Psyke.org

Liz

Pain

Copyright Liz

I’m almost nineteen so that would make it about eight years now that I’ve been self injuring. My parents were always so good to me (mind you they’re not my birth parents but they’ve given me a great life). But I was always ‘different’. I think a lot of it has to do with sexual abuse that I dealt with for long periods of my life. The first time I was about six and it was my adoptive brother’s friend. Then it was just other people that came into my life someway, somehow. I also suffer with a lot of mental illnesses. Before I started the whole SI thing I turned to drugs at a very young age. Around ten I was already heavily smoking pot, then it progressed to harder drugs, then I turned to SI because the drugs weren’t enough for me. I had to stop doing drugs at fifteen because I became very ill from cocaine and lost a lot of weight so I depended on self injuring in the time that I was sober which was about two and a half years. In those years my self injuring became worse and more frequent as in I would do it say maybe five times a day instead of every night when everyone was asleep. Even if I travelled anywhere I would bring a razor so if my anxiety would act up I could excuse myself and go to the ‘washroom’. My self injuring got out of hand very deep but still I wouldn’t ask for help because I felt I didn’t deserve it. After my period of being sober I found it way too hard. The self injuring wasn’t enough then I’d cut back on it and just get high all day all night any time I was awake I was high. It has now been four weeks since I’ve been sober again and the self injuring is acting up again like the first time I had to stop the drugs. I don’t want to SI anymore but I can’t stop. It’s become a part of my life for a long time now and I can’t deal with the world without it my pain will not stop so I continue even though I see my scars and how bad they look I get such a feeling of disgust and then I SI because I’m disgusted with myself. I fear that if I don’t get help I will take further and more drastic steps. That is why I signed up for treatment. My parents are very happy I am looking forward on getting the help I’ve always needed. They figure I need to go away for at least six months but I see it as I have the rest of my life to look forward to after that. I need whatever help I can get. For everyone else, you’re not alone. It’s not your fault. You can get better. It’s just a step at a time.

Untitled

Copyright, Liz

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved the sight of my own blood seeping out of fresh wounds. I remember not being like all the other kids, as I would fall off my bike or trip while roller-skating, I’d secretly like it. I’d sit on the side and squeeze my cuts until I couldn’t stand it any longer. And now that I’m older, I still love the way it looks and feels while I watch my body silently weep for me.

I can’t complain about how my life has been up until now. My parents love and care about me more than anyone should, and my friends are supportive to the ultimate extreme. So the reason behind my cutting isn’t really there. I suppose it’s more of a hunger for the rush of pain and sight of blood than anything else. Yes, I do cut when I’m stressed out, or disappointed in myself, just like everyone else, but I also cut when there really is no need to.

I didn’t start purposely hurting myself until seventh grade. I had tried to slice my arm open with an earring, but failed miserably. For the next two years, I’d resort to banging various limbs against walls, hitting myself, and poking myself with safety pins. The summer after eighth grade, and the beginning of ninth, I had managed to keep myself from self abuse. Then, to my own surprise, I found myself sitting alone in my room with a knife in hand, carving my arm like it was Thanksgiving and I was the feast. I couldn’t control it, and I didn’t realise how bad it was until it was over and I was sitting in a pool of my own blood.

Not long after, I confided in one of my best friends, who in turn told another, which ended terribly in the whole group of friends knowing about me. Two of them decided that they would cut themselves too, and it pissed me off like there was no tomorrow. Their outbursts of sheer ignorance only contributed to the battle between sense and nonsense raging within me. I had convinced myself that cutting was the only way to deal with them, and everyone else around me. I promised my own well mental being that I wouldn’t stop. For my own good.

A couple months later, I told the original person who knew about it, that I was going to go to therapy and get help. He said he didn’t care anymore, and that the whole thing was silly. I was serious about stopping then, but I couldn’t do it alone. So the only thing I could think of to do was lie about it, and get my life back together. I told them that my mother had found out, and made me go to therapy, and I was on anti-depressants. None of which was the truth. But they bought it, and enabled me to continue.

