This was utterly astonishing. I have so rarely read a rigorous intellectual take on NSSI that also felt inherently human. I also so rarely see recognition that those of us who live with NSSI behaviors can be fully formed adults with immense amounts of insight into why we practice these rituals. We are not caricatures or aimless or flattened.
Lacey, the essay holds the sharp pressure between exposure and concealment with extraordinary control. The movement from the psychiatric hospital hallway to the trauma economy, then finally to the archipelago image, gives the piece its moral and intellectual depth. You make the reader sit with how pain can seek language, proof, care, privacy, and transformation all at once. Thank you for writing with such rigor about the longing to be held well by someone who understands the urge from inside the room.
As a family member left in the wake of a teen niece who cut and later died by suicide, I admit to hanging onto every word of this riveting essay. I could never have imagined a philosophical treatise of cutting. I suppose I had reduced the ritualized act of it to be not so much an attempt at destruction or annihilation as a cry for more spark, more feeling - a way to drink from life's firehose and from the impulse of thought, become the pulse itself.
So many gorgeous lines in this, but of course there are. It's a crosshatch of breakiful lines that bleed unflinching honesty.
"I like it best when the blood lags behind and a crevice forms, shocked empty for a second before it goes red." I remember the guilty thrill of that moment. Thank you for getting into the physicality of cutting alongside the theories of it.
Like Mary said "I have the most profound appreciation for this."
Such a deeply layered and braided study of the driving force of shame. This writing changed my life a bit today. It never occurred to me that cutting was an extension of need. I felt it was an attempt to annihilate need, and the one whose needs were annihilating me.
Jones' ability to be in and of the narrative, enfolding disparate identities into herself, shows a path for me to do the same. She produces some exquisite moments, excruciating moments, and relief from them through academic discourse passages (much needed by me to get through it). Other reasons come to mind, but I'll end with the unexpected (but, again, much needed by me) gift: the possibility that intimacy is like an archipelago. I can see myself swimming among a group of islands, all with different shorelines.
Love Lacey's getting to the bare bones of a thing--especially this self cutting. It made me think of a writer I wrote about in my dissertation: Rothenberg, Rose-Emily. The Jewel in the Wound: How The Body Expresses the Needs of the
Psyche and Offers a Path to Transformation. Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron, 2001--leading her to Africa to study scarification. How so many people groups in Africa express themselves through the art of cutting. Maybe it is a past life memory, a need to belong to the group. I love how Lacey explores this so freely!!!! Bravo!
This was utterly astonishing. I have so rarely read a rigorous intellectual take on NSSI that also felt inherently human. I also so rarely see recognition that those of us who live with NSSI behaviors can be fully formed adults with immense amounts of insight into why we practice these rituals. We are not caricatures or aimless or flattened.
I have the most profound appreciation for this.
Lacey, I keep thinking about the archipelago. The islands, yes, but also the water. The space between things that still somehow holds them together.
And then I reached “a container that was once what it holds” and thought: ah. There it is.
Not distance. Not mastery.
Something nearer, and probably much harder.
Beautifully written. Honest, courageous, and deeply moving. Thank you for sharing this.
Lacey, the essay holds the sharp pressure between exposure and concealment with extraordinary control. The movement from the psychiatric hospital hallway to the trauma economy, then finally to the archipelago image, gives the piece its moral and intellectual depth. You make the reader sit with how pain can seek language, proof, care, privacy, and transformation all at once. Thank you for writing with such rigor about the longing to be held well by someone who understands the urge from inside the room.
As a family member left in the wake of a teen niece who cut and later died by suicide, I admit to hanging onto every word of this riveting essay. I could never have imagined a philosophical treatise of cutting. I suppose I had reduced the ritualized act of it to be not so much an attempt at destruction or annihilation as a cry for more spark, more feeling - a way to drink from life's firehose and from the impulse of thought, become the pulse itself.
So many gorgeous lines in this, but of course there are. It's a crosshatch of breakiful lines that bleed unflinching honesty.
"I like it best when the blood lags behind and a crevice forms, shocked empty for a second before it goes red." I remember the guilty thrill of that moment. Thank you for getting into the physicality of cutting alongside the theories of it.
Like Mary said "I have the most profound appreciation for this."
Such a deeply layered and braided study of the driving force of shame. This writing changed my life a bit today. It never occurred to me that cutting was an extension of need. I felt it was an attempt to annihilate need, and the one whose needs were annihilating me.
I love this work for a bunch of reasons.
Jones' ability to be in and of the narrative, enfolding disparate identities into herself, shows a path for me to do the same. She produces some exquisite moments, excruciating moments, and relief from them through academic discourse passages (much needed by me to get through it). Other reasons come to mind, but I'll end with the unexpected (but, again, much needed by me) gift: the possibility that intimacy is like an archipelago. I can see myself swimming among a group of islands, all with different shorelines.
An amazing essay.
Love your transparency. Thanks for sharing your perspective and experiences!
Love Lacey's getting to the bare bones of a thing--especially this self cutting. It made me think of a writer I wrote about in my dissertation: Rothenberg, Rose-Emily. The Jewel in the Wound: How The Body Expresses the Needs of the
Psyche and Offers a Path to Transformation. Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron, 2001--leading her to Africa to study scarification. How so many people groups in Africa express themselves through the art of cutting. Maybe it is a past life memory, a need to belong to the group. I love how Lacey explores this so freely!!!! Bravo!