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Roslyn

Years in the Shadows

Copyright, Roslyn

I guess being a cutter for so long, almost seven years now, I really did live in the darkness until I actually told someone about it. I started when I was eleven years old, I survived it and still fight it every day.

I started because I was the new kid at a school. I was a bit of a tomboy and wasn’t really liked much by the popular kids and was picked on quite often and to make it worse I didn’t have a very good home life because I wasn’t very close to my parents. I did the dumbest thing of telling my teacher I wanted to die because I really did at the time. So forced into therapy I felt like I was a screw up and a worst of all I thought I was weird because I felt this way. That it was wrong to feel like this. I became scared of suicide because I was at a Christian school so I remember seeing on TV something about cutting when I was younger. The girl on the show said it helped her to cope with her hard times. I thought how in the world could hurting yourself help, but desperate for relief of my misery I tried it.

Starting small, like almost all cutters do, just that small paper cut size cut gave a great sense of relief. But as the days pass and the taunts and teases got worse I needed it more and more and started to cut much more frequently. Eventually I was up to about a hundred cuts per day and both arms. Finally that horrible half year ended and my mom transfered me out of that school back to my old one. Things got a little better so I was cutting a lot less. But any time something bad occurred the knife was pulled out from my desk drawer.

Few years past and I even cut my face once because I believed I was ugly. I just lied and said I hit a tree on my bike. (Got to wounder how the lies of a cutter actually become believable, they are so bad.) This didn’t stop me tho, I hated myself and everything about me, I was a poor student and just barely passed grade 8. But time did what time does best, it passed and I made it to grade nine. I stopped cutting for a few months for once I was happy, not about myself just happy about life and just forgot about cutting.

It reared it’s ugly head again though. School again was not going well and I felt stupid, not to mention the non stop fights at home with my mom. I wish so bad she and I did not fight but I can’t change the past.

Skip details, I kept cutting right up till November 10th 2001, I was sent to the hospital for cutting my shoulder so deeply. And I did it because I was trying to out cut my friend.

My parents finally found out I had cut but didn’t know for how many years because I never told them. As for my friend she never cut again, and she saved my life. I bled for almost twenty-four hours, and I needed stitches badly. My arm had turned a chalky white and almost three rolls of gauze did not hold the blood in.

God was with me and I know it.

But I never stopped cutting, except for a few months I did to let my shoulder heal. I never got stitches either and I should have.

I kept cutting and I still do to this day. But I’m fighting it to stop I’ve gone five months before I slipped up and cut. Thing is to never stop fighting something you wanna stop. Cutting is an addiction, it’s something I needed to cope with life, it became my coping mechanism. Replacing something like that is hard. But to everyone who’s a cutter and trying to stop, you’re not a failure if you slip up, just get back up and try counting the days again. The way to stopping is to — no pun intended — cut back on how much you do it.

Everyone can stop, it just takes time and strength. Don’t fight it alone. I did that mistake of pushing the world away and it became much harder and probably why I can’t stop still. But heck, it’s been about a month since my last cutting and that’s a great job on my account. If you have a problem, cutting isn’t the best way but for many it’s the only way to deal with things it seems. That isn’t true.

My advice to cutters, talk to other cutters about it because it takes a cutter to help a cutter the best, in my opinion. If you want to cut try and find a different way rather than doing it.

That I guess is my story. I left out a lot of details but thats the jiff of it. If anyone ever feels like talking I am a good listener and would like to help. E-mail me if you feel like chatting

Keep strong everyone and tell your stories so the world knows you’re not alone!

 

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