Zoe
Here are some photos for your site. I want them to be shown because hurting myself is something that I still struggle with and often feel that I want to talk about, but for so many reasons I often can’t.
I’ve been doing it for almost nine years now. Not continuously, but on and off it has been something which has allowed me to keep going and get through the bad times. I don’t just cut. I bite, I scrape, I scratch, I punch and hit myself, I often use anything I can just to feel some pain when I am feeling really bad. It’s like there is a pressure cooker inside me and if I don’t hurt myself, or inflict some damage, I might burst. But sometimes I just feel that I need to be punished, because no-one understands how awful I am, inside and out.
I don’t know if I will ever stop for good. I still don’t know if I actually want to. I guess it helps to see some of the pictures on this site because in contrast to some people, I am still relatively OK. I can hide it. The ones on my arm are old and well healed — it takes someone very observant to notice them, and more often than not a little lie explains away the scars… The ones on my stomach are obvious, but only to a select few, and I like having that control. That’s why now I only cut my stomach. No one else has to know anything if I don’t want them to.
