From: cliftonr@netcom.com (Pope Clifton)
Subject: Sharp edges
Summary: May be disturbing to younger viewers
Keywords: knives, bad thoughts
Organization: Inst. for Epistemological Pathology
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:59:22 GMT

I used to fantasize about cutting my hands when I was depressed.  

Fantasize is certainly the wrong word, but I know none closer.  I was 
fascinated -- like the bird by the snake.  I was enchanted -- like the 
snake by the charmer.  I was obsessed -- like a fetichist with his 
worship.  I don't know if there is a word strong enough for such a 
feeling.  Depressed, I would lie curled up in fetal position, struggling 
with all my Will to push back the other will -- my own -- to injure 
myself.  The struggle would exhaust me, leave me debilitated, half 
catatonic, unable to communicate.  

It was always hands or arms, for me.  Perhaps we identify our hands with 
our ability to act in the world.  When all acts seem evil and worthless, 
it is our hands which are at fault.  Our hands must be washed clean, or 
punished.

It was always cutting, for me.  For some, fire; for others, caustics, or 
tearing.  For me, the clean cut holds fascination.  I could nearly feel 
the clean straight bite of a sharp shining blade, how it would slice 
deeper into my flesh as I drew its edge along the chosen spot.  

I imagined: Never the fool's cut -- crossways across the inner wrist, 
ruining the tendons, making cuts in the veins that will clot and close 
almost as soon they form.  Perhaps between the fingers, slowly but 
firmly splitting my hand down to the base of the palm.  More often 
between the thumb and the first finger, sawing through the great web of 
muscle which makes us the toolmakers that we are.  Perhaps driving the 
point through the back of my forearm, or wrist, with my weight behind 
it.  When I yearned to lose blood, a slow precise probe with the point, 
delicately exposing and splitting lengthwise the great veins along the 
inner wrist and forearm. 

Sometimes when I was not depressed I would flirt with it, toying with a 
knife, pressing the edge ever so gently against the back of my arm, 
trying the newly sharpened blade on the base of my thumb.  Over time I 
learned to bring a knife to a razor-like edge, so that I could dry-shave 
hairs off the back of my arm with a gentle stroke.  When I was 
depressed, I kept the knives well away from myself, except when I needed 
to use them in cooking or for practical purposes.  Somehow they never 
held a threat then; how could I feel a sinister fascination for 
something I was chopping carrots or opening a box with?  I never did try 
to cut myself; my safety interlocks held firm.

I don't dream this any more.  Over 10 years, or 20 years, it has faded.  
My knives are my friends now, my tools, my servants.  Even in pain, I no 
longer wish Pain.  My will is my own.

I have a new dream now; I will tell it to you one day.

  -- Clifton

--
cliftonr@netcom.com     Home: +1 808 521 9073  Work: +1 808 625 3234
Clifton Royston, Pope of the Church of the Subgenius in Paradise
- Dissecting personal psychopathology at the edge of the 20th century -
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