Living with Self-Injury

Anonymous

I am a 19 year-old female, born to exceptional parents and with a childhood that, save an unspeakable incident or two, was sufficiently perfect. I went to a school for gifted children in kindergarten, I skipped the first grade, I taught myself how to read at the age of two, and I was, according to family, friends, and teachers, an exceptional child. I graduated from high school at the top 10% of my class and was the youngest graduate of the first graduating class at 16 years of age. I went to a private university, where I co-founded a now-growing Christian, student-run ministry. I was a double major in Communications and Musical Theater.

Although everything seemed to be fine on the outside, I was beginning to fumble on the inside. My attitude had been changing for some time, my values and morals. Beneath that confident air that I exhumed, I was insecure, frightened, paranoid, hypochondriatic, depressed, innocent. I knew nothing of anything, even though I was a "brain". I made friends quickly, but I was very insecure about losing them. Still, I was full of energy, tough as nails like my daddy had taught me to be.

Somewhere along the line, however, I started faling apart. My grades were dropping fast, I was in a troubled relationship with someone who, just four or five months ago disappeared without a trace, someone who I still love with every part of me, I started to drink, and I began to lose my friends, my perspective, my life. I found an escape initially in drinking. However, when I realized that I was losing control of that, I stopped, or rather I was forced to stop.

Then one day, feeling rather numb and not very rational, I walked into the campus store, bought razor blades and steriled gauze, and went to my room, where I began to cut the left inside of my forearm. It was a release, I felt somewhat calm, more in touch with reality. I also felt free. I had finally found a way to punish myself without having to completely lose control... or so I thought. All of my turmoil in college culminated with a suicide attempt, overdosing on Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant that had been provided by my school therapist without prescription. I spent one night in ICU. I spent two days at the mental health center. Then I withdrew from school and went home.

I sit in front of this computer tonight, an SI'er for four or five months, doing everything from cutting to burning to biting. Self-Injury, or self mutlation as many people know it, can come in many forms. Although the most common is cutting, burning is common as well. People resort to SI for many reasons: to feel alive, to disassociate from reality, to punish themselves, to feel pain, to physicalize their emotional pain. It is mostly used as a coping mechanish, a stress manager of sorts. Although some of us who SI have attempted suicide, SI behaviour has nothing to do with suicide.Seldom are people with SI suicidal. It is merely a person's way to cope. Some people smoke, some drink, some cut...