When I first cut myself, it was in my school bathroom with a pair of scissors from my book bag.
A guy had just called me fat, and I was already skipping eating lunch but I heard that when people got sad, they cut themselves. I was in 6th grade and twelve and I didn't have friends to tell me it didn't help anything.
So, starting from there, whenever I got sad, I would cut myself with scissors or a pencil, which obviously didn't do much harm but still isn't recommended.
I didn't know that people actually did it with razors.
My life was crap in sixth grade. I had just gotten taken away from my parents after my mom and step dad almost had a drug overdose, got separated from my brothers, got pushed into a new school and I didn't have any friends. The only reason I had a place to sit at lunch, was because my cousin went to the same school as me. But his friends were jerks and they verbally bullied me for being "fat" and "stupid because of my intensive classes".
After having a mental breakdown one day at lunch, I came home and cut myself with a knife because, sadistically, I wanted to see blood and feel more pain. It was a dull knife so it still didn't do too much harm and I remember being kind of disappointed that it didn't create blood or a mark. I guess, back then, I actually wanted a mark so someone would notice my pain.
The cutting myself with a knife went on for a while, until one day my Step Dad and Mom were visiting me, and my Step Dad, who had always verbally abused me, on the drugs or not, said something to me that struck a cord with me. When he walked out of the room, I was so angry and hurt that I grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be a full razor, and swiped it across my wrist. And, oh my God, did it sting. I immediately regretted, told myself I would NEVER do that again, and was surprised to actually see blood that time so I quickly ran to the bathroom to try and stop it. But it didn't stop there and I did do it again because I found out I could take the razor apart, and I went on like that. There were so many times when I thought I had cut too deep and I was mad at myself thinking that it might be my last time breathing, because I didn't want my Aunt to find me like that.
I remember thinking that when I did plan to kill myself, it would be out of the house that way no one I cared about would find me. I did try to kill myself in the house one time, though. I tried to suffocate myself with my pillow.I wrote a suicide note and I had music playing and everyone was out of the house and my Aunt wasn't letting me go to my little brothers baptism, a big step in his life, because my Cousin got me in trouble and I had already been suicidal but it hurt more to think that I wouldn't be able to be there in the big events of my younger brothers life. I couldn't find pills to do it, so the only way I thought would be affective was to try and suffocate myself. There was a song that played, though and it was, ironically, This Song Saved My Life by Simple Plan and what were the freaking odds? I found it amazing and I stopped myself. I remember falling to the ground crying and thinking that maybe something was trying to tell me something.
I didn't stop cutting myself, though.
I did it all the way up into 8th grade, because 8th grade was when I actually made friends that were close to me and they saw my fresh cuts and took me to my guidance counselor. But before that, the only person who figured out that I cut myself was my friend all the way in Ireland (I live in Florida.) and that kind of made me feel unimportant to the people around me. I mean, they never noticed, while someone on the other side of the country asked me if I cut myself, without me mentioning it. She said that she just saw it in the way I talked. I remember in 7th grade, she asked me why I did it, and I tried to explain to her that once it started, it was hard to stop. I said it was an addiction, like my Mom and Step Dad's relationship and drug addiction. My Mom knew that it was all bad for her, but she found it hard to stop.
But in 8th grade, my best friends saw my cuts, took me to the guidance counselor and she called my Aunt and Uncle and told them about it. My best friends understood, though. They didn't say I was selfish for it and didn't act like I was crazy, they just tried to make me feel better by showing me their love. My closest friend out of all of them named Lauren, had put together a journal that she had my whole class write in. I remember them giving me it in the small room that was in our pod, and crying my eyes out as I looked at it. My four best friends cried with me, too. They put together this whole journal to show me that I was loved by all my classmates and teachers. It felt good.
I threw the razors I used to cut myself with, though, in 9th grade, on October 3rd, 2014, the day I went to my first concert, which was my One Direction concert.
During the summer before 9th grade and the One Direction concert, I still found it hard not to cut. I had a huge panic attack one day and curled up in the corner of my room, trembling and tried to keep myself away from my razors. It didn't work and I cut myself again.
I was so disappointed in myself and to this day, my friends don't know that it happened after the day I told them I stopped.
After my Aunt and Uncle found out about it, I asked my Aunt to go to therapy, though I had been before after I was taken away from my parents. She took me three times because we didn't have enough money and the state paid for the first three week sessions, though my therapist did diagnose me with Depression.
I haven't cut myself since the summer of 8th grade, though. I can say I've overcome that, but I still have thoughts of it. I had a panic attack this year and came really close to cutting myself again, but the razor wouldn't break and God knows that I would never cut myself with a full razor again.
I know I have a lot more to overcome because I still can't see the future for myself and I still put myself down when I stand in front of the mirror and I still cry myself asleep over missing the chance of a normal family, the father I never had and the brothers I never get to see. But I'm trying to recover, and I believe I can and I hope you do too.
If you've never cut yourself, please don't. You'll regret it majorly, trust me, I know.
If you have, and still are, you'll overcome this if you try really hard. It seems hard right now, but you can. I believe in you.
And if you have and aren't anymore, I'm proud. Good for you.
But, to everyone, you're not alone.
