When I was 17 I put my arm through a window, broke the paned glass and sliced my wrist open. They told me I was lucky I didn’t do worse damage.
I could have struck a nerve.
Multiple times while receiving care I was asked if I felt safe at home. Had my teenage boyfriend with me done this to me? No, I reassured them, I had done this to myself.
Even his father asked him if he had done it.
Truth was, I had done it to myself. I foolishly struck the window on a slammed door in the heat of the moment while fighting with my boyfriend.
This wasn’t the first, or last time, my anger would override my senses. Learning to sit with the burning desire to do something while feeling anger is one of my life’s most challenging lessons.
I graduated highschool with 18 stitches, they were blue like my shoes underneath my prom dress.
I was so ashamed.
To this day I still struggle with anger, but thankfully I have made progress since that fateful afternoon when I sliced my arm open.
Now I understand the true meaning of pained glass.