I'm 15 now, but the first time I ever heard of self harm was when a girl in my class mentioned the word 'emo' when I was in year 5. She said that they slit their wrists with their locker keys, which confused us all, and we asked why but she said she didn't know.
The first time I ever saw real evidence was in year 6, when they boy who sat next to me came into school with a large cut on his arm, which he said he'd done.
I was really confused, so I asked him why, he said it just makes you feel better.
By the time I'd entered year 9, I knew what self harm was and I thought I was the last person who'd ever do it. Then a girl in my class, who I wasn't very close to but knew well enough, began self harming. I was confused but my first reaction was to just accept it and accept that there was nothing I could do.
I ended year 9 with a boyfriend, who in the summer forced me to do things that I didn't want to do, in the end constituting to rape. I buried it for a long time, as a result having strong depression and post traumatic stress disorder, which lasted for quite a while. At the same time, I was also trying to support 2 friends who self harmed, one with bulimia, a friend with a severe split personality disorder and another friend whose father had just died suddenly.
I went to see my GP and they referred me to counselling, although my parents just thought it was me being hormonal. They insisted if I ever started self harming I should call them.
It was a struggle to cope with supporting all my friends, as well as increasing school work and the confusion and depression I was experiencing from what had happened in the summer and in November, mid December and new year I seriously contemplated suicide. When it snowed I gathered snow from my window into my hands, held it for a while then ran my hands under hot water, which felt like extreme burning, but it just wasn't enough.
It was around New Year that the feelings of loneliness and uselessness became too much, and a set of mini screwdrivers were in my hand and I undid the sharpener blade on my pencil sharpener. It was totally impulsive, and odd, as I had always been afraid of pain before, but I cut the top of forearm about 6 times. Not too deep. But the weird thing was that afterwards I felt so much better, like I'd let all the bottled up feelings out, and got an amazing high. It then became normal for me to cut both arms, sometimes up to three times a day, or twenty cuts each time. Both my arms were completely covered in cuts, and I took to wear a long sleeved top in PE just to hide it. But each time I did it, all my problems felt like they were gone. Somewhere, I knew it was wrong, but my argument for carrying on was that I needed to support my friends, and if I was an emotional mess I couldn't do it - cutting for me sorted out my mess. If I carried on, I could help my friends to be ok. I never called the GP. The only time I felt regret was when I felt the stinging sensation under my sleeves.
At the end of January, I was on work experience when I had a large nosebleed after tripping over in the office. After some persuasion, I was taken to see the company nurse who wanted to take my blood pressure. I protested, I didn't need it, but she insisted. She didn't say anything about my arm. I thought I had got away with it. Then she asked if anyone else knew. I said yes and walked out of the room but I couldn't stop remembering how sad and pitying her expression had been and I made up my mind to stop. I spoke with my friends who self harmed and we agreed to stop together.
It was unbelievably hard, and I gave up within a week. My friends then learnt about it, and it was sometimes hard because I'd see their wrists and feel jealous about it. I still worse long sleeves, and I told my parents, which was unbelievably hard, my mum started crying which was even harder because a few months back she said if she had a child that self harmed she would feel that she had failed as a parent.
My best friend found out, and she was extremely upset, which made me feel even worse and I decided to try as hard as possible to stop.
I managed to get cutting down to once a week, or few weeks if I was lucky. It was end of February when I threw my sharpener blade out of the window.
I felt so powerful, with that throw, it took a while to get the guts to do it, but I did it. I was tempted for a while to go and get it again, but I didn't.
In the next few weeks, my friend's split personality problem became worse, and he would really upset me without understanding, as he has no concept of empathy. At these times I would have panic attacks, and the only way to calm down was to cut, so I unscrewed another blade on a sharpener, which was sharper. I cut just below my elbow, my knee, thigh and ankle. Another regular place became my hips and waist, as they were covered by clothes all the time and healed quickly with minimal scarring.
My arms were a total mess and my mum got me bio-oil, which helped them to fade. Altogether I had well over 300 scars on my arms, and a few on my hands. I felt the desire to cut all the time, really strongly, to the point where I had to ask to go to the toilet in the middle of lessons and run my hands under cold water, which seemed to calm me down, and just talk myself through what would happen if I started cutting again.
Around mid March, I was taken out of a school activity in hysterics because I had been put accidentally in a group with my ex boyfriend and it was just too much for me. I was taken to really kind teacher who spoke it all through with me and we made the decision to talk to the police about it, which is one of the hardest decisions of my life, as I knew it was the right one, but it was absolutely terrifying.
When I did talk to the police, it was extremely hard and I couldn't say any of it, so they had to ask me to write it down. Afterwards I felt better, and I made decisions, although I didn't pursue any cases against him. At the end of the week though, I felt extremely guilty and cut my waist to stop the feelings. This was I think the last time it happened.
Some people have seen them at school but not too many comment, they just look a bit scared, which I feel guilty about sometimes.
The scars on my arms change colour in different temperatures, so sometimes you can't see them, and sometimes they are really vivid.
A few people know in my class, and they are quite supportive, and I've also found out about a lot of other people who used to cut, that I never knew about.
I'm still supporting my other friends who self harm and its easier now to understand why they did, and although we all tried to stop together, we now understand that the desire to cut doesn't really disappear, it just lies dormant.
Last week our form had injections, and I had to rub my arms to warm them so the scars would fade, but I think people are quite blind, and don't usually notice things unless you mention something, so that makes me feel better. I hate it when people thing that it is an attention thinking thing, or for people who are stupid and just can't cope. I really hate it when people laugh about it and think self harm is just a joke. I also hate how it's not covered in PSHE, because I think if people had known about it, and it wasn't such a shameful thing, and teachers were trained to know what to do, instead of giving people detentions over it, a lot of those who do self harm wouldn't have.
It may have been a stupid decision but I honestly think in the short term it helped to save my life. Maybe I'm crazy but I'm still here.
I'm still waiting for the counselling, but I haven't cut in over a month and a half. The desire too is still there sometimes, but it's a rare occurrence now. I keep my blade in my purse, but that's mainly for reassurance I don't use it anymore, and the other ones I had are now lost. Sometimes I feel proud of my scars, as they're proof that I have lived and I have a story, but a lot of the time I'm ashamed of them and try to hide them.
I hope one day my mind won't even think about doing it.
