I don't remember when I started self harming.
I know I did in spring of 2014, my nephew was a baby and I always had wristbands and bracelets up my arms to cover them.
He grabbed at my wrist one day, the cuff of the bracelet I wore digging into my skin, his tiny fingers slipped through the gaps made as the bracelets moved. Scratching at the scarring lines.
I felt pulsing start in my wrist a few moments later, scab ripped off by his tiny nails.
-
It was some months later I remember another instance. My parents and I were at a caravan park for our holiday.
Rubber wristbands covering my wrist. Even though I'm right handed, I always remember the cuts being on my right arm.
The gas tank for the cooker wasn't attached properly, we had been trying to light the stove for a while, and I was still wearing those rubber bands. Cuts hidden beneath them.
After some time the thing finally lit, flames going up a foot from the ring. My father said if it had been me who lit it, I would of had the rubber melted into my skin.
I shrugged. All I could muster was a shrug. I had two thoughts going on in my head for the next few hours.
"Melt to my arm"
-
Before I started cutting myself, I would use a pin or sewing needle. I was scared to actually hurt myself then. So I would take the sharp metal and stab it into a piece of cardboard, corkboard or something similar. It helped me a bit, but it didn't give me a return feeling.
I moved onto piercing my fingertips, I'd just putting a needle right through my skin. It felt good. Not much pain but I would be fascinated by the metal dipping through my skin.
-
I don't remember how long I was clean for, but now ten years after I remember that I started, I'm cutting again. This time on my thigh as I have grown to always have my wrists showing with tattoos. It started again after the death of my pet cat and pet dog both after short but horrible illnesses. My cat had a neurological problem and my dog had a tumor. Both were sudden. Lasting almost two weeks each. Both losing function quickly and both in obvious discomfort. Each on their own wasn't what tipped me over, it was the short few months between them that did. Things changing too quickly and loosing the only beings I felt comfortable talking to or just thinking about my problems with. Having them made me forget and the sudden loss of each made me break then crumble.
Some years ago I broke a shaving razor carefully picked out all the metal blades and hid them in a tin keyring. The plastic handle and whatever else of the razor I then hid in a pencil case. That's what I had been using. Tiny, bendy, strips of metal. I ended up cutting my fingers from holding them rather than were I tried to cut.
A year or so ago I had bought a foot care set , it included spare blades for a skin scraper.
I was working on treatment for my feet when I noticed the paper wrapped spare blades. I took one out and inspected it before pressing it to my thigh, lightly dragging it across, I just wanted to see the sharpness so wasn't interested in pressing it into my flesh.
It stung even if it only broke a layer it two of skin.
In my head it was just an experiment. I felt numb so I wanted to see if I could feel it. But soon after a few days it felt like nothing. I began to just like the feeling of letting blood out. Cutting myself before I would do anything intimate.
I've currently stopped again, just settling on picking scabs. I know that is still bad, but it currently helps me stop slicing my thigh so the picking will have to do.
But I'm thinking of doing it again. I'm just so overwhelmed with things currently.
YOU ARE READING
dear diary, is this trauma?
Non-Fictionrandom things about me that I'm only thinking is traumatic now.
