Brittany Tinsley is a writer and speaker living in Dallas, Texas. When she isn't writing, she can be found working her way through all the national parks with her husband and daughters. You can find more of her work at brittanytinsley.substack.com, or connect with her on Instagram @brittanytinsleywrites.
"Although additional training would be nice, I don’t expect medical professionals to be experts on the nuances of non-suicidal self-injury," or NSSI, the author writes.On a dreary Friday morning I sat in a sterile beige room wearing a paper gown while a doctor I hadn’t seen before performed my annual physical. As she tested my reflexes at my wrist, her eyes landed on an injury I’d given myself days earlier. Paper gowns leave few places to hide.
As a society, we expect medical professionals to be just that: professional in the face of injury and illness. We expect doctors and nurses to see us at our most vulnerable, at our most human, and treat us with the dignity our humanity deserves. Unfortunately, self-injury scars often become an invitation for mistreatment. While my history of self-injury is no one’s fault but my own, the response to such a discovery needs to change.
There is no place in the medical world for practitioners to cause more pain — physically, verbally or psychologically — simply because someone has already intentionally injured themselves. NSSI, however unhealthy, serves a function. Antagonistic medical care does not.Satisfied with her search that day, the doctor pressed on my wound, watching its color blanch and return over and over again. In spite of the pain, I willed myself not to flinch. I willed myself to become invisible.
Really, though, whether we’re the patient or practitioner, whether we wear our pain on our heart or our wrist, we’re all the same — made of stories and scars, and strength and struggle. We all want to be seen and known and loved for who we really are. We all want to be met in our hardest moments with understanding and grace.
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