How Deep Do They Go.

I originally wrote this post from a prompt for Mama Kat's Writers Workshop. I tried to include her button too for the post but the html wouldn't work. I want to make sure I include this because if I had not seen the prompt I might never have done it. In the end I decided not to link it at the prompt because it is very harsh. Particularly because I have not participated there before and it seemed a little much to spring in a place that is unfamiliar to me. It was the hardest thing I have ever attempted to write about. It concerns the most painful moment of my life and quite honestly I cried through writing it and cry when I read it and cry whenever I think about it. So I thank Mama Kat for the cathartic relief even though I did not share it there.

The prompt was "Scarred"

When my first baby was born her skin was an unblemished porcelain white so clear she had a cast of blue about her temples and wrist where the veins were close to the surface and totally unmarked except for a tiny freckle on the sole of her foot where an angel kissed her before sending her on to us.

My oldest daughter is scarred. When she was a teenager we would not let her get her ears gaged. She took it upon herself. She started with her earring hole and began punching larger things through them. Eventually she stuck a golf tee through them. This was very painful. She craved it. The large holes are now gone but the backs of her ears are deformed. They are thick and lumpy with scar tissue. When she wears earrings they are slightly off center because she can't get any thing through the correct spot.
 Like the holes in our hearts they are healed but marked for life.

The ears are only the beginning. Her forearms are marked with a faded row of web thin reddish brown scars. Most have become very faint but when the weather is cold, sometimes the scars become more angry and substantial against her very fair skin. She is embarrassed by them at work. She covers them with long sleeves. She becomes very upset if someone notices and asks about them. This is the work of pain. This is a trick a friend taught her as a bid for attention. It was a means of manipulation. It became self loathing at what she had become. It was anger she could only direct at herself. In the beginning she once held a knife above her arm threatening us when we told her she could not go out because she was failing in school. Later it became a threat to herself and at the same time a badge of honor among her friends.

There are more. She has skin deep flaws throughout her limbs. Falls. Intoxicated plunges. Jagged welts from getting caught on the barbs of a chain link fence while running with her pack at night. Scratches, the result of a push against the wall from an angry boyfriend. Gravel marks on a knee from a take down by a police officer while trying to obstruct him from arresting the same boyfriend.

This is the one that hurts the most.

She had been missing for days. It is freezing cold in January. She was 15 and a half years old. She called me at 10 o'clock at night. "Mommy, please come get me. I'm sick." "Where are you?" She says she will meet me on a corner in a neighborhood known for crime and drug problems. I am there. I wait and finally out of the darkness I see two figures. My child turns and hugs the dark form beside her before she continues on to my car and the stranger recedes into the darkness. I repel the urge to run him down. It would be so easy. There is no one around. I focus instead on my daughter. She is filthy. Her clothes are torn. A hole in the thin burgundy sweater I gave her just weeks before for Christmas reveals a deep straight cut over 2 inches long in her upper arm. When I ask her what has happened she tells me she does not know. This cut has become a permanent scar.

This scar is the mile marker that lets us know she has reached rock bottom.

A few months before I thought things were looking up. We had a tight rein on her and she had been doing her work in home school and working at a grocery store. She had met a nice boy at work and was spending time with him and his friends. Not perfect but an improvement. They had dread locked her hair for her which I wasn't thrilled about but she was mostly staying out of trouble. For Christmas she had asked for new clothes and bought pretty things. And then He came back. While she was gone he claimed he didn't know where she was. I finally told him that if he cared for her at all he should be worried about her safety. That I didn't care what they did or what was going on. I just wanted her to be safe. She called 2 days later so I guess I have to thank him for that at least. And now my daughter sat next me with her new things destroyed. Her dreadlocks filthy and disarranged. Black dirt under her nails. Almost incoherent. Running a fever and hacking with an echoing cough. And that straight edge cut on her arm. Too clean to be an accident. As neat and red as a rare roast at the first touch of a carving knife. To this day I do not know who hurt my child or if she did it to herself. From the condition she was in it is possible she really does not know. On this night she flat out refuses to go to a doctor at first. Her behavior is so erratic that I'm not sure how much was from drugs and how much the illness but I know she will run if I attempt to force her. She is afraid of being committed or sent to a rehab. She keeps saying that she is leaving again as soon as she feels a little better. I offer cold medicine. "It won't put me to sleep will it," she asked? "No, I say, handing her the little plastic cup of red liquid. "Not at all, it's just for your cough." This was a lie. I didn't feel right doing this on one level but I felt it was the only choice to keep her safe. She slept most of the time for three days straight. When she was awake she did some strange things. Went around the house and unscrewed the screws on things but left them looking intact. I later found an antique baby doll shoved face down in a toy stroller. When I turned it over it's eyes were gouged out.

