I Need My Deep, Salty Wounds

 Wanting to be in pain is against human nature, and so is wanting to die. As a living organism, you are programmed to always strive to survive, keep living as long as possible because life is precious and should be protected. It is not rational to want to end your own life, because that would mean that you'd seize to exist, which is what all living things want to avoid. 

Pain is sometimes the first step toward death. It is a warning sign, a signal of something that's wrong in your body, something that you need to fix before it's too late. The human nervous system is designed to inform us when we need to act in order to save our lives. And being in pain is what your nerves cause you to feel, to get your attention. 

a present.

The concept of being in pain is never desirable for obvious reasons. It ignites your nerves in flames, makes it unbearable to move, to eat, to exist. Pain disables you, makes everything meaningful in life impossible for you to reach. It is miserable, intolerable. You never want to feel like that; whenever you are in pain, you do everything in your power to make it disappear. 

So if being in pain is a state no human would ever want to be in, why do some humans intentionally hurt themselves?

Cutting and self-harming is an interesting phenomenon because it so entirely tied into the concept of pain, both in its intentions and causations. It is a paradox in human existence, a contradiction in the logic of consciousness. Because people who harm themselves usually cause pain to themselves because they are already in pain. It is a vicious cycle, feeding off of itself. 

Pain that we humans are able to feel is not limited to the physical pain our bodies experience when they get hurt. Some shades of pain are hidden deep within ourselves, in our souls, spirits, hearts, whatever you call it. That kind of pain that makes you hurt all around yourself is often called emotional pain, but you can also refer to it by mental or psychological pain. 

The most crucial organ in the human nervous system is the brain. The brain sends electric impulses through your nervous system, which in turn, make you feel pain somewhere around your body. But when the source of that pain is not a body part, a wound or any other organ, then why is the brain making you feel pain in the first place? Because sometimes, it is your brain that is hurting, that is in pain. And that is the core of psychological pain. 

So the people who cut themselves are typically in a lot of psychological pain. Their brains are screaming for help, for relief, for something that could distract themselves from the pain they are first-hand experiencing. So the brain does a funky little trick and tricks itself into focusing another source of pain instead. 

The wound you just cut down your forearm is making you feel physical pain, which your brain can focus on and trick itself into believing that the pain that caused all of this does not exist anymore. It is a relief, a grounding method. 

In a lot of ways, I feel like self-harm was given to me in the form of a present. A gift from the cause of all of my inner pain, the other human beings who had victimized me as a child. And the present was the blade, the knife, the scissors; all used to give me the relief of red teardrops streaming down my arms. 

030-182-sabotage,

ichigonya