Psyke.org

Sally

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Copyright, Sally

I’ve been a cutter since I was about twelve. It started small, just some small stuff above my knee, where no one would see it. Then I tapered off for a while, and almost completely stopped. Then that summer, I moved to a new state and a new school. I’ve lived in seven different states over the years and it’s always hard to start over. When you’re younger, it doesn’t make much of a difference, but the older you get the harder it gets. I started again one afternoon on the bus, just after I had turned fourteen. Those were never that bad, just a scratch at the skin with a safety pin. Ironic isn’t it, those pins are supposed to secure things, and I used them to unravel my life. It continued over the summer, with my putting the words “help me” just below my stomach and a star on my stomach. The next year, though, it got really bad. I started into my wrists, but for the longest time, no one knew. In total, I have twenty-five scars from self inflicted wounds on my wrist in various places. Earlier this year, I tried to kill myself by slitting my wrist. Obviously though, I didn’t. This was the year I started with a knife, which causes a pain that no one would ever experience with a safety pin.

No one knows about this, except my closest friends, and my boyfriend. I never wanted or intended to tell my parents, since they overreact to everything and would send me away. But my mom has seen most of my scars, without realising what they are. I lie to her and tell her they were accidents and in some respects, I think she believes those really poorly told stories. The scars on my leg, I had a run in with the lab table at school. What she doesn’t know about those is that they were caused by one of the kitchen knives that sit right in the drawer. Not even my boyfriend knows about those, and I’ve told him about almost all my scars. In fact, only two other people know that I have those. It’s kind of sad really, that I don’t tell someone I love so much about the four open wounds on the top of my leg.

My so-called life…

Copyright Sally

Hi, My name is Sally. I’m seventeen years old and have been self-mutilating ever since the 2nd or 3rd grade. I was never beat, never raped — until older — or anything like that. But I do see and hear things that aren’t really there. They are these horrible hallucinations that tell me to cut myself, tell me how worthless I am, tell me how stupid I am and so on, they tell me to kill myself. Sometimes they take over my body and turn me into this horrible, horrible person! When I first started self-mutilating I just picked scabs and scratched myself. Then I started biting myself, that soon lead to pulling hairs. One night I was really upset and Sally — hallucination — was torturing me so bad that I pulled out a knife and jabbed it into my skin. That’s when it really started… From then I couldn’t hide it. I hid it so well all those years because I wasn’t doing anything too serious but soon enough that wasn’t enough. My parents knew I had been unhappy. They never knew about the hallucinations or anything. They just knew I cried a lot and stuff. They then told me they would take me to a therapist. I told them that was stupid and I didn’t want to pay anyone to listen to my problems. That night I lifted up my sleeve and showed my mom my horrible cuts on my arm. She totally freaked out and started screaming at my dad to get in there! She was like “hurry Ben she’s going to kill herself!” She didn’t understand at all. They rushed me to the emergency room and I had to get some stitches and stuff and then a cop took me to my first mental institution — talk about a living hell. I was in there for a couple weeks. A lot of things came out while I was in there. About me seeing and hearing things, about how long I’ve been cutting and a lot of other things. I then began to see a therapist regularly. Once a week. Also a doctor to prescribe my meds. I was on tons of meds. Like 6 different kids. I kept cutting myself. My cutting was getting worse. I was looking at websites online and found that burning was even better than cutting and so I starting holding lighters to my skin. I have huge scars from that. As soon as my parents saw those… I was on my way back to another mental institution. I was in there for a while. They wouldn’t let me go because they said I was unstable. I wouldn’t talk to them or anything. All I did was sit in the corner and cry. I kept hurting myself while I was in that hospital. I’d pull all the scabs off of the burns and throw it in the trash just to piss the techs off. I stayed in there for about two weeks. When I got out I acted like I was all better and began cutting on my legs really bad. That way my parents didn’t see. One night things got really bad and I took a bottle of pills. I passed out and mom took me to the emergency room where my stomach was pumped and I was sent back to another mental institution. I was just getting worse and worse. I stayed in that hospital for about a month. When I got out. I cut every once and a while. Nothing big. Sally still haunted me and other hallucinations. They still do. One night I decided to get drunk at my house without my parents knowing. They were asleep. After I was good and drunk I invited some random guy I knew over and he slipped pills in my drink and raped me. After he left I was laying in my bed throwing up on myself. I almost drowned in my throwup. My mom heard me and came in there. She asked me what I took. She thought I was trying to kill myself and she took me to the hospital. They ran tests and it showed drugs and they smelled the alcohol and I was too drunk to tell them anything and they thought I was trying to kill myself so they sent me away again. I was only in this institution for three days because I had my mom get me out because I told her everything. How it wasn’t my fault. That I wasn’t trying to kill myself. That I was just wanting to get drunk. And that I was sorry and that I wouldn’t do it again. Well after I got out of that institution I was doing good. I met a guy online and we we really hit it off. He only lived three hours from me so one night he drove down. Well. We had so much fun. We, uh, had sex, blah, blah, blah. You know, on his way home he got in a head on with a semi and almost died. He was in the hospital for three weeks. I stayed up there most of the time. I blamed myself for this and cut secretly on my stomach and legs. That way my parents couldn’t find out and take me away from him. He had to have reconstructive surgery on his face because he crushed his skull and he broke every bone in his right leg and he broke his hip bone and he had to have surgery on his stomach and a lot of other things. I was torn up about this. We grew really close because of this. When he got out of the hospital we decided we wanted to run away because we couldn’t stand living so far away and never seeing each other. Well that never happened. We ended up breaking up because I wasn’t allowed to have guy friends and stuff like that. The day after we broke up I went crazy and slashed open my arms and had to get numerous amounts of stitches. My parents took me to the hospital and I was in there for three weeks. When I got out, I cut a couple times. I now see a new therapist and she’s great! She helps me a lot. She really understands me. I see her twice a week. I’ve been diagnosed with about twelve things. I’ll include some: Borderline personality disorder traits, schizo traits, panic attacks, major depressive disorder recurent severe with psycotic features, and like a bunch of different social anxiety disorders like some trauma stuff and everything. I met a new guy. His name is Quinton and he means everything to me. I love him so much. I stopped cutting for about a month because of him and just the night before last and last night I started cutting again. And I can feel myself wanting it more and more now. The only thing I can think about is I can’t wait till I turn eighteen so I can slice up myself so bad without getting sent to these horrible hospitals. Sally still haunts me. It’s horrible waking up to someone beside you in bed whispering your name. Or someone always grabbing you. Or screaming at you. Or cutting you or taking over your body. She’s so scary. Well, I know this is kinda long but I just wanted to tell my story. Thanks for listening. If anyone ever wants to talk please e-mail me: bay_bee_gurl_24@yahoo.com.

 

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