|
|
Okay so I am 15 ( I will be 16 in November ) and I really don't know when I started to hurt myself. I am a happy kid. Popular, athletic And I have nice parents! I have no reason to be doing this. I guess I started to hurt when I was 12. I wore a back brace for scoliosis. It wasn't bad, nobody cared at all, they couldn't even tell. Well, I hated wearing it in the summer. I would put chemicals on my skin so it would look like I got a rash from the brace. So I would get a day or two off from wearing it. I stopped doing that though. I didn't have to wear it once summer vacation started so life was great. I got into high school and I loved it but for some odd reason I just started cutting. The first time I did 2cuts, maybe for attention or something?? The second time I did 40 all over my shin. Some people noticed and I showed others. I don't really know why... people put me on a pedestal "she has a perfect life" that is what they all said. I just wanted to show everyone that I wasn't perfect I guess. Well... I did it once a week for 2 months and then it just stopped but I still did it off and on until November of grade 10. Then it got really bad, it wasn't for attention anymore, and it was scaring me. I was going to tell my parents but that would wreck them! They still don't know. I wanted to die. I had a knife beside my bed and I slept with a bottle of pain killers under my pillow. I don't think I would have done it but just the thought scares me. I stopped in January, and I thought I was cured. I would ignore the few times that I slipped and sliced my hips a little. but the feeling came back. I honestly thought it was over. AND NOW I AM SO SICK OF WAKING UP EVERY MORING WONDERING HOW BAD I WILL CUT TODAY. I don't have really bad scars. I always did them in places where people can't see them! and a lot of them disappeared under my tan. I just don't know what to do! I have told people that I used to cut, the only person that knows I still do Is my boyfriend! And I am reluctant to tell him sometimes! God, it somehow got serious!
I'm almost 23 years old, and I cut. I had a better-than-average childhood. My parents were always supportive, not wealthy, but I never went hungry or anything like that. The cutting started when I was 11 or 12. I was always mildly depressed, not enough to get a medical diagnosis, but only enough to be noticeable by me. I'm not sure how it started, I was probably playing with the Swiss Army Knife that my parents got for me on a recent camping trip. The blood flowing made me feel better, and I cut myself periodically, but the regular cutting didn't start until high school. I was 13 when I started high school. Right about then was when I became anorexic. I was about five feet, four inches tall, but I weighed only 92 pounds. In JR. high, I was miserable, I didn't have any friends, and I spent all my time lost in books. High school was not much better. I finally got some friends, but they were abusive and just plain nasty. I cut myself more and more frequently. I dated a guy who was also a cutter. I didn't tell him about me, but I could see his scars. I didn't tell anyone about me until I went to college. This guy I was dating my junior year guessed, it probably wasn't hard to guess. At that point there were X's across the backs of my hands, and light scars all the way up my arms. On each of my upper arms there is a scar that circles my arm. I was on the rowing team, and my depression continued to grow, possibly from the fact that due to an old injury, I could no longer row, but was a coxswain (which fuelled my anorexia) and I was drinking myself into stupidity three or four nights a week. I was getting 4 hours of sleep a night if I was lucky. The summer between my junior and senior year at college, I moved into an apartment for the summer, and for the first time, did not go home to my parents house. I was in the summer rowing program at the university, and I met "Jim" that summer. We started dating, and he and I got on very well. As time went by, I told him about the cutting and the anorexia, and he confided in me that he was also anorexic. A mutual friend came out of the closet to us that summer, and revealed that he had a crush on "Jim". Jim stopped eating altogether, and his distress dropped me farther into my own darkness. He finally told me that if I did not tell my parents, he would. Panicked, I told my parents at Thanksgiving the fall of my senior year. I don't think that they understood exactly the extent of what was going on, and they just took it all in stride. I still get sidelong glances from them, but they don't know that I still cut. I haven't cut for several months, but I still feel a strange compulsion to. I miss the relief that it brought, and the blood flowing out of the slice that I made in my arm. I'm better now than I have been in years. The worst that I ever was, was the fall of my senior year. I didn't notice the darkness descend, but it finally started to lift in the early spring of that year. I lived every day in Hell, misery was my best friend. I couldn't wait to get home from class and work and sit on the floor in my dorm room alone, just me, my razor, and my music, usually NIN, Rage Against the Machine, or Tori Amos. I once cut myself 56 times in one session. I work in a small real estate financing office, and cannot wear sleeveless shirts for fear of discovery. When I first started there, I had cut my left forearm so deep that it bled for three days, and the scar is still pink and raw - 3 inches long and .25 inches wide. I had to wear long sleeves for most of my college career, and summers here can be brutal. I still hide or explain away my scars. I wish that it had been different, but my pride forbids me from seeking professional help, which I probably needed. At the same time, I sometimes feel that I am a member of a special club, that I am better because I can starve myself, or hurt myself like no one else. I know that that is not true, but the thought floats around in my psyche. I was happy when I was cutting, but also miserable. The guilt that followed the relief usually left me worse off than I started. I miss the control it made me feel I had. But now I know that I can be in control of my life without bleeding or starving. Good luck to everyone who shares this with me. May you finally find relief.
