Flashback Friday
Despite the fact that it’s summer–officially–and despite the fact that here in North Carolina, we have already had several days this season where the temperature has been so high that the heat index has gone over 100, I am still wearing long sleeves to work. Yesterday, the shirt I wore caused me to flashback to memories from 24 years ago.
The shirt has long sleeves and buttoned cuffs. In August of 2002, I took a little shopping trip to Old Navy to buy long sleeved shirts. My junior year of college was starting that month and while this trip to buy new shirts seemed innocent to an outside observer–new school clothes shopping before school starts is not unusual–I had an ulterior motive for buying the shirts. At that time, despite two hospitalizations for mental illness, I was still severely addicted to cutting myself. I couldn’t return to school with arms as badly cut as they were. I had to hide them. Enter Old Navy and the long sleeved shirts I sought out and purchased. They were similar in design to the purple button up I wore yesterday. A loud, repetitive design on the fabric, collars and buttons, and buttoned cuffs around the wrists. They weren’t purple though. As I recall, they were neutral autumn colors– tan, gold, orange, red.
The memory of those shirts made me think of how much difference there is between the time I wore them and now. Back then, I wore them to conceal self-inflicted injuries to my arms. Now, I’m actually wearing long sleeves for the same reason. Except now it is socially acceptable in a way. I’m wearing them to hide injuries to my arm that were my choice to put there. When you think about it, tattoos really are injuries. What I’m concealing isn’t a series of cuts but rather a series of puncture wounds. This time though, while still semi self-inflicted, they are intended as art. I could argue that back when I was suffering mentally, the long line of parallel cuts on my left arm was beautiful to me. I might not have seen it as art, but I felt comfort in having them on my arm.
I saw a post on Threads recently that said tattoos are good for those people who are self-injuring because it’s a way to hurt yourself in a socially acceptable way. I get that. I see her point. Though I don’t think I would condone that. Self-injury is not something sustainable over a long period of time. Justifying it by getting a tattoo instead is only a temporary solution. At some point, legitimate help needs to be sought out so that healing from the desire to cause yourself physical pain can truly begin.
I don’t get tattoos now because I like the pain. I see many, many posts about how women sit better for tattoos because of the trauma they’ve endured. Some make tattoo appointments because they’re experiencing something traumatic in their lives. The pain helps relieve the emotional pain. I get that too. I certainly understand how that works. But I get them now for the end result. I don’t like the process. I think I posted about my appointment last Friday. That pain was awful! I’m like a kid on a roadtrip when the tattoo starts. Five minutes in and instead of asking, “are we there yet?”, I want to ask, “are we done yet?” I don’t like the journey, I just want the pretty art on my body.
This might be something that I can focus an essay on in my class. I feel like there’s much more that I can say about the parallels between self-injury and getting tattooed. And all of this came up because it’s ridiculously hot outside and I am once again in my life, restricted to only long sleeves. Though the reason for the long sleeves is different than it was in college, the outcome is going to be the same. Once my arm heals, I’ll be able to show off my arms again. The long sleeves are only temporary.
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