My Self-Mutilation Story: Turbulent Homelife & Making Childhood Trauma Your Medicine | The Ruby Hour
Do you have a teenager in your life who's self-harming? I was that angsty teenager at one point. On today's storytelling format of The Ruby Hour Podcast, here's my story of why I turned to self-mutilation as a teenager and what was going on in my mind.
A tale of my Screamo/Post-Hardcore teenage crush, and my journey with self-mutilation growing up in a turbulent home environment. Today on the Ruby Hour Podcast.
A Box Of Sharp Objects: S2E3 The Ruby Hour Podcast
TRIGGER WARNING!!!!
This episode references domestic violence, alcoholism, and self-mutilation/self-harm and includes some very graphic descriptions and intense sound-scoring that may be unsuitable for some listeners. If this triggers you or is too close to home, I invite you to check out our many other episodes of The Ruby Hour Podcast.
This episode is part of our new sound-scored intimate short-story sessions for this season of The Ruby Hour Podcast. If you or someone you know struggles with self-harm, I encourage you to check out To Write Love On Her Arms’ Self Care Resources: https://twloha.com/self-care/ This is an amazing organization that helps people in their journey of self-harm. And please know you are never alone!
This season of The Ruby Hour is all about connection and genuine community. My intention in sharing this story is to inspire connection, empathy, and maybe a little perspective into what may be going on in your loved one's mind, what they may be wanting in their life, and how you can be supportive or encouraging in their process.
If you have any questions, if this episode was HELPFUL, or if a part stood out, would you share in the comments? Or if it's something more private, drop us an email at heyruby@rubyriotcreatives.com
!!! TRIGGER WARNING !!!! TRIGGER WARNING !!!! TRIGGER WARNING !!!! TRIGGER WARNING !!!!
This episode references domestic violence, alcoholism, and self-mutilation/self-harm and includes some very graphic descriptions and intense sound-scoring that may be unsuitable for some listeners. If this triggers you or is too close to home, I invite you to check out our many other episodes of The Ruby Hour Podcast.
This episode is part of our new sound-scored intimate short-story sessions for this season of The Ruby Hour Podcast.
If you're interested in learning more about self-harm and emotional abuse, this is definitely a podcast episode you don't want to miss. This story is in a candid and powerful soundscored format, and address some of the most important elements around emotional abuse and self-mutilation.
In honor of this episode drop, we've nominated To Write Love On Her Arms as our Q3 "Giving Back Cause".
If you or someone you know struggles with self-harm, I encourage you to check out To Write Love On Her Arms’ Self Care Resources: https://twloha.com/self-care/ This is an amazing organization that helps people in their journey of self-harm. And please know you are never alone!
Browse All Three Seasons Of The Ruby Hour Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLacrED2hLWqkN3ZLTv9OkaJ9mniVaw8pM
Season 2 Introduction: https://youtu.be/RDORob2IM2I
A Box Of Sharp Objects: https://youtu.be/eIACmInM4Bw
Mom Life, Virgin Love, and Moral Betrayal: https://youtu.be/pwMYbI3XsIs
The Mountain People: Saba and Asheville ASMR Story: https://youtu.be/4NbyWlz4vzI
For the family and friends' parents I mention in this episode, you know who you are, I love you, thank you for the beauty you've added to my life.
Or if you have slow internet and just want to listen, click the player below, or find the episode under The Ruby Hour on your favorite podcast platform (and subscribe, yo!!)
Pick your pois— I mean, your preferred podcast platform of choice:
During this time of social-distancing - free-writing and conversation with those we love can be one of our greatest forms of connection and community. Here’s some prompts or conversation starters for you and a friend, family member, or lover:
When you think back on your childhood memories, how would you describe the feeling of those memories?
Did you ever go through a rebellious phase in your life? What did that weave into the person you are today?
Were you an early bloomer or a late bloomer sexually? What was your experience around that?
How would you describe your parents’ parenting style?
Who was your rockstar crush growing up?
What’s one thing you wish you could have told your fourteen or seventeen-year-old self?
If you enjoyed this, can relate to it, or have your own story that these tales stuck a nerve with, I would love to hear about it. PLEASE email me — I would love to schedule a time to talk.
Episode Street Cred
The Ruby Hour Podcast is produced and sound scored by our company, Ruby Riot Creatives, a video production and storytelling studio based out of Charleston, South Carolina.
Music featured in this episode is used under commercial license and included songs by Ok Otter, Jango, Ride Free, Sivan Talmor and Yehezkel Raz, and Tomas Herudek.
A Box Of Sharp Objects Episode Transcript
In the gifted and talented program at my Austin, Texas school, I coveted my thigh high socks, skater shoes, and miniskirts from Hot Topic, was thick into my A-Band-Shirt-A-Day-Will-Keep-The-Doctor-Away philosophy; my all-time favorite being a mockery off of the currently popular, "Jesus Is My Home Boy" shirts--adorned with safety pins, it featured Bert McCracken, lead singer of The Used, my favorite screamo, post-hardcore band whose lyrics I was basing my life on.
