My teachers and parents recently found out that I've been cutting myself for over a year. I find it difficult to explain to people why I do this. There's too much to talk about. I'm hoping this will be of use to anyone trying to understand why people cut, (but bear in mind that everyone probably has different reasons) and also I'm hoping this is going to help me get it all clear in my head... because
The most important thing is that I understand myself... no psychiatrist is really going to be able to explain anything to me that I don't already know.
In the last few days I have encountered a variety of reactions from the oh-so-kind people in authority. I have seen bewilderment, confusion, worry, shock, disgust, anger... more. You have a right to these emotions, a right to react. I can see how, to you, this form of self-abuse is not acceptable. I can see why you think I am deranged, why you think this is abnormal behaviour. In a sense, I suppose you are right.
I *do* like myself, and I *do* like my life. You don't seem to be able to accept this. Why? Because to you, what I do to my body is unnatural - it repulses some of you. Oh well. I want to say this: I will accept the help that you are trying to give me. Just let it be made clear that I am only accepting it to keep you, all of you, away from me. Unhealthy, perhaps. I know. But I don't mind the scars. I don't believe I am going to get blood poisoning. I am careful about hygiene and safety. I am not going to cut too deep and kill myself. And basically, I believe every human has a right to his or her own self. I'm not obliged to tell everyone my feelings and thoughts and reasons for things.
I believe that I have a right to do what I wish with my own body. I believe that when I NEED to cut myself, I ought to be able to. All right, so there are 'healthier' options to vent my emotion. Maybe I don't want to use them. I also believe that when I WANT to cut myself, I ought to be able to. Now, this is the area where I would, if I were to tell anyone that sometimes I cut for no particular reason, be likely to encounter even greater prejudices. But what's the difference between that, and smoking? I see none... And cutting for decoration, where's the difference between that, and tattooing? or piercing holes in my body to stick metal through?
I remember well over a year ago I used to think about self-harm. I once found a broken plastic pencil sharpener. I kept it, I didn't know exactly why but I thought it would come in useful one day. Some months later I remember thinking about cutting myself. I thought about that pencil sharpener and the visible blade. I couldn't find it in my room. About that time I began to self-harm with scissors. They were blunt scissors. Really old ones that I'd found, they belonged to my mother and probably her mother before her. They didn't break the skin much. I used to drag them, as hard as I could, down my arm. They made a red indent, which turned to a white thick line, which would fade after about a day. It hurt. I was depressed about this time. I felt nothing. I was emotionally dead. Numb. I hate that word now. I don't know why. I've heard it so often, I guess. But it's the perfect word... it was the perfect word. I wanted to feel something. "If nothing else, I want to feel pain." And for those of you who think I must have been influenced into this behaviour... I hadn't even heard of self-injury, I didn't know anyone, who did it, when I started. Sure there are people who get influenced into the cutting thing... I'm just not one of them.
So... I don't know how much later. A month? Two months? It was towards the end of year 9, I would have been 14... I tried to take the blade from a disposable razor. My hand slipped and I nearly cut the top of my finger off. I remember the blood. It was flowing. Flowing down my finger, down my hand, down my arm. I was scared, I told my parents I had cut myself chopping an apple and we went to the hospital to get it bandaged. Ironic that I should be scared of that little cut on my finger when I was preparing to cut my arm. But. It wasn't controlled. It was an unplanned cut. I didn't like that. I think after this I was wary of razors for a while. I soon tried again, successful this time, and hey, I began to break my skin. Just very thin, shallow cuts. They were enough at first. They hurt, I saw blood, I saw damage to myself. These progressed into deeper and longer cuts. It just got worse and worse and now my left arm is a mess. There are long thin ones, long fat ones, short fat ones, every type, flat scars and keloid scars. Sometimes they are quite pale; sometimes they are bright purple. Usually they are pink.
I've cut for all the reasons except sexual abuse. I have cut to remind myself that I am a person, that I am real, that I can still feel. I have cut because I hated myself, to punish myself. I have cut myself out of hatred for my body, because I did not feel that anything could make it uglier than it already was. I remember several occasions when it was as much as I could do to stop myself from cutting my face. I have cut myself to relieve anger. Anger against other people. Often anger against my mother. Anger against myself. Anger or humiliation at something I have caused to happen. I have cut myself when other people have made jokes about me, friendly jokes that I just couldn't handle. Couldn't handle showing them that they were hurting me. So I would hurt myself. I have cut myself a lot of times to punish my mother. I knew that if she ever found out, she would be hurt, or I could hurt her by telling her that it was her fault. I cut myself because I hated her and wanted her to hurt, then sometimes I would cut myself to punish myself for not loving her. I have cut myself because I have felt it is the only thing I have for myself, something private. After I became used to it, I sometimes would cut, not deep in these cases, for decoration or simply because I was bored. All these reasons are important.
Doing all this cutting, it gradually becomes something that you're used to... you grow to love your scars after a while. I know at the very beginning I wanted them there, just a few, just to remind myself for the future what pain I was once in. Then I grew to hate them, because, let's face it, they don't look too good. My view at the moment? Because you've taken away the only thing I had left for ME, I'm not going to let you also steal the reminders of it. I made them, nobody, not one of you, can take them away from me.
I kept it a secret for the first 6 months. Nobody knew. I didn't want them to know. It was mine, it was for me, and it was my secret. I would sometimes get a strong urge to tell one of my friends. maybe I wanted them to know I was in pain, that I wasn't ok. but I didn't really want attention. I never told them, because. I knew that they would try and stop me, or worry, and I didn't want either of those things to happen.
As I became used to cutting, it became something I would do for more minor problems. It was a habit, the first thing I would turn to instead of the last resort. And I would even cut for pleasure. Not sexual pleasure. but just to get that feeling of being high. Because if I cut when I was in a normal state of mind, it would give me a rush. I would carve words occasionally. Like 'useless' and 'failure', which show the low self-esteem that I once had. I think this was partly a normal teenage thing. and partly because of what I suffered from my mother, what I would call verbal abuse. I can never tell anyone about that though. I don't need to. And I'm not going to. Recently, a few weeks ago now, I carved 'angel' and a tiny star into my stomach. I just wanted them there. They looked pretty. I knew I wouldn't want them in the future though, and for that reason I didn't do them deep enough to scar. I have a tiny tiny star scar on my upper arm. I'm glad the doctors and the teachers and my parents haven't noticed that. They don't know that I like scars. They don't know that I like to decorate my body. I don't want them to know. They're not going to know. Yeah.. the big difference between you and me now, is that I don't, anymore, see cutting as a problem. I see it as something that I do, that I ought to be able to do without hassle. Fuck you if you don't like the sight. It's my body. Now, you on the other hand. you see it as abnormal behaviour, as a sign that I am deeply disturbed... you will never fully understand, you can never fully understand, although some of you will nearly get there. I am the only person who can tell you how I feel. and, cutting or no cutting, I feel good. I feel good.