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Out of context: Reply #2305
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A troubled child came to the drop-in center I volunteer at today, to begin with we simply chatted about the weather and watched some birds feeding outside from the bird table in the garden. After an hour or so the boy started to come round to why he was really here, he told me about his troubled upbringing, his father is an alcoholic travelling salesman so is rarely at home, stopping by at weekends mostly to administer beatings to his wife. He tells me that he thinks he is responsible for the way his father is, see, the father never actually wanted to have that second child, and his favourite child, the kids elder brother had died in a bicycle accident when he was 7. So the kid is full of self loathing, he feels that really he should never have been born. As he was telling me all this he was shuffling about on the chair a lot, and rubbing his arms and legs, I guessed he was just nervous and edgy, like most kids of that age. Then, as he was scratching one of his arms his sweatshirt rode up slightly and I caught site of several cuts, I reached out and rolled his sleeve up and it became obvious that these were self inflicted wounds, maybe 15 or 20 horizontal cuts across the top of his forearm. I asked him what the deal was and he became quite forthcoming, telling me all about it, how he had started hurting himself nearly 2 years ago, how many knives he had and where he stashed them, how he enjoyed picking the scabs and would feed them to the neighours dog, that made him laugh, the first and only time he laughed during our talk. The kid had one of his "smaller blades" tucked in his sock, he showed me proudly, almost immediately and from nowhere I asked "so show me how you do it". The kid looked puzzled, seemed as if he had come round back into some kind of reality, he slumped back in his chair with his sleeve rolled up, a determined look resolved across his young face, he frowned as he drew the knife across his forearm once twice, three times in quick succession, blood quickly rose and he sucked at his arm while his other hand dove into his pocket, pulling out an old hanky which he tied around his arm, pulling his sweatshirt back down looking at me as if waiting for applause.
What could I say? I had asked the kid to do it, I watched him do it. I have to say I didn't like the kid anymore, didn't like the look in his eye. I gave him some slices of bread and told him "go feed those birds kid, they look hungry, then get on back to your mom".
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