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‘When man meets an obstacle he can’t destroy, he destroys himself.’

Ryszard Kapuscinski

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I started cutting myself a few weeks after my 15th birthday. I did burn myself on

purpose between the ages of 11 and 14 but it never seemed significant- a few burns on my

wrists from ovens, candles, cigarette lighters....oh yeah, and I’d scratch myself quite deeply

with a compass. And I had cut my stomach before, using kitchen knives to cut the fat away

or to get the food out of my stomach. But doesn’t everyone do stuff like that when they hit

puberty?

But one day, when I was just 15, I decided that I’d had enough of bulimia and please

please could I have ‘anorexia’ back? So I picked up a needle and poked holes all over my

forearm. I told myself that I’d do it whenever I ate, as punishment and in order to condition

myself not to eat. Later I decided to cut myself each day if I hadn’t lost a pound.

I never did it again for those reasons, although I’m not really sure why I did it again.

Before I knew it I was addicted to the sound of skin tearing when I pulled the pencil

sharpener blade across it. I loved the sight of the cool blue fat that flashed before the blood

began to accumulate.

I would cut myself for all different reasons. When my thoughts would race and I

couldn’t stop them cutting myself would distract me. All I would be able to think about would

be the intense physical pain and the blood running down my arm at a fantastic rate.

I cut most often when mind did not feel attached to my body, cutting was always a

miracle cure for that. I normally lasted a maximum of 10 minutes in this strange, shimmery

world that I wasn’t quite part of. Then I’d cut. It was always so easy: find a clear spot; press

the razor in and pull. Then my mind would settle back from floating in space. I would be able

to feel my legs and I wouldn’t be walking in cotton wool. The smooth silver instrument always

makes everything so much better.

For a while.

Unfortunately these feelings would return increasingly quickly after cutting.

The problem was that these were also the times where I had least control over how

deeply I cut. Often I would be in such a frenzy that I would cut too deeply. I knew that had

happened when I could see beige flesh underneath- which someone later suggested could

be tendon but that was probably fat. So every so often I would find myself in A&E,

apologising for wasting their time again.

Sometimes I would cut for very bad reasons, to keep me awake when I had only had

an hour and a half of sleep the night before or because I was bored and had nothing better to

do. I would I cut every morning when I woke up, just out of habit.

I would sometimes cut to die; that was when I would try to slit the veins in my wrists. I also tried to cut my carotid artery in

my neck and, failing that, my throat. But mainly self-harm is not associated with suicidality, although people who self-harm are

perhaps more likely to kill themselves, or perhaps less likely because they have found a way to deal with feelings of

suicidality, a way to keep themselves alive.

Soon I was cutting two or three times a day, sometimes four or five times, making around 20 or

30 seperate cuts each time. I was terrified of running out of space, but that was my own fault for

not wanting to cut where the scars had not yet faded into the background. And I always wanted a

nice open space. And I would rarely cut systematically either, taking up as little space as possible

by making a tight line.

I did mainly cut, but I would also do other things. I burnt sometimes and hit myself with a hammer

and would bite and pinch and hit my head on the wall. I did at one point become quite into the

idea of taking my blood out with a syringe. That to me was not as good as cutting because it was

very calm, just stick the needle into a vein and pull. The main problem with it was my lack of

ability, it would take me try after try before I would achieve a tiny bit of blood. But it was much

more appropriate for times like during school, when I was short of time and couldn’t wait for the

blood to clot if I was to cut. I started using the syringe every time I had a chance while I was

at school, normally every hour or so. My legs were covered in bruises along the veins which

looked quite impressive, made me feel good. I was aware of the risk of septicaemia, but I

wasn’t deliberately seeking it, I got new needles every so often. Still, I could have tried

harder to avoid it.

Sometimes I’d try to freeze myself to death, or at least to get pneumonia for a break. I

would have a shower in boiling hot water first and put on a thin cotton vest top and shorts

which would get wet and stick to me so that I could feel the cold more Then I’d sit for a while

in front of the freezer, my feet resting inside the bottom shelf. And all with the added

advantage of burning myself in the shower first! I was quite impressed with the new plan, I

thought it was quite sophisticated, especially since it didn’t demand more space from my

already over-stretched body. Not quite emergency ‘treatment’ but it could do as an added

extra treat for me, something to brighten my life up a bit! It would have helped me escape

from school, exams, and the impossible expectations placed on me by my teachers and by

myself, but that never crossed my mind when I thought of it, I was just bored!