After reading your stories, all I could do was cry. I never knew anyone could have similar feelings. I've been cutting for eight years (although my mom says I scratched myself as a child). I've always hated life. I've always hated myself. I really can't recall the first time I hurt myself. I guess I really just started by pinching myself. At the age of 13, when my suicidal thoughts finally became too much for me to handle, I told someone, and ended up going into a hospital. I hated it there and I pretended to be better. The night before I left, I was scratching myself. The thoughts of dying and the cutting became worse and worse, but I wouldn't tell anybody again. Couldn't stand the thought of going to another hospital. Finally, a few months ago I attempted suicide - and to my horror landed in another hospital. Since then I've been attending group therapy and nothing seems to help, the therapists there aren't really trained for this. I can't even figure out why I do it. No abuse or anything like that. My cutting has gotten worse. I feel dead inside. I have the stuff to kill myself again. I wonder if this time it will work? Or if I can actually go through w/ it a second time. Until then, I just cut. It becomes more frequent, and deeper each time. Nothing can stop me from doing it anymore. I need to do it. Now 20 years old, I am trying to go back to college and fight this depression. I am tired of fighting. The therapist know of my thoughts and again I am faced w/ the prospect of another hospital. If only I could go through with it a second time!
Hi, My names Jeff. I'm 19. I have been living with this for only a few months now. I have a bit of a strange story, but none the less, it's true. I started this by accident really. My long time girlfriend, (whom I was in love with) Broke up with me a moved away. We had a 2 month old daughter, and she didn't want the responsibility, so she left her with me. Every time she was angry, scared, hurt, she would take it out on me. I'm a strong guy, 185 pounds, tall, built, macho, didn't like (and still don't like) to express my emotions. After she left, I lost interest in everything. I stopped eating. I cried in private a lot. But I did and still continue to love and look after my beautiful daughter Trisha. My best friend was unaware of what I felt, cause I didn't tell her. But, because I was so depressed, I found myself feeling suicidal. But I didn't want to die. So I started biting myself when I felt that way. Like a punishment. The sensation made me feel very delirious. Very high. Feeling the pain flow through my body. I would bite my arm really hard and hold it. I cried afterwards usually. I felt so bad, so guilty. I wanted to just make the feelings all go away. Then, once, while I was listening to a song (that used to be ours) I got so upset, I grabbed a fork and stabbed m y leg with it. I bled, and I felt better. The feeling of the blood running down my skin tingled, I felt relieved. Like my fear and pain seeped out with each drop of blood. From there on in, I just kept up this practice. Only now I would hide in the bathroom of my apartment and use razors on my arms, stomach and chest. It felt so good, yet so very evil. Every time I cut myself I would cry hysterically, and usually I would curl up on the floor or couch and pass out from crying. nothing equalled the feeling of watching your blood spill onto the green tiles of the bathroom floor and realising that you made it happen. That you had all the power in the world to make your feeling go away. That you could and would do unto yourself a pain and injury so great that you would bleed. It was like watching you soul trickle down your arm. Watching the red waves wash over the ceramic tiles, and feel so utterly helpless, scared... ..alone... It was like you wanted death so badly, that you would taunt yourself in hopes that maybe if you pushed the grim reaper to take your life now, that everything would be alright. I remember laying on the bathroom floor, watching myself bleed, and wondering if maybe I cut to deep. Maybe I would die. Do I want death to come in the form of a little metal razor no more than 2 inches long? I wasn't sure. I feel asleep there, on the floor, and woke to the same bitter emptiness that was always there. I have even thought of hitting heroin. People tell me that it dulls your senses. I have yet to obtain the courage to stop this pain, this obsession with self destructive behaviour, but I hope to, someday. I really can't take much more of this isolation from within.
