I just want to share my experience from the other day.

I work at a pharmacy. We deal a lot with prescription wound care items and a wide variety of over the counter bandages. Today, a patient came in and was referred to our nurse for some advice on how to care for his wounds. When he came to me at the till, I saw his arm. He had very clearly been self-harming. He had a pretty deep fresh cut that was uncovered and several healing ones. The cuts were all concentrated in one area and all parallel lines. There were little round scabs in a row down his arm in the same area where his cuts were. To me, they looked a lot like cigarette burns. After he was finished with me, our nurse helped him pick out some ointment and bandages for his fresh cut. Later she asked me how I thought he cut his arm. Because he isn't one of our regular patients, I felt comfortable discussing it with her. I told her he definitely did it himself. She didn't understand I meant it was probably intentional. He had told her it was from accidentally breaking a mirror. Like I've never used such a weak excuse before. I explained to her why I thought that it was intentional. Luckily, she didn't say anything negative about it. She just thought it was sad... and she didn't ask me why I knew so much about it.

I haven't seen fresh cuts in such a long time. I couldn't think about anything else all day. I felt kind of hazy and distracted, remembering what it felt like to care for my cuts the way he was caring for his. It made me miss it more than usual. Probably should have been a journal post instead but I just felt like I needed to share this.