Talking Heads: born under punches
Last night, at the end of a rehearsal, as I put on my jacket, a woman I don't know very well points at my stomach. My t-shirt has ridden up.
-Jesus, she says, is that a pair of tights or is that your skin? -uh... I reply, wondering what the fuck made her think it might be a pair of tights, it's my skin.
-what happened to you? she asks, a highnote of horror in her voice.
I do what I always do. I look away, say -it's a long story, and then go out and get plastered. Something which was especially easy last night as I hadn't eaten for eighteen hours. I tell a lie. I'd eaten a mandarin. And felt pretty guilty about it afterwards.
Holy motherfucking shit but I'm hungover now. I still haven't eaten.
Why do I hurt myself in this way? I wasn't starving to get thin. I was starving to punish, shrink, expurgate. I wasn't drinking to have fun; I wasn't even drinking to get drunk. I was drinking to make myself feel bad, to prove to myself that I was the awful, out of control, disreputable person I knew myself to be. The degree to which I hate my body astonishes even me. It isn’t the belief that I’m ugly. I do believe this, and have done as long as I can remember, not aided by the fact that I was, even objectively speaking, a fantastically unattractive teenager. Those glasses- what was anyone thinking? And that hair? Jesus. Someone should have taken me aside and said somethiing to me. I would like to be able to say now “I have grown into myself and am in fact not unattractive, despite what my mind says”. I am unable to say this. I know that I am not beautiful. Beyond this, I can’t say. My belief in my ugliness is absolute. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I balk. Heavens above! How can I leave the house in the morning, looking like this? Sweet Jesus, how can I live?
I have felt beautiful precisely twice in my life. Both times were responses to the early stages of relationships. On both occassions it happened that the men I was with didn’t try to fuck me. Sex isn’t something which makes me feel beautiful. In both cases what made me feel beautiful was a degree of intimacy, a taking care. A man stroking my hair and saying something kind. Both times I have seen myself through the eyes of another person. As a thing to be considered affectionately. On both occassions what I fell in love with in these men- and boy did I fall- was something fatherly. It’s not freudian. It’s just true. I wanted- want- someone to see me through rose tinted spectacles and say- my darling girl. Both men left me because, not believing that it could be true, I pushed their affection to the limit. -Prove it, said my mind. -Prove this isn't some kind of joke. The truth is no one can prove that they like you.
Ugliness doesn’t lead to hate, though. What leads to hate is the multiple betrayals my body has inflicted on me. My body betrays me by taking up space, by being a physical object in the world, by being beyond my control. I leaned early in my life how to remove myself mentally from a situation. Much of my childhood is remembered in the third person; I see from the other side of the room a small figure hunched and trying to absent itself from the screaming tirade, trying not to cry, trying not to exist. I see it. Failing. The rest of my childhood I simply don’t remember. I know it happened from the aftermath. I remember the bruises but not how they happened. I remember the fear, but not why I was afraid. I remember my mother hiding from my grandmother, screaming to my father, “how can I face your mother whan I’ve got a black eye and hip broken because her son threw me down stairs?” Although I know I must have watched, I don’t remember seeing it happen. I remember broken objects- my bedroom door, my favorite mug, the glass in the kitchen window- I don’t remember how they were broken. I remember blood on the bathroom walls and trying to clean it up before my mother got home. I don’t remember whose blood it was or how it got there.
Although I could remove my mind I couldn’t remove my body, and that was the first betrayal. My body betrayed me by growing when all I wanted it to do was shrink. It betrayed me by laughing and talking and putting its hand up in lessons. Later it betrayed me by responding when it was touched. This isn’t an uncommon sentiment among those sexually abused as young children. There is a part of you which suspects that you might, deep down, have asked for it, and even enjoyed it. Long before the one violent act of rape I was in contact with men who didn’t know where the boundaries ought to be with a young girl. I think, now, that much of it was unintentional, not designed to hurt or damage. In the gardens of many seedy pubs men told me I was pretty and bought me lemonade. They put a hand on my thigh, shoulder, as yet unformed breasts. Some, less concerned with innocence, put a hand up my skirt. All of them laughed at me. I believe truly that it was meant with affection, for the most part. I was on a level with the obligatory pub dog- basically nonsentient but occasionally prone to do amusing, almost human things. What I felt was humiliation. My body was there for them to laugh at, and I didn't know why. I didn't understand the jokes. But my body was the reason for them. That was betrayal.
My body feels, is saddled with emotion. I have always aspired to the true, the needless. The factual. To need, to want, to desire, to love, to feel: these seem like monumental weaknesses. I have never been able to subjugate them, although I have tried. In the last few months I have achieved something I have never thought I would be able to do: to admit to desiring, to liking, another human being. To be able to say something as childish as "I have a crush on Thomas". I have been saying it a lot, relishing the words in my mouth, relishing the image of myself as someone capable of desire. I have almost, almost, been able to believe that the response of others to this sort of comment is not to think, behind their unreadable eyes what right has she to fancy someone? Can't she see that no one will ever desire her? Can't she see that this sort of thing is not for the likes of her? Can't she see how she is HUMILIATING herself?
