Self Destruction and Self Reconstruction.
Alternatively: guy named after cicadas gets a cicada tattoo, who would have thunk.
Alternative: be selfish and don’t kill yourself.
The following discusses, but does not graphically describe, experiences with self harm, suicide attempts/ideation, and general unwellness.
My tattoo was a cover-up for scars that I gained over the course of several years, primarily from 2020 to 2023. While not the only scars on my body, they are the ones that come to mind the most frequently. I’ve been self conscious of them ever since I first acquired them, in turn causing few people to know of them and fewer to know how I actually gained them. In a way, my inability to come to terms with them prevented me from ever escaping the shame I felt over them and in turn, my own experiences.
The relationship I’ve had inwards is complex and everchanging, as is anyone else’s. My particular experience was shaped by numerous intense experiences of what I can only explain as ‘unwellness’. The cause for these events was varied, spanning over a decade of my life, many left to decay in the recesses of my memory.
Between the ages of 7 and 9, I had what I would refer to as my first series of suicide attempts. I couldn’t imagine a world where I would ever bring anything but harm, instead considering my existence a failure of my own to end the suffering I was causing everyone around me. I felt guilty that I was unable to succeed, that I was too selfish to bring an ending to something that was solely in my hands. Had I recieved help for my struggles, how was I to explain my relationship with suicidality. It wasn't a disease to me, rather the solution to a problem that I alone was the perpetuator of. If I told someone what I was experiencing, what else would they do but try to prevent me from bringing things to an end? What would I do once people realized that they should have never stepped in, that this was what I always deserved, and I had simply manipulated them to attempt to protect me from myself. They'd live with the guilt forever that they let me hurt them and those around them when they should have never helped at all. I couldn't let them take away the only answer I ever had, because how could something be wrong if it was alongside me all along.
While the scars on my wrist were the most obvious example of my run-ins with self-harming behavior, it was far from my only one. In my early teens, I would frequently ingest large amounts of medication and chemicals as a way to feel physically ill. I would vomit or dig my nails into skin when I felt I had done something to deserve it. So long as I was destroying myself, I thought I was making everything better.
In a sense, so long as I was removing parts of myself, I could be better. This was harm reduction in my mind, and while it does resemble the colloquial usage of the term, the intentions were to destroy myself rather than a way of saving me. I thought once I’d destroy myself, I’d be able to experience a metamorphosis, shed whatever sin I must be guilty of to deserve feeling like this. I found relatability in bugs in this time, particularly cicadas, believing at one point in my life I would be able to go through with it and molt into a better version of myself. I was obsessed with the people around me, studying them as if so long as I tried hard enough, I could become them, and shed my previous identity.
Approaching adulthood, I stopped experiencing the energy to try. I couldn’t cause any form of damage when I reached a low point, rather I’d enter catatonic states, collapsed on the floor or staring blankly from the desk I had propped myself up against. While in the past brought on by my outright aggression towards any form of help, now I was just unable to respond to it entirely.
I appreciate the friends, even if they were unaware of how they were helping, and my relationship with art, keeping me knee deep rather than up to my neck in my feelings. In order to lighten the somber mood of this piece, especially as this must be a heavy read for them, I’ll leave a short anecdote from about a year ago :3
After a bout of catatonia, I found myself approaching the highway ever lingering in the back of my mind. My judgement was heavily skewed that day, though I wouldn’t find the clarity to realize that until much later. In the middle of the road, it hit me that while I didn’t care for myself, I did care for my friends. No matter my feelings towards myself, I wanted to be selfish, to hang around a little longer and see them one more time.
I’m glad I still can’t overcome the selfish parts of me, and I’m glad my friends are still there when I turn away from the road.
Once I had given my wrist ample time to heal and thoughts to linger, I felt I was ready to part with these memories. The cicada, in this new context, symbolized my ability to change, to move through my past and accept that I had become a new person regardless. It felt unfair to me that I would continue having to see this image of my past ingrained onto me that I considered myself ready to instead choose something to define my future by. Similarly, this writing is a form of catharsis and a way of breaking me away from the only solution within reach for most of my life. A rule of mine my entire life was that if someone were to know I was planning to take my own life, I'd be no longer capable of going through with it unless I intended for them to feel as if they had failed me for the rest of their life.
To my friends, past and present, and my tattoo artist, I appreciate everything. Thank you.