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Lexa

My Story Until Now

Copyright Lexa

My story began aged twelve. I wasn’t even aware there was a name for what I did. Only that I felt alone in doing it.

It all started when I was broken. I loved someone… albeit at twelve but I still love them now. The lie was that they said they loved me and needed me, then suddenly they didn’t care anymore.

It was then that I took to self-harm.

That night I was sat in my room and had started scratching at my arms. Stopping every now and then and picking at them to make them bleed. Without realising I covered my arms and hands in scratches and cuts but then I realised I didn’t feel anymore about the person who’d hurt me. I realised it didn’t matter. This was some kind of release I had.

A few weeks later I found myself upset in the bathroom after a massive argument with parents. I once again found myself picking at my arms and it was then I looked for an easier way. I spotted some scissors my mum used to cut her hair every now and then when the ends got frayed. I didn’t think they would be that sharp but they were and as the blade slid across my skin I felt that same relief that I had before.

It was a few days after that I did it again. This time at school I was sat in the corner of an empty classroom with a pin from the textiles room and I literally covered every inch of my forearm with scratches and cuts.

From there on, I found myself needing it daily. Otherwise anger would build up inside me and I’d shout at someone who I had not to blame. So it began. This… disorder. And without realising it was so serious, I was suddenly this self-harmer that people started suspecting.

At first it was easy to hide. Scratches could be blamed on my rabbit. Deep cuts were blamed on falling from trees, falling to a nail in a wall, slipping on the security fence around the nearby field.

After a while, when it started daily, I soon noticed I was followed with whispers everywhere I went. I turned a corner and people would stop mid-conversation and turn to look at me.

Of course, unavoidably, a teacher was notified I was concealing my arms from view with sweatbands and other various ‘arm-warmers’ and I was called to my head-of-year’s office.

I knew it was coming as soon as I sat down. Her eyes bore into me as if I was some mentally ill OAP. Such disappointment and embarrassment for me I think. There was so much in her eyes I can’t even remember thinking about it. I didn’t pull back when she drew up my school shirt’s sleeve. I just looked at her. My face totally expressionless apart from the tears that had started.

She left my sleeve up and must have spent a few minutes just looking at the scars from previous weeks, months. Then her eyes settled on the more recent ones that were still healing. Scabbing over and looking hard and raw. Then her eyes finally stopped on the new ones. The ones from that very morning where a small amount of blood was still trying to seep out to the surface.

From then on, I was made to see the school counsellor twice a week. Just ‘for a chat’. All that ‘how is life’ crap. She’d check my arms once a week to see I was stopping gradually.

Unknowingly to her, I was cutting other places now. The tops of my legs. Across my stomach. The bottom of my feet…

Three years on, I’m no longer seeing the counsellor because I managed to act enough for her to think I’d stopped and that I was OK again.

I still cut and it’s still daily. It’s not as much daily as it used to be as I’ve found new release in poetry and songs which I may one day let other people see and hear.

 

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