I would cut in class rooms as well, which was probably not a good thing. But I just couldn’t

tolerate the feeling of my mind being apart from my body. In some lessons I would go and do

it in the toilets but in others I just had to do it there and then. It was a nice feeling, the blood

running down my arm, no-one knowing, no-one being able to see what was happening.

 Sometimes I saw this as wrong, but only occasionally. It was my way of coping, it was

my whole lifestyle. If anything bad happened and my mind would try and escape then all I

needed to do was to cut myself a few times. Not a problem at all. Or if feeling got too much,

or I could no longer cope with the painful emptiness or the overwhelming desire to destroy

myself, cutting could alleviate almost any unpleasant feeling, or at least take my mind off it.

When my ‘depression’ faded I began to cut more and more than the increased

numbness that I felt. Or perhaps as I cut more and more and stopped fighting the impulse

my depression faded, I don’t know. But just in case that was what it was, I decided that it

would be better if I didn’t try to stop.

For me my self-harm was never bad enough, I always felt like such a failure that I

couldn’t even self-harm properly! When I did it badly enough it would scare me at first then I

would get used to it and feel angry when I didn’t cut even worse after then. So my self-harm

gradually got worse as I tried to reach the stage where it didn’t have to get worse, where I

warranted attention and people wouldn’t laugh at me for making a fuss over a graze. I took

pride in those times when experienced nurses said that my arms were ‘gross’. Soon it got

bad enough (or good enough???) for me to realise that if I went even further in I was in

danger of doing serious damage, cutting a vein or an artery. I didn’t know what to do then, I

knew that there was a choice between stopping altogether, carrying on getting worse and risk

everything or try to reduce and control my cutting and get used to failure.

People would be shocked at what I did to myself, especially if they saw what my arms

looked like. One of my friends in hospital would ask me if she could touch them. Another told

me that she could never hurt her body like that, which was ironic considering that she was 13

and dying of anorexia. They would all say ‘But doesn’t it hurt?’ in bewildered voices. It did,

but that wasn’t the point. I didn’t like pain, and when I did not need to cut I could hardly

imagine it, too painful. I just needed it to fix me back together. Besides it often didn’t hurt at

all. As I cut my mind would be detached from my body and I wouldn’t be able feel it, and if I

cut particularly badly I wouldn’t feel it at all, shock or something, I don’t know. It did hurt if I

hadn’t cut so badly, especially if I used a razor not a razor blade, but I was mainly too

relieved again. And I deserved the pain anyway.

Some people would ask me whether I cut myself to see the blood. I did like seeing my

blood, it was kind or intense and romantic! But I wouldn’t have placed too much significance

on it. Some people say that seeing there blood proves to them that they are real. But even

when I felt detached from my body I knew that I was in fact real, I just didn’t like the feeling.

And the pain soon made my mind settle back down. Still, I can’t deny that I much prefer

cutting than burning and taking my blood out had some effect even if it wasn’t much. It was a

nice feeling watching the red blood swilling into the syringe, watching my pain and my life

force flowing away. But I often saw the blood as being in the way, I just kept on bleeding

when I was trying to get back to lessons, or to sleep!

Maybe the blood resembled the tears that I didn’t know how to cry. I really wanted to

cry, the body’s natural survival mechanism, but the tears would never come. And of course,

crying would not only relieve the tension and anguish inside of me, but it would also show

people that I needed help.

It is just that society can accept tears but not blood.

Cutting gave me something physical to focus on and so take my mind of life and death for a while

but I’d still feel quite squashed into a small dark corner of my body. Cutting could fix it when my

body was numb, and it could help some when I was numb inside, but it was useless when I was

dead inside, when there was nothing left. But perhaps giving my emotional pain physical

embodiment helped me more, because I could watch it heal. And physical pain could detract in a

way from the intense mental torture of my mind.

I guess sometimes cutting was a cry for help, a way of begging people to see my pain

for what it was, and not just discard it, and me. But at first I told no-one about it, didn’t even

think about it, I just cut in the night when I was alone with the abuse in my head, telling me

how pathetic I was and how it would be this way forever. Cutting was such a relief of that

pressure.

