Psyke.org

Cassandra

Shattered Reality

Copyright, Cassandra

I have been cutting since I was ten years old. The last time I cut was yesterday. I hate my life and I suck at suicide. I need help. I’ve been fighting depression for almost six years now. I’ve overdosed, cut, burned, and a whole lot more. I need to release my anger and that’s the only way I know how to. I show my pain on my skin because I don’t know how to any other way. To others, please get help while you can. You don’t want to be addicted to cutting like I am. It’s as bad as drugs, once you’re hooked you can’t go back.

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Copyright, Cassandra

My name, although not important, is Cassandra. My age, seventeen.

Unlike most people, I suppose, this habit started unexpectedly. Completely unintentionally too. It was the eve of my 8th grade formal. I was staying after school with my friend so that soon after we could go to her house and primp for what would be our first formal dance.

She announced she had to stop into our math teacher’s room, and I followed her. Every day I wish I hadn’t. Would my life have turned out differently? I don’t know. But what I do know are the events that transpired.

Sitting on a desk waiting for her to finish I noticed a jar next to me, in this jar were pens, pencils and the like and one glass rod. I don’t know why it was there, I’m guessing an ornament, but it had broken. Wearing shorts and not even thinking I dragged the broken tip across my thigh. Soon blood was rushing out of the small cut and eagerly dripping to the floor. I was amazed and transfixed. I had barely pressed on it. Within the next two weeks, the glass was in my possession and sitting in my room. I remember showing my friend and her acting scared and surprised, I assured her, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not like that.” I would prove that statement to be false within the next month.

I don’t remember much of that summer, and I don’t remember even thinking that this was a problem. I thought it was my burden and mine alone until I saw a book in Barnes and Noble one day called ‘Cut’. The book is about a girl in a mental hospital who cuts herself. I bought the book and after finishing it in one sitting I knew that I was suddenly apart of something much much bigger than myself.

My mother had passed away when I was eleven, leaving me to be raised by my brother and my father. They were in complete oblivion to what was happening to me, even with the purchase of ‘Cut’ at the book store. I was so bold as to even wear shorts, and was shocked when my brother commented “it looks like you dropped a cat on your lap” and then proceeded to let the matter go. By this time my thighs were a mass of red and purple scratches made by the piece of glass.

High school started and I sank into a crippling depression. My friends were all adjusting and meeting new people, and I was stuck hiding in the library every day because I had no one to eat lunch with, much less talk to. My cutting became more severe and I longed for a sharper tool.

One day I ventured into my mother’s old craft cabinet and found an exacto knife. Aggravated by it’s dull blade I took a new one from the art department. I was so excited, I could write words and scratch and all sorts of new things to my flesh. I would cut myself every day, just because. It was then that I knew, even subconsciously, that I was addicted.

Then one day I was particularly aggravated and proceeded to carve “LIFE SUCKS” into my thigh. That night my tutor came and I shifted wrong in my chair and my pants leg came up, revealing the fresh wounds. I just remember her gasping and asking if they were real. I tried to play it off, but it didn’t work as my dad came home a half hour later and demanded to see. I showed him and he proceeded to comment on how unhappy he was, never taking into account my feelings. His fear of the situation would only lead to the worsening of my condition.

I was forced into therapy and around the same time met a “friend”. This person told me methods to cut myself all the while under a guise of a loving friend, soon turned boyfriend, and then Master and then abusive rapist.

I made huge gashes in my thighs and dealt with the pain and the scars that are still there. I tried killing myself, downing sleeping pills and slashing up my legs at full force.

Somewhere along the line I lost myself. I gave myself to this monster entirely as his slave and he my Master. How blind I was. He soon came to abuse his power and begin to hit me, and then one day, against the orders of my father, he came to the house while no one was home, and he raped me.

When that happened I had already broken up with him and I was seeing my current boyfriend. He doesn’t know about the rape. How could I tell him? How could I break his heart by telling him that I can’t give something so sacred to him? I am a virgin still, I was able to fight him off before it got that far. But before that he had had me tied down and gotten through about every base but home. I thank the Goddess every day that I had enough strength to get myself free and run.

I hit a low around that time, which was the summer of 2004. I bought actual razorblades and moved from cutting my thighs to cutting my arms. I blamed myself. I thought I had wanted it, that I was a cheap useless whore and I even carved the word “WHORE” into my left arm. Through all of this I have gained friends. Friends who currently self injure, friends who used to, but all are dear to me. And I believe I can learn something from each and every one of them.

I am very lucky as my boyfriend, who knew nothing of SI before, researched it and while he doesn’t agree with it, he has not given me an ultimatum like my friend’s boyfriend tried to do to her. He has been very tolerant and I often beat myself up for burdening him, for making him worry. That leads to more play with my razors, more scars, more excuses, more guilt.

I wish I could end this account happily. But I find that I cannot give you a happy ending as I am still searching for one myself. When I find an ending that fits this story, I will be sure to tell you.

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Copyright, Cassandra

I recently was told by a friend about this site. I think this site is a good idea. I’ve been cutting for 12 years. I am 19 years old. When I was little I used to scratch my arms and legs until they bled and I never knew why. My grandma never did anything. One day I just picked up a piece of glass and scratched with it. I don’t remember why I started to do this, but I did and I liked the way it made me feel. As time passed I began to use things like safety pins, and razor blades. I became suicidal and my grandma made me go to counceling. She said I needed some type of punishment for it. Along with counceling came grounding. She just isolated me more. The counceling never helped because I did not want to talk about it. Now I realize some of the things that have happened in my past. Before there were huge parts of my life that I could not remember. Now they’re all coming back to me. I’m feeling even more depressed than I have ever been. I live with my aunts now. They don’t know I cut. I cut almost every night. Sometimes I cut so deep I pass out. I’m scared. I would tell them but I am too scared to. They always say I can talk to them. I tried once. I told them I wish I were dead. One aunt said she knows how I feel. How can she know how I feel if she doesn’t know why I feel this way? She’s had a great life where she has always got whatever she wanted. She asked for something and she got it. So how could I tell someone like her? The other one would just tell my grandma. I don’t need my grandma to know because then she will think it is her fault. It’s not her fault. Plus she is very ill and I don’t want to make things worse for her. I try to occupy my time with work and school, but I end up in the bathroom and cutting. I always wear a sweater so no one sees. Some of my friends have seen the scars and know. They just say I want attention. But I don’t. I don’t want the attention. I want to be able to talk to someone face to face and be able to express and let out these things. There are things that I am holding in that I didn’t even remember until last night. I need help and don’t know what to do. Here is something I wrote one night after cutting:

My Latest Sin

Copyright, Cassandra

Filled the tub with boiling water
Went to the kitchen got the perfect knife
Crawled into the tub knife in hand
Took the knife to my arm
And there it began

The knife is like ice
It slides perfectly across my ghostly skin
Slicing it open as if it were fresh butter
Watching the firey red blood burst through
It reminds me of a volcano taking over land piece by piece

The boiling water is cooling
It’s turning a hint of red
I’ve been at work cutting for 30 minutes
The pain is intence
But I like it, it calms me and I feel somewhat relieved

My hands start to shake
My vision is getting blury
I drop the knife in the water
Slowely try to climb out of the tub
I make it to the floor and pass out

Three hours later I awake
The bleeding has stopped
I’m cold, naked on the bathroom floor
My blood is staining the white of the room
But I’m too upset to care

I pick up the bottle of advil
Pop 6 in my mouth
put on my pajama’s
Climb into bed
Ready to sleep

 

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