Sparkly got a bunch of bug bites recently, so I’ve been reminded that her strategy for dealing with itchy things is: scratch them until they hurt instead of itch, i.e. usually until they bleed.
Yes, this is the same person who worries something must be wrong when I pick at dry, already-peeling-off skin in a totally harmless and painless way.
It’s like I’m a siggort. There’s a thing that seems normal and reasonable and non-harmful to me, and the world is like NO, and all I have is “But… I thought this was okay?”
(This is a tricky comparison, because I’m not actually going around hurting other people. I’m just collaterally upsetting people like Max. Sid would actually theoretically kill people, he just hasn’t yet. But. The part where Max loves him simultaneously with thinking he’s just Wrong. So Wrong that he shouldn’t even exist in the world. And how Sid is already sort of in an awkward situation with his theoretical purpose, in that he hasn’t fulfilled it yet and the other siggorts don’t trust that. It’s actually kind of like Dax’s thing. This thing. Evil space monsters inimical to human life exist, and they’re sitting across from you sipping coffee and talking to you like they like you.)
Please don’t. Multiple things you don’t want to hear about.
Eeeeemilyyyyy if it’d been someone other than you who posted that I could’ve thought it was a kinky thing instead of a self-harm thing and I wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable about my reaction being “Ooh, I want that to happen to me!”
I may really need someone to talk to about this who might be open to my point of view.
Also re: Emily I almost feel wary because my FEELINGS about this make me feel sympathetic and like we’re in this together somehow which is really not the case.
For some reason today I ran across a whole bunch of different people talking about nail-biting and hair-pulling and lip-biting and so forth, and how they struggle with them and are trying to stop. And it’s making me start to doubt my usual confidence that the things I do aren’t bad for me.
Continue reading “I don’t usually doubt my own feelings about what’s good for me, but…”
Some Open Space 