I’ve grown more aware of why I do it, and what’s really going on inside my head to drive me to this. And more capable of hiding it. I still have the same group of friends, I still talk to them every day, I still love them, and they’re still oblivious to the fact the there’s something the matter with me.

My Hurt

Copyright Liz

I’ve been self-harming since I was about twelve. Six years later, and I’m still cutting myself. I’ve gone through stages where almost all of my cuts are healed and I think I’ve beat it, and then it just starts all over again. That don’t really happened that much though. I can’t remember why I started this. I’m not too sure when the first time I cut myself was but I remember them getting deeper and deeper. In high school I remember looking down at my calves and my pants were just full of blood and everyone was kinda looking at me. One of my best friends caught on and told me how that was stupid and how she would never understand people like me. That was the last time we ever talked. She didn’t help. Unless I meet someone else who self-hurts they don’t get it. This guy at my school who also cut asked me once why I did it. And I had to think. Well besides it helping me for a little bit I never really knew my other reasons. But I couldn’t stop. It was my addiction. Then alone in my room one night with my razor blade, my life was falling apart and I couldn’t fix it, I realised it was my control. I did it to have a little bit of control over something. Anything.

My cuts get deeper and deeper with the years. Many are so deep that I lose too much blood and should go to the hospital but I cant. It scares me sometimes how deep I can actually cut myself. But what scares me more is that I can’t feel it anymore. So I’m losing the only control I have ever had.

Control

Copyright, Liz

I’ve been cutting myself since I was twelve or thirteen, and I am now eighteen and still living the same pain I was then. Not many people understand why I do it unless they do or have done it in the past. It was always my relief. I know it’s only relief for a little while then you just have to do it again, but at the moment I’m OK. It’s never bothered me before it just kinda became a normal thing to me. It never scared me until tonight. It’s never been about the pain, it’s been about the control. The only thing I have control over. How deep I cut, where I cut and so on. But tonight I realised that I don’t feel it. I can’t control how deep I go anymore because there is no feeling left. For once I cut too deep. But that’s not what gets to me. I don’t care what it looks like or the scars, it’s that fact that I didn’t mean to do it like that. I mean to just stop my pain for a moment, and all of a sudden a whole new feeling came over me. That there really is something wrong with me. I’ve never thought of it as a problem. Just a way to deal. But now my addiction is not helping me. My only control I’ve ever known is gone. For once I fear myself. The person who fears nothing is now scared of herself. I don’t know what to do…

So Far

Copyright, Liz

My story isn’t as bad as other people’s may be. And reading this you may think, that I don’t need it and it’s all for attention. It’s not. It started out one night when I was 12 or 13 (in 8th grade). I don’t really know what made me slice off a piece of my skin with a pair of scissors. The point is that it gave me a feeling of control and a pleasurable high. I then remembered that high, when maybe a month later I needed an escape. That started my addiction which went on for about a year. In that year I went through a horrible relationship, lost all my friends (took up new ones), lost my virginity, started drinking, pills, and more pot. Also I started my freshman year in high school, that same school my brother was a senior at. He was a big drug dealer there and two months into the school year, ended up getting caught selling pot brownies. Once he got caught everything was turned upside down. My whole life was changed, I was ignored at home and was trying to deal with my bad boyfriend by myself. I ended that relationship two days before Christmas in 2003, but nothing changed between us. A month after that he took up cutting too (he knew I cut) thinking he would get the same relief I got from it. Thankfully it didn’t really work and he stopped for the most part. A month after that incident we stopped talking due to my mom. After I broke up with him I was cutting much more than I ever had before. But I gradually slowed it down to an almost stopping point. That’s about where I am now. I could stop if I wanted to. I haven’t cut in maybe three weeks. I’m telling you this story so when you pick up that razor or whatever you use, maybe, just maybe you’ll think twice. And thinking twice is how I’m stopping. Thanks for listening…

 

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