Welcome to my website. I thought some people out there might like to know more about the creator of this site.

My name is Emma, and I'm a 22y/o student from the UK. I am not an especially happy person, as I suffer from recurrent depression, and have done since I was seven. Though I'm on medication for it at the moment, it doesn't seem to be working. I frequently feel suicidal, and frequently self-injure as a means of defusing my feelings. This is why the site deals with self-injury (SI) and depression. No one outside the internet knows of my SI, though some have guessed about the depression. I am not a particularly expressive person, and am unable to express extreme emotion to others (which is part of the problem.) I have tried on several occasions to "come out" to others as a cutter, or even as just having depression, but up to this date have been unable to do so. The internet, therefore, provides a much-needed release of tension for me.

I have always been interested in romantic poetry in particular. By "romantic" I do not mean dealing with the themes of love, love poems and the like, but of the rather flambouyant movement including Byron, Shelley, Coleridge and others. That period also saw the beginning of the gothic movement, of which all those poets were a part, with all its over-the-top tales of ghosts in ruined castles, eldritch screams in the night and the like. I am a big fan of H P Lovecraft's stories, and so I've included some on this site - though you may find that if you read too many of them at one sitting you get an urge to laugh. I find that with much of the gothic/romantic works, actually :-) not that that is a bad thing, and it doesn't mean I don't like them just as much.

My own poetry tends to be either dark or fantastical in nature. Partly this comes because I've been using poetry for some years now as a means of getting out feelings I cannot express in speech - which also explains the poor quality of some of the poems, as they were simply means to get the poison out by another method (than cutting).

I've included some of my pre-occupying interests in these pages, though I have not included some of the non-dark, non-gothic/romantic interests I have (some of the other poetry has slipped through I think!), for example, my fondness for listening to Eminem would be a bit inappropriate here! I thought my site would be a bit more interesting if I themed it than if I simply had some mad hodge-podge of different things on it.

The sections on religion and death were included because both are preoccupations of mine, and both fit in with the page themes. In terms of religion I am an avid reader of theology - mainly Christian theology but I'm not unaquainted with Paganism - and of reading devotional works as well. I have a deep respect for Christianity, and indeed for most religions (I just happen to know Christianity the best) for its history - much of the great poetry and literature of the world, not to mention architecture and art, would not exist without the influence of religion. I am not, however, particularly religious, though my feelings about it come and go depending on how depressed I am. I cannot claim to be a Christian, or an atheist/agnostic really, because my thinking about God seems to be inextricably tied in with my emotional state, and I am not "normal" at present. This section of the site has some primary source material on ghosts, witchcraft, demons and the like, which I'm sure is as fascinating to other fans of gothic literature as it is to me!

I recently took a course on "death", which went on about Martin Heidegger (and others') theories about death and how we should view it. I'm hoping to put up summaries of those ideas on the site, for your interest, and to incidentally help me revise for the exams!

I am always very pleased to get comments on this site, suggestions for stuff to include, and anything else you like. Just email me.

My other sites, which you might like to view, are:

Crazy Cutter: Catharsis, my self-injury site, which I use as a medium to vent my anger - hence the language on it!

My Online Diary where I post my feelings whenever I'm online, as well as some new poems and suchlike. Its not terribly happy reading generally, as I talk about my SI, depression and suicidal feelings there a great deal.