Within a week or so she is doing much better but the gash in her arm is still frightening to look at. We were lucky it never became infected but it is a wide red cavern on my child's skin. She decides she is ready to leave again. I plead. I argue. I threaten. I beg. My child sits on the couch, her skin still an eerie shade of white. Dark green-blue sunken eye sockets under her bloodshot deep blue eyes. She is still weak. I sit beside her and do something I haven't been allowed to do in over a year. I wrap my arms around my daughter tightly. She cannot get away. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to fix it. I hold my baby and I do the only thing I knew to do when she was small and I wanted to comfort her. I sing. Her baby song. You are my sunshine, My only sunshine. You make me happy, When skies are gray. You'll never know dear, How much I love you. Please don't take My Sunshine away.....
And my daughter began to cry. For the first time in a very long time my child cried her eyes out hard. She clung to me like she had not done since she was small. I only realized then how long it had been. And I released the deepest grief of my life in tears as well. I rocked back and forth on the couch with my child's head buried in my shoulder and choked out the words of the song as she sobbed, both of us soaked in tears and I never wanted to let go again. I was afraid that if I released my arms I would lose her forever. I had to let go eventually. I to let her out of my embrace and out of my protection. It wasn't over but it was a turning point. She did leave again but something had changed. She returned again and though I didn't realise it at the time the healing had begun.

I forget about the scars on my daughters arms and when I catch a glimpse of them I feel a stab of pain as sharp as any knife in my heart. This is our scar. The one you cannot see. The scar of feeling like a bad parent. Otherwise, why would this have happened, right? I've been told this isn't true many times by professionals, family, friends and even my daughter herself. I know in my heart that we worked hard to do right by our kids and there have never been any more loved. But though the cancer has been removed the scar tissue still clings to every decision I make as a parent. To every piece of advice I give my daughters.
The scar of self doubt.

The worst events only encompass about two years of our lives and believe it or not there are even some things that enough time has passed to joke about. There are moments we can now find the humor in. But not these. These are the scars that my entire family bears. The damage that was done to us is not visible to the naked eye but it is deeply scarred tissue that pulls at every aspect of our lives. It is the scarred childhoods of her sisters. Witness to things that in some ways tainted their innocence. The scars on their own self confidence and faith in the world around them. There is the scar of her own memory. She has never told me everything. She only tells me, "I have seen bad things, mom." "I know." I say. I don't press for more than she offers. I imagine some of those scars will be tender for her entire life.
In the end I can say that for the most part we are healed. We are a close, loving and functioning family.
But there remains this fact of our recovery.

We are healed but we are scarred.

Mama Kat's Writers Workshop


When I began my blog one of the purposes I meant for it was to share what happened with my Biggest. I don't try to go in depth and explain the professional side of her issues. I write about the personal side of the these trauma's. I have shared some things but I have danced around this from the beginning. Most of the time I prefer to have a good time on my blogs and I have avoided this because it is the hardest for me. The hardest to explain. My daughter self injured herself in many ways but there is some stigma attached to self cutting. Socially and also because of assumptions that are sometimes made without having all the facts. There are many reasons and factors that can be involved in self cutting. When I first found my daughter doing this I read some psychology books and totally freaked myself out. I find this link to the Mayo Clinic overview on self injury is a clear and accurate outline on the basic reasons for self injury.

There is also the fact that being the most protective parent I knew I was unable to protect my daughter. Not from the influences around her or from herself. I thank God every day that she is doing so well.
I have thought about writing about this many times in the past year but have always set it aside. When I saw the prompt I knew it was time.
Just writing this has taken me nearly all day because it has knotted my neck up and given me a huge headache. These events were seven years ago. I think that may be a sign that I needed to get it out of my system.

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