Self-harm springs in many ways from this. There are the complicated, the cultural, reasons. There are the philosophical reasons. And there is the reason that I feel, somewhere in my gut, above all others, simple and keen. I want other people to know that I hate myself as much as they do. I want to show them that although I can't stop my body taking up space, I don't for a moment think that it is a space I deserve. By showing on my skin how hard I am trying to overcome need, I want people to give me leeway for trying, even though I fail. I want to show people that I am not delusional. I know that my body is just an object. I know that it is just something to laugh at. I know that it is just something to be used.
It's on the level of a preemptive strike. No one can hurt me as badly as I can hurt myself. That's power, of a sort. Preemptive strikes rarely work, though, for proof of which c.f. the gulf war mark 2. Perhaps I could use my skin as part of an anti-war propoganda film. Look! I tried to beat them, but all I ever did was beat myself! There is a lot of talk in psychotheraputic communities of the internalisation of the abuser. If the people who you were told loved you (your father, your mother, rabbit and all rabbit's friends and relations) bully, beat and hurt you then it becomes the case that you learn that the only way to love yourself is by enacting the same sort of behaviour upon yourself. This may be true. It is true that after cutting myself I feel comforted, surrounded by protection, loved. But I don't think that is how it started. It started as an attempt to beat the fuckers at their own game. You think I care that you hurt me? Your hurt is nothing to me. Look at this! This is how much I can hurt myself. I don't even notice your hurt anymore. You withdraw yourself behing scars. They keep your from harm; they protect you, just as your skin is meant to, from invasion. My skin has never been strong enough, even with its armoury of scars.
I have cried precisely once in therapy. A woman I saw once a month for a period of about six months, the first woman to recognise that I was not just a fucked-up twenty-something finding the transition to adulthood hard, but a seriously disturbed young girl, asked me when I knew how to stop cutting, when the damage I had done was "enough". I told her, quite simply, that I stopped when I knew that I needed stitches but wasn't going to get them. She looked straight at me and said, with compassion and sorrow in her voice I had never expected to hear, -you really hate yourself, don't you. I couldn't answer, but I cried- real, true, grieving weeping. Because it's true, and I don't know how to stop.
-Jesus, she says, is that a pair of tights or is that your skin? -uh... I reply, wondering what the fuck made her think it might be a pair of tights, it's my skin.
-what happened to you? she asks, a highnote of horror in her voice.
I do what I always do. I look away, say -it's a long story, and then go out and get plastered. Something which was especially easy last night as I hadn't eaten for eighteen hours. I tell a lie. I'd eaten a mandarin. And felt pretty guilty about it afterwards.
Holy motherfucking shit but I'm hungover now. I still haven't eaten.
Why do I hurt myself in this way? I wasn't starving to get thin. I was starving to punish, shrink, expurgate. I wasn't drinking to have fun; I wasn't even drinking to get drunk. I was drinking to make myself feel bad, to prove to myself that I was the awful, out of control, disreputable person I knew myself to be. The degree to which I hate my body astonishes even me. It isn’t the belief that I’m ugly. I do believe this, and have done as long as I can remember, not aided by the fact that I was, even objectively speaking, a fantastically unattractive teenager. Those glasses- what was anyone thinking? And that hair? Jesus. Someone should have taken me aside and said somethiing to me. I would like to be able to say now “I have grown into myself and am in fact not unattractive, despite what my mind says”. I am unable to say this. I know that I am not beautiful. Beyond this, I can’t say. My belief in my ugliness is absolute. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I balk. Heavens above! How can I leave the house in the morning, looking like this? Sweet Jesus, how can I live?
I have felt beautiful precisely twice in my life. Both times were responses to the early stages of relationships. On both occassions it happened that the men I was with didn’t try to fuck me. Sex isn’t something which makes me feel beautiful. In both cases what made me feel beautiful was a degree of intimacy, a taking care. A man stroking my hair and saying something kind. Both times I have seen myself through the eyes of another person. As a thing to be considered affectionately. On both occassions what I fell in love with in these men- and boy did I fall- was something fatherly. It’s not freudian. It’s just true. I wanted- want- someone to see me through rose tinted spectacles and say- my darling girl. Both men left me because, not believing that it could be true, I pushed their affection to the limit. -Prove it, said my mind. -Prove this isn't some kind of joke. The truth is no one can prove that they like you.