I would never cut just once, I would start and then just carry on. Sometimes my hand

would take over and it would take a while for me to stop it; delayed reaction! My mind would

be thinking it was time to stop but my hand would just cut and cut and cut, perhaps out of a

pain that my mind would not face. Cutting habitually was to me a way of ensuring that no

strong feelings crept in while I wasn’t looking. It didn’t really work, eventually my unconscious

mind would have enough, make me feel dead, collapsed with internal agony, instead of

nicely numb which was infinitely preferable.

Cutting could also be a way of punishing myself for being such a bad person, it made

me feel a little better about myself as the blood oozed out of a fresh cut in my arm. Or I

could try to use it as a despairing sacrifice, pleading for a little more will to live in a world that

I was too afraid to leave. I sometimes became competitive with myself, trying to cut more

and more in my numbness. The razor was just my friend, my way of trying to cope with

having too much, or too little, feeling. If I got a feeling that I didn’t know what to do with, I

would cut it away, if I got too little feeling in my body I would cut my body to reunite body and

mind. So basically, self-harm was to me the answer to almost everything.

Cutting was my little secret, even if people knew about it they didn’t know when I was

doing it or anything, it was in my little world. Sitting in classroom feeling those warm drips

running quickly down my arms was great, until it reached my hands and I had to put my arms

up while writing to make it run back the other way! No-one could see into my world, no-one

knew the meaning behind that secret smile apart from me.

I’m not sure if deep down I do want to stop. Somewhere underneath I am very scared of myself

and I want to get on with my life but I feel safe knowing that I can cut whenever I want and

everything will be okay again. Faced with a choice between a career and self-harm I choose self-

harm almost immediately. And I think I would genuinely prefer that. I would regretted that

decision pretty soon, when I got bored of self-harm or when I finally did something too bad and

scared myself out of it. I did get an infection in a cut once, which made me wonder if I should at

least try to limit the damage I was inflicting. But a few antibiotics cleared it up immediately, so

there was no reason to worry.

Cutting made me feel special, made me feel different. I hated people saying that I did

it to feel special, but they were right. Wasn’t a main reason for doing it, but it was a reason

for continuing. Same with attention seeking, wasn’t a reason why I originally started it, when I

first got attention for it I hated it. But soon that added to self-harm’s power as a coping

strategy, a way of staying alive. I couldn’t bear to go back to being normal, not to be able to

have crises or a therapist if I so desired.

I always used to say that cutting is like smoking, probably even less damaging, and

even more beneficial. I can’t see why everyone doesn’t do it when they don’t feel right, it’s a

perfect solution.

People sometimes seem to think that I’m sick for liking pain, but I’m not. If I liked pain

then I’d leave myself in the state that normally causes me to cut, that’s where the real pain

lies.

Cutting is a cure, sure it involves pain as its essential ingredient, but it so often works

successfully. Like if I had cancer no-one would think I was betraying myself if I had

chemotherapy, they wouldn’t send me to psychiatrists. But chemotherapy seems to be the

same, it works to control the illness, although it does bring with it new pain of its own the

benefits are thought to outweigh the costs. Same with self-harm, it is a rescue, it saves me

from torture inside myself, and it’s probably even saved my life more than once.

And who are my therapists to judge me when they haven’t felt that tearing of their

minds pulling away from their bodies; that dissociation where you can’t quite connect with

your environment? If they had experienced that then they would know the power of self-harm

as a miracle cure rather than as a ‘maladaptive behaviour’.

How did I feel when I cut? I don’t really know, I just cut like a zombie or someone

hypnotised, there were no real emotions there, nothing that would really count. Cutting just

became my natural reaction to anything difficult, or just at times when I had nothing better to

do. It was my coping mechanism which could be useful in most situations. And the external

cuts were the only way I knew how to represent the internal agony that was always just seen

as ‘hormones’.

I feel guilty saying this, because of the people in real pain, but my scars are nothing

compared to the pain inside. Each scar holds so much pain, pain that lead me to take the

razor to my own skin. And yet my real hurt was inside. All my scars only hint at their cause,

the hurt and confusion, the deadly silence or the whirling crescendo of voices inside. In my

eyes no amount of scars can convey the torment that resulted in their existence.