructive behaviors because we are so used to them. It’s different finding healthier ways to cope with the dark emotions inside of us because we assume we deserve the worse.

We are more than our bad thoughts and the darkness that consumes us. We don’t deserve to hurt ourselves by cutting and starving ourselves of food, love and support. For those with fresh cuts, rough scars and smooth bumps, I know you can overcome this, I’m rooting for you.

Dejah Greene www.dejahgreene.weebly.com
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