Otatso Wetlands I'm getting Hickeys from my Bedbugs

He stared, eyes wide. He didn't mean to. He couldn't help it. Her paw was a disaster, raw flesh exposed toward the side where her dewclaw sat. Taikon's lips parted as though to say something, but no words came. It looked almost like an injury she had sustained by accidentally running her paw over a rough piece of sandstone, but Aphrodite revealed that she had done this herself.
Taikon had never seen any form of self harm before, save for a suicide that had occurred with the Faruka when he was a child. He was told by his mother that the act of suicide was selfish and cruel. Aphrodite seemed the opposite of selfish. She did this to cope.
Agh.. he said, the sound slipping out as the young woman spoke of chewing on thorns. She explained further, that she couldn't let others down, that she did this because she had to. I.. He wanted to say he understood, but the truth was he didn't. He didn't have responsibilities other than keeping himself alive. He didn't need to say sane, and so, he wasn't. That's... it's hard. He didn't know what had happened to her. He was shooting in the dark. He thought of his own experience, and to think she had gone through anything like that wounded him deeply, infuriated him even. It's impossible, he said.
Holding yourself to such a high standard when you're in pain, it's... I think I understand. Taikon was fortunate to not have anxious tics or habits of self-harm, but he had many other problems that were related. If I had a way I could make it stop, I would do it too. Instead, he didn't sleep. When he did, he had nightmares, so he avoided sleeping at all cost. He frowned, wishing that there was something he could do for her. Taikon felt very out of his element here. There seemed nothing he could say to help.