Ugliness doesn’t lead to hate, though. What leads to hate is the multiple betrayals my body has inflicted on me. My body betrays me by taking up space, by being a physical object in the world, by being beyond my control. I leaned early in my life how to remove myself mentally from a situation. Much of my childhood is remembered in the third person; I see from the other side of the room a small figure hunched and trying to absent itself from the screaming tirade, trying not to cry, trying not to exist. I see it. Failing. The rest of my childhood I simply don’t remember. I know it happened from the aftermath. I remember the bruises but not how they happened. I remember the fear, but not why I was afraid. I remember my mother hiding from my grandmother, screaming to my father, “how can I face your mother whan I’ve got a black eye and hip broken because her son threw me down stairs?” Although I know I must have watched, I don’t remember seeing it happen. I remember broken objects- my bedroom door, my favorite mug, the glass in the kitchen window- I don’t remember how they were broken. I remember blood on the bathroom walls and trying to clean it up before my mother got home. I don’t remember whose blood it was or how it got there.
Although I could remove my mind I couldn’t remove my body, and that was the first betrayal. My body betrayed me by growing when all I wanted it to do was shrink. It betrayed me by laughing and talking and putting its hand up in lessons. Later it betrayed me by responding when it was touched. This isn’t an uncommon sentiment among those sexually abused as young children. There is a part of you which suspects that you might, deep down, have asked for it, and even enjoyed it. Long before the one violent act of rape I was in contact with men who didn’t know where the boundaries ought to be with a young girl. I think, now, that much of it was unintentional, not designed to hurt or damage. In the gardens of many seedy pubs men told me I was pretty and bought me lemonade. They put a hand on my thigh, shoulder, as yet unformed breasts. Some, less concerned with innocence, put a hand up my skirt. All of them laughed at me. I believe truly that it was meant with affection, for the most part. I was on a level with the obligatory pub dog- basically nonsentient but occasionally prone to do amusing, almost human things. What I felt was humiliation. My body was there for them to laugh at, and I didn't know why. I didn't understand the jokes. But my body was the reason for them. That was betrayal.
My body feels, is saddled with emotion. I have always aspired to the true, the needless. The factual. To need, to want, to desire, to love, to feel: these seem like monumental weaknesses. I have never been able to subjugate them, although I have tried. In the last few months I have achieved something I have never thought I would be able to do: to admit to desiring, to liking, another human being. To be able to say something as childish as "I have a crush on Thomas". I have been saying it a lot, relishing the words in my mouth, relishing the image of myself as someone capable of desire. I have almost, almost, been able to believe that the response of others to this sort of comment is not to think, behind their unreadable eyes what right has she to fancy someone? Can't she see that no one will ever desire her? Can't she see that this sort of thing is not for the likes of her? Can't she see how she is HUMILIATING herself?
Self-harm springs in many ways from this. There are the complicated, the cultural, reasons. There are the philosophical reasons. And there is the reason that I feel, somewhere in my gut, above all others, simple and keen. I want other people to know that I hate myself as much as they do. I want to show them that although I can't stop my body taking up space, I don't for a moment think that it is a space I deserve. By showing on my skin how hard I am trying to overcome need, I want people to give me leeway for trying, even though I fail. I want to show people that I am not delusional. I know that my body is just an object. I know that it is just something to laugh at. I know that it is just something to be used.
It's on the level of a preemptive strike. No one can hurt me as badly as I can hurt myself. That's power, of a sort. Preemptive strikes rarely work, though, for proof of which c.f. the gulf war mark 2. Perhaps I could use my skin as part of an anti-war propoganda film. Look! I tried to beat them, but all I ever did was beat myself! There is a lot of talk in psychotheraputic communities of the internalisation of the abuser. If the people who you were told loved you (your father, your mother, rabbit and all rabbit's friends and relations) bully, beat and hurt you then it becomes the case that you learn that the only way to love yourself is by enacting the same sort of behaviour upon yourself. This may be true. It is true that after cutting myself I feel comforted, surrounded by protection, loved. But I don't think that is how it started. It started as an attempt to beat the fuckers at their own game. You think I care that you hurt me? Your hurt is nothing to me. Look at this! This is how much I can hurt myself. I don't even notice your hurt anymore. You withdraw yourself behing scars. They keep your from harm; they protect you, just as your skin is meant to, from invasion. My skin has never been strong enough, even with its armoury of scars.
I have cried precisely once in therapy. A woman I saw once a month for a period of about six months, the first woman to recognise that I was not just a fucked-up twenty-something finding the transition to adulthood hard, but a seriously disturbed young girl, asked me when I knew how to stop cutting, when the damage I had done was "enough". I told her, quite simply, that I stopped when I knew that I needed stitches but wasn't going to get them. She looked straight at me and said, with compassion and sorrow in her voice I had never expected to hear, -you really hate yourself, don't you. I couldn't answer, but I cried- real, true, grieving weeping. Because it's true, and I don't know how to stop.
posted by tattybluetrees at 4:15 AM
1 Comments:
Oh, it's lovely of you to have read. I am quite liking this as my new project.
I think your point about what "love" should mean is interesting- and part of it is social. You internalise an idea of love from your society and culture and if that sets up a clash wiith how those that love you express love then that is going to be difficult, even if the parental expression is perfectly benign.
I am worried that I am going to be too scared to ever, ever have children myself.
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