I started cutting actually by accident when I was 11. I don't even remember what happened but something set me off. I used a sewing needle that time. I don't know what made me do it but I felt so much better. I was not sexually abused but I was very much mentally abused and there was some physical abuse involved. Basically, I was left to take care of my two younger brothers and my mother (who had just had several strokes and was disabled) while my dad worked to support the household. When I did it, I liked it. I didn't do it again until I was about 13 or so when it became popular for my group of friends to carve initials in your skin. I carved my initials in my right leg....(they're still there somewhere....haven't looked in a while) while I was going down the road in the backseat of my older step-brother's car. But I loved it. I actually had control over my life....I didn't have to take care of my brothers or my mother or myself at that moment....I just loved it so much. Fast forward past my parents getting divorced (but not legally), living with my mother who my brothers wouldn't live with because she'd burn us with cigarettes and try to set the house on fire to kill us all, but since I was the "oldest" I was the one that had to take care of her. I loved cutting....When I graduated high school I'd already had maybe 4 or 5 scars on my left forearm (My left forearm is bad....I won't ever cut my right forearm or anywhere else.....just my left forearm where people can see) and when I was in class I used to like taking a pencil eraser and rubbing it on the back of my hands until they bled.....I loved and still love the scars they left behind. I went to college....got worse....but I only cut....my brothers had all moved out of the home so I was there only with my father and his wife "girlfriend" who I now consider my mother.....I loved to see the blood....I loved to feel the pain....He (my father) was so damned controlling over me even though at that point I was 19 or 20 years old.....I disappeared with the pain and that's the hook.... I moved out and got married at 23....finally told my husband I was a cutter.....he told me if I ever cut he'd leave me.....he could not handle it...I only cut myself twice while we were married....we divorced in 98 so over three years I was able to explain away the two cuts on my left forearm.....even though I had resorted to other forms of self mutilation since I knew I could not cut.....I would pound myself in right thigh with my fist and make bruises that wouldn't go away for weeks....I'd purposely slam my right hand and forearm in a car door....I hated to do it to my right arm and hand but that's the only way people would believe that it could have been an accident....but I made sure there were never any scars on my right side....That's my good side. So I never cut from August 1995 until August 7, 1999....I've been divorced from my asshole husband for over a year now....but now my father and the lady I consider to be my mother are splitting up due to his violence (which I've also dealt with all my life....LOL) and his alcoholism..... So now I have no biological mother and now I have no biological father.....I only have my stepmom whom I consider my real mother..... I was a normal girl in high school and in college, had a 3.0+ GPA in high school and college.....but no one ever knows that I love to cut myself.... Since my parents split up a couple of weeks ago, I've already cut myself twice and wanting to do it more and more.....but I love it....LOL And I'm 27 years old.....I don't think it will ever stop.
It was my idea of salvation. To hold a razor to my skin, my arm, my leg, my hand. Really, I thought, what else was there to do? When your see your own life running out, when you can feel yourself fading, deteriorating, you try to forget-you hit yourself over the head with your fists to forget-that you are hurting. That you are hurting yourself and somewhere, maybe, in the back of your mind you know this. But you are first and foremost concerned with your own blood seeping out of your skin, the feeling of flesh being torn apart, being torn from you and somehow keeping your feet firmly planted on the ground while your mind wanders elsewhere. To the mirror, maybe, where you try to convince yourself that that blank-eyed girl staring back at you is not really you, merely and illusion, and yet you always realize that it is you. Back to the razor you go.
I'm 16 and about to be released from a mental hospital because of cutting and not eating. I started in August 1998 using a pair of scissors to try and cut fat away from my leg. At first it hurt, but then the pain went away. I bought a razor blade and would cut before, during, and after school. I even cut during church. I'm very nervous about coming home. I'll be around razors and knives. I don't trust myself yet. I'm also an addict and the only thing that keeps me from cutting is a saying used in N.A.-take things one minute at a time. Don't think about the future, only the present. Another thing that helps me to not cut is to think that when I have kids, I don't want to explain my scars. It's been so hard. I switch from cutting to not eating. I'm still not sure how to stop completely. I'm trying very hard, but I miss that feeling of relief, where I felt nothing instead of such a flood of emotions. Feel free to email me at saribeary@yahoo.com
I first harmed myself when I was 14. I was sat watching
TV with
my parents and I was fiddling with a brooch. I lost that
brooch
about 2 years later and I remember being gutted about it.
Anyway,
I started scratching the pin down my arm to see what it
felt like and
ended up gouging a cut down my arm. You can still see the
scar.
That was in September 1994, after that, I started harming
myself
regularly with pins and soon graduated to the blade out of
a
disposable razor. It must've been late october/early
november
when I read an article about a band called the Manic
Street
Preachers whose guitarist and lyricist had just come out
of
hospital. I was fascinated by Richey James - someone else
who
hurt themselves, it was a revelation. There was also a CD
enclosed with the magazine containing a track called
4st7lb. I
was captivated. I went out and bought 'The Holy Bible'
the next
day. Needless to say I was gutted when he disappeared a
few
months later.
So, I've been cutting since then. A safety catch, release
valve for the shit which builds up in my head over time.
Depression
and anxiety, and an obsessive personality combining to
keep me
awake and lines running through my head until I can flush
them
away with the help of a razor blade.
Last December I tried to kill myself, a rather half-
hearted
attempt but an attempt just the same. Dunno why. I'd
never really
wanted to die before, or indeed since. Maybe it was just
a
momentary loss of concentration.
But that was then. I haven't cut for 5 1/2 months. Long
time... I find that shopping has similar effects to
cutting. But I'm
not sure the bank would agree with my new method. You can
buy
5 disposable razors for 25p, but you have to spend £80 at
least to
relieve tension from shopping. Still, at least I've found
a substitute
at last. 5 years of cutting is a long time. I need a
break, and it's
nice not to have to wear sleeves all the time. How long
this'll last I
really don't know. I still regard myself as a cutter, no
matter how
long it's been. If I refer to it in the past tense I feel
like I'm lying, so
I don't think it's over just yet. If something really bad
happens I
won't rule it out... But until then... Shopping it is
(HMV must love
me).
So there you are. My story. Or some of it.
Stay Beautiful.
Charlotte.
Click here for page 4 of the personal stories
