Self Harm: An Intimate Addiction

My Story

Ah, yes, the infamous 'story'. Every self harmer, recovered or otherwise, can recite in perfect prose how they first found faux comfort in delivering pain unto themselves. My story is a mix of all the cliches related to self-harm.

I was thirteen, and my grandfather died. Yes, yes, I know. More often than not, people with no real way to express their emotions attempt primitive cures. Think of self harming as blood letting,  as they both tend to have the same results. You don't feel better--you feel worse. Perhaps even better than those little gifts, you feel stupid as well.

So, granddaddy croaked, and I took it pretty hard. Aside from that, I was bullied fairly relentlessly. Though I held my own on the schoolyard, what I did in private quarters was another story.  I first grabbed a rusty razorblade from my father's toolchest when one of my friends told me she was doing it--she told me that it would make me feel better, and that it hardly hurt. Needless to say she was wrong on both fronts. Looking back, I'm betting that she didn't actually cut herself--rather she saw a few posts about it on some social media or another, grabbed a blade, and then decided not to. On the other hand, I was an idiot, and I followed her advice in bed that night. I bled maybe two droplets, sobbed like a widow, and vowed never to do it again.

Needless to say, I was wrong then.

It was all dull razor blades and looking up/reading anything tagged #Selfharm or #cutting for months, until we started the process of moving. During this time, I found a new box of old-fashioned razor blade inserts, which my father was tossing in favor of a gillette beast. Obviously, I stole away with the box that night, and made of myself a mess.

Interestingly enough, I feared my parents finding out more than life, and so to this day my wrists are clear. Up until last year, though, I wouldn't wear shorts anywhere. I marked my innocent thighs, and for the first time that night, I left scars, and I bled.

From there it's mostly a blur--hiding in my grandmother's bathroom to break my skin and release imaginary tension. When I started, they--they being the people on the internet, constantly talking about it--said it would be like any drug. I would get addicted without even knowing it. I would be exactly like everybody else, in that my brain would trick itself into needing the hormones released when I cut myself. But back then, I thought that sounded silly. Of course you wouldn't get addicted to literally cutting yourself.

Again, I was wrong. I was exactly like everybody else, meaning when we went camping I found a way to cut myself discretely while my mother slept two feet from me.

I was too damn young. 'They' say it's always 16+ year olds, but it's not. For the first few months of my thirteenth year, cutting made me feel special. Like I was part of some neat club--like I was on the edge. See, my scars would make me an individual with a troubled past. They did, but not in the way I was expecting.

Soon enough, I found myself hopelessly addicted. Through two moves and a stay with my grandparents, my days were made up of waiting for bedtime so I could cut myself some more. I promised myself that I could stop at any time. I was a fucking idiot.

Strangely, from my entire time as a reckless cutter, I remember one thing clearest. Not bathing my thighs in alcohol while holding back tears, not the feeling of the metal in my palm as I hid it, not the rush of adrenaline when someone walked by while I was cutting myself. No, I most remember the showers I would take, the morning after. Crying silently, hating the dull sting of the hot water on wounds, scrubbing them with antibacterial soap so I wouldn't get an infection.

Nothing could make me feel less dirty. Nothing.

One strange memory is when I decided to try and tell my parents. I started by making six even slits on my wrists--three on either side--and I waited for them to notice. They weren't deep, they weren't bad, and they wouldn't scar.

My mother noticed them only when they began to scab over. She screamed at me, cried, and threw things. That made me feel alone, tired, and most of all unprepared to let go of what I'd associated with security. I felt like she would lock me up--throw me in an institution, disown me, or feed me to the shrinks.

Unfortunately, I think I'll never know what she'd do. It's been two years since I stopped, one year since I left her house, and I'm a legal adult now. She's never known, and at this point I doubt I'll ever tell her. You can be damn sure telling her then would have gotten me clean faster, though.

I stopped on July 8th. I walked to a local park with my razors--tucked in an old jewelry box, which was inside of a plastic bag, which was covered in tape, inside of a grocery bag--and I dumped them in the trash can. I had a friend, back then. She helped me stop. I only had internet friends, I didn't tell anyone in my real life that I was a fucking cutter. I hated the word, back then, and I hate it now.

I could describe my later teens with you, as I'm 19, clean since I was 17.  I only have one thing to share, though.

I was going through my things when I found an old teddy bear. More specifically, it was a stuffed octopus I had gotten from my grandfather. I was hugging it tightly when I was poked. Confused, I turned it, to see that the nape of its neck was crudely sewn. I cut the thread and jammed my and into it. I came out with sliced fingers and an old razorblade...my first.

I'd hidden it as a backup, when I was thirteen, when I was the stupidest person in the world. I'd hardly changed, though. That night I used it to give myself new scars, which bled through my pants halfway through the third Saw movie, which I was watching with my parents.

I can't tell you exactly why I stopped. I can tell you that all cutters are fucking idiots, myself included. I can assure you that it can absolutely get better. I was a lower-middle class girl with no extreme problems, but when it comes to things like this, there are no boundaries. I'll tell you what it is--It's a disease. It's a disease you cannot cure with medicine, nor is it a disease you cannot be blamed for. All cutters are entirely to blame for their actions, myself included. That does not mean there is no redemption for this absolute fuckery.

The first time I got a girlfriend after coming out is when I forgave myself. It's about time you forgive yourselves too.

Next Part: Forgiving yourself. Coming Soon.