Refer to an earlier blog

What are the greatest wounds that I've healed? 
Literally?  The cuts on my arms.  Medically speaking, they were not deep wounds.  I suppose one or two could have done with a butterfly stitch.  If I would have used polysporin regularly, some would have never scarred.  And now, thirty one years after the first scars were created, I cannot even identify which ones those are.  The more recent are still clear to me, my right arm used to be seven slashes, but have faded to six. 
I have scar cream that I put on many of the other scars I have.  The accidental scars.  Hot pans and sharp rocks.  But the self inflicted, those scars have to stay, I have to always know where I have been, not that I will ever return.  I like the reminder though, that I once was weak and hated and now I am strong and loved.
I don't know that I can clearly articulate what the emotional wounds were that led to the physical ones.  I suppose forty five minutes on a doctor's couch could give me some sort of diagnosis, but that is not important to me.  I know enough.  I know that between the ages of thirteen and thirty five, I would have raging moments of self doubt and hate.  I know that when the feelings were more than I could handle, I physically released my pain.  I know that sometimes it was for attention but I don't recall my parents ever knowing that I cut. 
I will never go down that road again.  I walked away from hating myself all on my own.  I remember one time that a psychiatrist wanted to prescribe drugs and I knew that was not the answer.  I felt that drugs would mask what  was really feeling and living behind a mask would have been far worse than living with the pain. 
The first sentence following question #7 is  'Think of the moments in life when you've been the most tested.'  I would not say that when I was cutting, I was being tested.  I was tested when Danny deployed, when Ashlyn was sick and a few other times.  Granted, I was cutting when Danny was in Iraq, but I think we all know that I was one giant nutball during that deployment.  I was lashing out at life in general and God and Danny is specific. 
I know what has tested me and I know what I have learned.  I have learned that it takes a community.  Thank you Paul Simon, but I am not a rock, I am not an island.   I learned that there is no shame in receiving help.  I learned that we are all in this together.  I don't do a very good job of living those life lessons but at least I have learned them.  In the same way that I have learned algebra and spelling, I suppose. 
On the flip side though, I have also learned that there are a lot of people out there that have no desire to heal from their wounds.  They would rather sit there and pick at he scab then to cover it with a soothing salve and get on with living.  I don't have the patience for scab pickers.  I oddly didn't learn compassion.