So what’s all this about, the long dark night of the soul? Well for me it’s a long hard look at my life, what it’s like right now and what it may be like in the future. Ok the future is as yet unknown but it holds no excitement or pleasure. I looked deep inside myself and all that I could feel to quote Snow Patrol is ‘ someone save me from this darkness’ but as there seemed to n be no one to save me I have to try and escape this darkness by myself.
So sitting watching the blood slowly run down my arm from the cut just below the shoulder I am reminded of medieval blood letting as strangely the seeping blood seems to be taking away the pain. So maybe there is something to be said for the idea of blood letting being therapeutic. For me personally self harm as very little to do with the actual pain but the release that seems to come from watching myself bleed. I know this seems weird, believe me it seems weird to me so why shouldn’t it to anyone else. The descriptions of the four humours, melancholic. choleric, phlegmatic and sanguine don’t really fit my emotions and I am not about to try and over analyse it. If humourism has any credence then in bleeding I am balancing the humour that has put my system out of balance and effected my physical or emotional health. Not really sure about that but it did help and I can’t really explain why. So when it is suggested that instead of cutting I simply cause myself pain by twanging am elastic band it is going to have no effect what so ever. It is easy to just state ‘you need help’ but when you feel that what you are doing is helping then what do I need help for? All you can do is find me someone to talk to who may be able to suggest coping strategies but with the best will in the world unless the stressors can be reduced or removed what use is talking to a total stranger?