"Bert is my homeboy," I proudly wore that shirt as a statement piece, a conversation without a conversation and deterrent to any peer or elder who met me that might accidentally think I'm one of those dull religious people who wear oversized t-shirts at pool parties.
Bert McCracken filled all my fourteen-year-old fantasies. An older punk-friend of a punk-friend of mine I would chat with on AIM told me about how she'd just seen them at The Warped Tour. I watched the music video of "A Box Full Of Sharp Objects" and instantly fell in love with Bert McCracken. Their music videos show the band-- a group of boys hanging out in a dilapidated barn or basement (cool, I do that), them walking to the convenience store (cool, I do that, too), he had this goofy, playful side of him in the videos. He could make his face into all kinds of weird distorted expressions (oh my gosh, he's so sexy), jutting strong jaw long with a scruffy five o'clock shadow, sexy greasy AF hair, but when he'd scream -- the rough micro-shreds of his vocal chords as he'd rip these words from some feral part of his soul -- I could get down with that.
The feral unsettled corner of rage in my own soul wanted out, too.
My older brother and dad weren't transitioning into man and teenaged son's space coming into his own manhood well. From twelve to fourteen, our homelife felt more like a war zone. Tense, on edge, my parents attempting hold their ground of what they knew of keeping their house in order, trying to relate to my brother and myself becoming fueled with hormones and teenage angst, and my brother and I reaching for our own forms of self-expression.
My brother started stepping into his self-expression first. Stepping away from his successful soccer player trajectory, Trading his trajectory as a highly competitive soccer player for a half stack amp and guitar, the sorrowful chords for Nothing Else Matters by Metallica began reverberating off the walls of my brother's bedroom. He grew out his hair, formed Shuwakanay, a band with his former select soccer team friends, and they would practice out in my dad's shop. I had never been so proud of my brother.
I don't know the details of the why's, "going down the bad path" is what I was told, but my dad knew what he learned from his dad, and broken home life -- when your son presents characteristics you don't understand -- crack open a cold one and beat it out of them. Arguments, my dad and brother's anger matching and escalating, and hearing smacks, claps, and sharp inhales from my brother's bedroom all before putting my backpack on to go stand with Ryan and Amelia at my bus stop on the way to go to our middle school.
Should've said something but I've said it enough,
By the way my words were fading
Rather waste my time with you
Should've done something but I've done it enough
By the way my hands were shaking
Rather waste some time with you
I didn't know what to do with the pain I felt. With the fear I felt. In not knowing how to help, comfort, or protect my brother. I didn't know what to do with this gnawing, hollow disgust and anger I felt at my dad laying a hand and raising a voice to this new-found, beautiful sense of self-expression following out of my fifteen-year-old brother. This boy, attempting to step into his manhood, and having this aggressive alcoholic -- the protector in his life becoming his #1 oppressor, beating the manhood right out of him.
"Found a box of sharp objects what a beautiful thing"
I needed to feel pain, too. My brother was hurting, physically, emotionally, the core of his being. Maybe if I felt pain in my body, it would be my own silent revolt and rebellion against my beloved brother's violence, and in some strange way, I could help carry his pain.
So it started with salt and ice. All my friends thought it was this cool and entertaining challenge. Sprinkle a little salt on your hand, get an ice cube, and see how long you could handle the pain as the salt, ice, and body heat creates a unique chemical burn damaging the skin and nerve endings in the process. My friends did it for fun at lunch, but I took the craft home and started practicing solo.
After every violent, tension-filled argument turned physical, I would escape into my room and find my stash. Through my rage-filled, heartbroken tears, I took to starting with a base layer of a salt and ice chemical burn, getting through that wave of pain. Then I'd take one of my dad's favorite ballpoint ink pens and begin stabbing into the icy numbness, stabbing sometimes accidentally into my tendons and ligaments; I still have tracings of some of these sessions today.
Then I found one of my dad's razorblades for one of his tools. When an argument would break out, when doors would slam, I'd revel and be terrified at the thrill of pain. Slicing lines cross my knuckles, ankles, feet, legs, hip bones, in places that could easily be written off as collateral damage from a romp in the woods or a slice by the sharp edge of the fish tank while feeding them.
Candy bracelets and rave bracelets were popular in my friend group, so I began hiding the cuts on my wrists through rasta sweatbands and layered florescent gummy bracelets.
The self-titled album, "The Used" became my sanctuary. I would put on "Blue and Yellow" and wail into my pillow. I would lose myself screaming along with the vocal chord shredding chorus of A Box Of Sharp Objects.
I've often wondered if this was a nature or nurture situation. Did I model my rage and self-mutilation because of these lyrics I listened to on repeat or did I already have that rage and heartbreak instinctively leading me to self-harm, and those lyrics soothed me in knowing I'm not the only one who comes from a broken home?
