I stopped keeping the hospital bracelet around my wrist

Dear Delyara, After my suicide attempt, I kept the hospital identification bracelet. At first, I told myself it was only temporary. Then weeks became months, and I wore it beneath long sleeves where nobody could see. Sometimes I touched it when I felt ashamed. Sometimes I touched it when I needed proof that the night had really happened and that I had somehow reached the morning afterward. My therapist never ordered me to remove it. We talked instead about what the bracelet had become: evidence, punishment, warning, identity. Eventually, I began taking it off for an hour at a time. Then a day. Last month, I cut it carefully and placed it in a box with my discharge papers and the safety plan I still use. Today, I realized I had gone three weeks without opening the box. My wrist looks ordinary now. There is no plastic beside my pulse reminding me of the worst night of my life. Healing has not meant pretending that night did not happen. It means I no longer have to wear proof of survival against my skin every day in order to believe I am still here.