Psyke.org

Bethy

Personal Story

Copyright Bethy

I’ve been cutting for just over a year. I remember almost exactly because it was three weeks before our local county fair. At first it started as a few one inch scratches that I could cover with a bunch of bracelets. I didn’t do too many because it was summer and I wear a lot of tank tops and stuff. As summer faded into the fall and I started my junior year of high school the cutting became worse and worse, and once it hit winter and I could wear long sleeves all the time it got a bit out of control. It was all on my left arm and shoulder. After a few people caught glimpses of my arm I moved onto my leg, my right upper thigh to be exact. When I realised I could do it there I did it quite often.

That is all a brief summary of how it progressed, but now let me tell you about myself. I am an only child and have two very loving parents, I was never raped or molested, and had a relatively happy childhood. I mean, I can find a lot of things wrong with it but I had food and good parents so compared to a lot of people in the world it was really good. Anyways, I am a really good student, take all honors and AP classes, am in school plays, speech, model UN, all those sorts of fine arts things at school. I also have a ton of friends. Doesn’t sound like I had a whole lot going bad. I just spent too much time worrying about things that I shouldn’t worry about. I mean like world issues, poverty and wars and those sorts of things happening thousands of miles away from me. And then my family started to go to shit. Now you have to realise that in my family, out of all my cousins and aunts and uncles, every single one of them is a loser, no college can barely hold down a job, always in trouble with the law, lots of drugs, even selling quite a bit. And out of all the family my parents were the only ones with decent steady jobs and everyone turned to them and expected them to pay and help them out. Well over the last few years my parents have wasted their entire savings as well as my college fund to help them out. Currently there are nine freaking people living in my house and I honestly hate every single one of them (aside from my parents). My parents are barely making it by and I basically pay for myself. Own car, food, phone, computer, I just don’t pay rent because my family is living off of my parents.

On top of my family issues I had to deal with all the stuff that a normal seventeen year old deals with; guys, friends, that sorta thing plus massive amounts of homework while still working twenty to thirty hours a week.

When it comes down to it, I cut to calm myself down and stop thinking about everything else that is going on. There are nights where I can’t sleep because everything is running through my mind over and over again or I’m so upset over something that the only thing that can calm me or let me sleep is to cut because it makes me concentrate on the pain and the blood. When my cousin was put in jail for domestic assault a few weeks ago and I went with my mom and aunt and found out that my aunt was expecting my mom to put the seven thousand dollar bail up, when my mom flat out said that I don’t have that much money my aunt asked her to put a thing on the house that says if the bail isn’t paid in a certain amount of time that the house can be taken. I hate my family. Anyways, everyone was arguing and yelling and I was the only one staying calm and keeping everyone else under control and inside I was screaming and the only thing that made me able to stay calm was the fact that the entire time I was jabbing a safety pin into my leg.

Well, anyways, it’s summer, and I’ve been wearing short sleeves and tank tops. I haven’t cut on my arms for a few months since I knew summer was coming and stayed to my legs because I figured I can just wear long shorts. Even though my arm and shoulder are covered in scars I didn’t care. Let people wonder. Well that philosophy was OK until I had on a skirt and my mom saw my thigh with cuts from a few days ago. She asked me about it today and was crying and made me cry and, ugh, it was terrible. I want to go cut so badly but if I do it any more she said she would make me go to a counsellor. So I am thoroughly fucked.

 

Permanent location: http://www.psyke.org/personal/b/bethy