I think of my friend group then, my mix of hyper-creative, hyper-intelligent friends, many of whom were a year or two older than me, many also students in the gifted and talented program in school, adorning themselves with top hats, Marilyn Manson swag, skate shoes, and safety pins?
Were they also experiencing hell on earth in their homes, unspoken of silent oppressors, or were they just into self-expression and counter culture-- the kind of thing that's now celebrated amidst all these Gen Z and Gen Alpha eight-year-olds walking around with washable streaks of blue and purple in their hair? Were they just into teenage-angst fueled rebellion for the sake of good ol' rebellion, were they finding themselves, trying to prove themselves and their individualism?
I think it was a mixed bag. Some of my friends' parents were emotionally absent, struggling with substance abuse, some had parents in prison, while others were the coolest substitute teachers and staff at our schools, completely supporting their children and their fellow raccoon-eyed friends on their pursuit of counter-culture.
My world became dedicated to rising against any form of oppression that came my way (which, as a teenage girl, you can only imagine what my hormone-fueled mind managed to slap that label on) -- anything that got in the way of me expressing myself the way I wanted -- I was dedicated to finding a way around it, rising above it.
My parents find out I met up with a 15-year-old boy I met on AIM and sat on his lap at a youth group outing at a water park at 12 years old. They decide to take away all forms of self-expression (I think it was the only trick they had up their sleeve) and threw away all my black clothing, black eyeliner, ripped down my mural of rock band boy crushes, and tell me my life will be nothing but church, God, and school, and I can't be around boys? Fine.
My best friend will give me her old eyeliner, I'll change into my punk rock miniskirts and makeup on the bus, and bring my sexually-inquisitive female friends home and make out with them for the entire duration of your Wednesday night bible study going on in the other room, and sneak my boyfriend over when you're at work. Works for me.
I still got all A's in school, still at the top of my class; I would just walk a tightrope between trouble and being a curious, open-minded teenager.
The Used was my counter-culture anthem, and Bert McCracken was my twelve, thirteen, fourteen-year-old guide for what to look for in a man. A man who could feel his feelings, shred his vocal cords, and projectile vomit over 10 rows of people at a show, and was no stranger to pain.
Maybe A Box Of Sharp Objects encouraged me to cope through self-mutilation, or perhaps I found that path myself.
The only way I could express my abhorrence and disgust of my father's forefathers' sins who taught him violence and mutilation of a home environment was through inflicting violence and mutilation on my physical body.
The words raging through Bert McCracken's shredded vocal cords offered me refuge in a time when I didn't know how to speak up and voice my own rage or voice the grief I carried in my heart for the two men I loved the most in my life.
BLAME ELOQUENTLY. In "I Am Not Your Guru" -- Tony Robbins' documentary film, there's a woman who stands up in the crowd who starts off by saying how her love life sucks. She has taken all of her energy and put it into a successful career, but meanwhile, she can't seem to find a stable partner in her life because she didn't have a good role model from her dad.
What Tony Robbins said next changed my life. "If you're going to blame, blame eloquently. If you're going to blame your dad for your shitty love life, blame him also for the drive you learned How to channel for success because your dad was forever telling you you're not good enough. Blame your dad for how badass you are in your career. Blame your dad for that nice car and nice house you have because you figured out how to succeed anyways. If you're going to blame, blame eloquently. Get a full, accurate accounting of the effect your dad has had on your life. Your love life? That's one segment, one fragment of who you are and how you relate in the world. If you're going to blame, blame eloquently."
I'm not correctly documenting Mr. Robbins verbatim, but you get the gist of the message.
To this day, I love my dad, and all that he is. Stubborn, strong-willed, hot head, he's had his own journey and work he's done around what he's been conditioned to do and know. Living out of a car by the age of 14, he's come leaps and bounds and lightyears away from the type of home life he knew.
Maybe you grew up with a not-so-perfect household, or in a house with violence. Perhaps you've had your share of self-inflicted mutilation to cope with pain (once I became a Christian and cutting yourself was labeled demonic, I traded my razor-blade for binging and purging and overexercising; we all have our clever ways to hide our dysfunction in plain sight.)
Through all that, I firmly believe we are all doing the best we know how to do with the tools we've got. My parents were doing the best they knew with the tools they had from their range of experience.
And if I want to blame my parents for ruining my sense of safety and shelter in the world, I also need to blame them for the untouchable drive I have to always find a way to my truth, no matter what's thrown at me, said over me, physically attempted to resist me-- I will find a way around it.
I blame them for the way I've fiercely fought for offering kindness and compassion to people I don't know, especially pre-teens and teenagers because you never know what they may have gone through before standing at the bus stop on their way to sixth grade.
I blame my parents for instilling my unrelenting drive to offer grace to people I don't understand or identify with how they choose to present themselves to the world. My most significant work has been towards evangelical and religious people who like to size up label others' ways of life as either right or wrong, all in the name of the love because I used to be the queen of that kind of love.
I love my dad very much, and I still am forever my big brother's biggest fan, and maybe a box full of sharp objects helped me slice open and find the truth of who I am in all of my scars.