today i looked down and saw bruises on my legs. i didn’t know what they were at first, but i saw their colour - purplish - considered the location - upper thigh - and thought of the past few weeks, of the pinching, of the hitting, of the constant self-recrimination, of the feelings of worthlessness, of digging my nails into my skin, and put the two and two together. oh.

i thought of my conversations with the school nurse. do you self harm? no - but wait, what counts as self harm? anything from cutting, scratching, hitting yourself… ...then i guess yeah, i do. but it doesn’t leave bruises, so it can’t be that serious, right?

well. as of today i have made a liar of myself, but what else is new.

today i looked down and saw bruises on my legs, and wondered if they could be a sign of something else. maybe it was a rash, or the start of an illness. i don’t know what i was expecting when i googled my “symptoms”, but videos on how to bruise your legs wasn’t it. "artsy" photos on tumblr of self-inflicted harm of every kind wasn’t it. forums discussing the best methods of hurting oneself wasn’t it. i closed the tabs and felt sick.

today i looked down and saw bruises on my legs, and less than an hour later i caught myself pinching at the loose skin around my hip, enough to make sure it hurt. i hadn’t even realized i was doing it. i had known this new habit of mine had become an everyday occurrence, had known it wasn’t healthy but couldn’t think of anything else that worked to drive the thoughts away. and - the punishment. you don’t deserve the good things in life. you don’t deserve your friends, you don’t deserve your parents’ love, you don’t deserve your books or your clothes or the food you eat. you don’t deserve to live. if i stopped - i would forget this. i would lull myself into a false sense of security, begin believing that i was actually worth something even after the things i’d done, the things i’ve thought - and it would all be over. i would lose my morals, my faith. people would get hurt. i would do unspeakable things. i already hung by my fingernails from the edge of a cliff and if i stopped, i would fall.

whenever i dug my nails into my palms, the marks would fade within minutes. whenever i slapped myself the sting would soon be gone, and any lingering redness could be dismissed as acne, as not enough sleep, as the rising heat. but today i looked down and saw bruises on my legs. this is a wake-up call.