A while ago, I was reading author Stephanie Kuehnert’s blog. She was having a blog launch party for her book “Ballads of Suburbia”. She, other authors , and some musicians wrote about a real life “ballad”. It was Stephanie’s “Ballad of a Scar” that hit me the hardest. It was not only the similarities between her story and my own, but her courage and honesty in telling her readers about it.
I wasn’t that brave.
In fact, it took all my effort to post an anonymous comment on her ballad.
A few days later, my boyfriend and I were reading a book of collected poems written by me during my adolescence. In one chapter that referred to a particularly low point in my life, most of the poems were about self-injury. My boyfriend asked me if we could stop. When I asked him why, he said, “It’s a harsh subject—and the thing that gets me the most, the thing that I don’t understand, is how no one could realize what you were feeling”.
I didn’t answer, but that got my wheels turning.
The reason why no one knew what I was feeling was because I didn’t know how to properly express my emotions to others. That is also the reason why I hurt myself.
I started thinking about all the young people cutting and burning now, who don’t have the courage to tell their parents or friends how they feel. And I thought about all those parents who, like my mom, suffered for what I did but did not understand it at all.
And thus, within 30 minutes, the entire plan for Razor Thoughts was in place. I wanted to create a site where self-injury was presented not in technical, medical terms, but through the words of those who live it.
It took me a few weeks to get the guts to do it, but I am happy I did. If this helps at least one kid to understand that they are not alone, or one mother or father to understand their child, then I will be happy. =)
