Bruises have always fascinated me, but I've been thinking about them a lot over the past few days, and the parallels they have to depression and other mental health issues. Bruises, unlike cuts can be hidden so easily, adding a little foundation or covering with clothing. They don't change the texture of the skin and can be hidden, even when fresh. As I've said before in these posts I've never self-harmed in the sense of cutting myself, but I have occasionally bruised myself by pressing e.g. a blunt pencil or stick into my arm with a decent amount of pressure. Cuts scare me, the act of blood running out disgusts me and yet bruises don't, no matter how bad. I guess to me bruising symbolises my depression, it's internal, I'm broken inside and unless I was to remove the makeup from my arm noone would realise. There is not blood on clothes, not hints, nothing but at the same time equally broken inside. However bruises when paralleled with depression also provide hope, as unlike a cut that can leave scars, and other permanent reminders of that time bruises do not. Bruises often take longer to heal than cuts but once healed, a bruise slowly fades and shows no sign of being there, and while I know this won't ever happen to my depression, I can hope that like a bruise it will fade. Unlike cuts bruises don't reopen during the healing process, there are never any stitches that you could pull or bleeding that can restart, it can be kept as a painful memory in the past. Bruises, like depression, change over the healing process, the colour changes and size varies, and while there will be days when pressure, can't be avoided and, is applied causing pain, the overall signs will show a story of improvement. Like watching the changing colour of a bruise I, and anyone with mental issues, should look for the signs in our improvements and draw hope from it, e.g. My first instinct in a room is no longer to look for a way to kill myself, I can get through a month or 2 without an image of me dying and can manage a week of so without thinking about suicide in any capacity. I've been 'healing' (cause you can't really ever be healed) from my depression for nearly 8 years now and yet I still feel the pain of this bruise; that won't change. When events prod or push it, it still hurts, but I know it'll get better. The quote below was probably said to make people without depression try and understand what it is like to have depression, and may make people with depression to feel hopeless knowing that it will not go away, however I do not see this quote that way. I'm happy that my depression is a bruise and not a cut because that means it'll only keep getting better, it's easy to cover when necessary and there's no chance of that would reopening as long as I remember to ice, look after it, monitor it, observe its changes and don't give up.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2019
Lollikpop21 year old, 11 years since I stopped being clinically depressed, 9 since diagnosis. |