Not Your Generalisations

You say self harm is about feeling some control over the pain

felt within, that is so overwhelming & out of their hands

That wasn't my story...

Don't you always say each person is an individual and there's no box people fit into,

Don't you always say there's no one theory that conforms to everybody that a therapist sees...

then stop telling me what my reasons are, for the maladaptive mechanisms I used to get through things I had no words for

I slit my skin, over and over

just so I saw the blood run, cause when it did

I knew that even though I was emotionally numb or so wound up in wrath nothing mattered, nothing hurt more than not knowing what emotions were

That red liquid was my heart beat, I couldn't feel beating in my chest,

that red liquid was life leaking out my vessel...life essence,

it was letting me know it's ok child, you're still alive

amongst the numbness, amongst the hell I wandered around in

Don't tell me I push people away, cause I'm scared of abandonment or rejection,

my truth is, I'm scared of more than that,

I'm afraid of being the one to hurt you, to physically or emotionally harm those I'm meant to love

I know the love me/leave me dance, oh so well

I could fucking teach it

How do you explain to someone you love with every fibre in you

that their very touch drives me out of my own self

that no matter what they say or how they show you it's ok,

that it's not enough to keep me connected...

that, that very action causes me so much guilt and shame

I push you away before that even gets a chance to play out?

How do I explain my reasoning, when all you as a supposed professional do

is fucking label me with generalisations and pigeon holed boxes?

What happened to this being about my narrative, my story, my experience?

Don't tell me I'm stuck playing out the same relationship patterns, just cause you've been taught attachment theory 

cause people change, people grow (sometimes)

cause I learnt early on, why I act the way I do in relationships 

and it's not something I wanna keep repeating,

so I had to do a lot of therapy, a lot of unlearning defence mechanisms 

I changed and some people didn't like who I started to become, who I'm still moulding today...someone I'm proud of,

Someone who knows they're deserving of love and capable of giving it...

I just want to give it to someone who wants to know me, like I wanna know them (a friend, a companion, a lover, a human being who has flaws, just like me...who's accepting of mine, who's accepting of theirs, who's going to encourage growth in me, for myself...like I want for them, not out of a selfish desire to control or meld them)

I'm not your generalisations or your labels

I am me

I am a human rewriting my story

so I'll not be the next text book case study of contradicting teachings 

freeflowpoet