So here goes, a description. My name's Simmy, I'm 16 (I'll be 17 in October) and I'm a cutter. I've been cutting since I was 13, and I'm trying to stop. As of today, I haven't cut in four days. I was hospitalized for about a week in March of 1999, but my parents couldn't afford to keep me there. I've been in therapy forever. For the most part, I don't like shrinks and I don't trust them. I have my reasons, a few of my "therapists" have been real assholes.
I wasn't always as bad as I am now. I was pretty normal until second grade. My parents were convinced that there was something wrong with me, just because I was one hell of a weird kid. So they sent me to a shrink. I got my first diagnosis when I was 11. Depression, not a big deal. It made sense, I'd kind of known it without being told by a doctor. It probably had something to do with the physical abuse I endured for a while. My dad wasn't the "big bad wife beater", but he did have one hell of a temper. He didn't hit me a lot, not every day, but he did hit me enough to scare the shit out of me.
It got worse when they decided to move me to private school. I was 9, about to turn 10. Entering the fourth grade. I loved the school when I'd visited, but as soon as it started it took a sharp dive downhill. I thought I would have been reasonably popular. I imagined always being with a big group on the playground, instead of in a corner of the sandbox like I was before. No such luck. I was outcast immediatly. That's when I met Jay.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hold Jay responsible for my downfall, that's nobody's fault but my own. Her presence made me realize that I wasn't the only abnormal idiot in the world, even the school. But that's not how it started. She befriended me on a bus ride for some field trip. We had normal 4th grade conversations that day. They were probably the first of their kind all year. It didn't last. She became my only friend, and I became dependant on her. This lasted throughout the year. I was scared of her, but even more scared to be alone. Jay had problems of her own which make my experiences look like chicken shit, so she didn't exactly have a positive effect on me. In fifth grade, we got along a bit better. Our friendship was rocky but not dangerous. Fifth grade was pretty boring. Stuff didn't get interesting until 6th grade.
In sixth grade I had a HUGE crush on this guy Max, and Jay did too. This was also the year Jay started drinking and doing drugs. I started doing worse in school because I couldn't concentrate on anything. Either my own depression (diagnosed that year), or my crush, or Jay's problems... it was always something occupying my time. No time for work, there's stuff that needs to be obsessed over! So went the rest of the year.
Seventh grade I started cutting. I was never going to be the perfect kid I wanted to be, although I tried to fit in nonstop. Jay hated this. By now we had a reasonable friendship, but that was overshadowed by the issues that each one of us had without the other making life more difficult. I continued to blame myself for anything bad that happened to me or Jay, or any of my other friends (yes, by this time I had a few). My parents continued to be idiots, I continued to like Max (although not as much, sometimes I didn't like him and sometimes I did). I also had my first suicide attempt that year.
In 8th grade I cut more often, whenever stress built up to the point that I thought I'd snap in two. That was the year that Jay left, and got locked away for all the stuff she'd been doing. Drugs, drinking, having sex waaaaay too much, and otherwise not really being "reasonable." So that year I made other friends in school, which kinda scared me. I made a new best friend who I got along with fabulously well until February of that year, when she said she couldn't take the stress of our friendship. I cut even more. So inadequate, so useless, I'd never be worth anything to anyone. "Stupid piece of shit, look at you, you're such a worthless loser," I told myself every day. Needless to say I was going downhill. I had a shrink who had no clue what he was doing, which didn't help at all. So it went...
Freshman year of high school. Same private school, Jay remained in the hospital, I had a new best friend again (outside of school, of course). I made quite a few new friends that fall because of all the new students. What an oppertunity, these people have no clue how messed up I am, maybe I'll prove to myself that I'm not so bad if these people will like me.... And a few did. I befriended one particular guy who saw me through the worst of my crap, but he dropped me that February, just when I needed him the most. I was extremely dependant on him, not healthy. We weren't even going out, it was so stupid. I'd been cutting more. I was convinced I was worthless. I was too needy, he said. I couldn't just have fun anymore, he said. I'd become to much of a burden, he said. So we weren't friends. So I had a fit. So they locked me up.
I spent only a week in the hospital. My parents couldn't afford to keep me there for any longer, so I had to be discharged early. I did learn a few valuble things though, so it wasn't a loss. I sure did have a lot of explaining to do to The School (idiots, morons). So the school hated me too. I thought that I was better, that I'd just seen the light or whatever. I didn't resist treatment at all, I thought that if I just behaved I'd get better and get out. That's not how it worked out. The School really hated me, I tainted their perfect reputation and didn't fit the mold. It was in the fall of ninth grade that I really realized that I could be me, and it was just easier not to try to fit in so much. So I was a psycho with bad grades and an independant mind. I was The School's worst nightmare. Heh, I'm still The School's worst nightmare. I enjoy it. But that's besides the point.
So now I'm a sophomore, still cutting, still trying to stop, Jay's out of the hospital, I have a lot more friends, but I'm still all screwed up. Maybe someday I'll be better, maybe I'll have a life without scars, maybe I'll get to college (I hope and pray), and maybe I'll end up as a decent person.
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