Fifi
Copyright, Fifi
Here’s my short personal story about self injury.
I started when I was eleven years old (now I’m 21). I scratched my arms with needles. Sometimes I punched a needle very deep in my arm. I stopped when I developed an infected artery.
This was a short stop. After a couple of months I began to hit myself. I threw myself against the wall and struck my arms against my desk. Till this time no one ever noticed the bruises.
The first time someone noticed my SI was when I had been cutting myself with a razor. A friend at school and my mother asked what was going on. I said I had fallen down the stairs with some glasses. I got frightened when my mother noticed the scars so I stopped for a short period (I hoped for the scars to disappear; this didn’t happen, unfortunately).
Nowadays I’m covering the scars with bracelets and long sleeves. I hope one day they will disappear so I won’t have to be ashamed anymore for my arms (and other parts of my body with scars). Now the only time I cut myself is when there’s a special event, e.g. my birthday. I save my anger and anxiety for that day and so I only cut on special days, minimizing the scars.
I don’t want to stop hurting myself, because it feels great! Maybe this sounds a bit weird, but when there is a way to express yourself (and this is not a normal way), self injury really works.
To all partners in distress: keep your wounds clean, so you can continue to cut and scratch in a “healthy” way.