#Fire Science 101

When a forest fire is raging, the experienced fire fighter lights a small, controlled fire directly in the path of the out of control blaze. This fire uses up the oxygen available to fuel the big one.

When I was a kid I was always worried about my Dad. He went away to the hospital 28 times in 4 years. Each time I was terrified that he would not come home again. Sensing the extreme tension in the house didn’t prevent me from getting on my mother’s nerves. The raging forest fire was the real possibility that my father might die and I, the carbon copy of him, would not survive that. He, who I loved above all else, was in constant danger and therefore so was I. A four year old can not figure out how to fix this.
So I lit small fires and my mother raged. The small things that I did to make her angry sucked all the energy from the forest fire of losing my Dad. When the small fire was extinguished, my mother and I both found some peace. My mother needed time to collect herself and my body needed time to heal. The pain was a distraction from the forest fire still baring down on us. The small diversion did not make my Dad OK but it re-directed the enormous energy needed to deal with the chronic fear. As an adult, self-injury would quite literally provide me with small burns to provide me respite.