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Sharon

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Copyright, Sharon

I am a fourty-four year old married woman with four children and I self harm. I have only seen on pc about thirteen to eighteen year olds who do this. It is surprising how many older people self harm. I don’t understand why people think it’s a young teens thing. It’s more common than people think for the more mature adults to do. What help do we have? None. I started at thirteen years old. I did it for about six months then stopped. I started again some years ago on new years eve. I started cutting myself with broken tiles. Then I went on to knives. Then over the last eight months I have started to use stanley knife blades. I cut my arms, my legs, my chest, and my breasts. I only stopped cutting in those places because my kids saw them and it upset them. So now I cut my back. That way nobody can see and my kids don’t know. The only time they do is when I’ve cut myself badly and I have blood on my t-shirt. When my mates say why do you do it I tell them it’s like a balloon in my head that’s getting pumped up. When it gets too full it pops. That’s how my head is. It’s like it’s going to pop so I cut myself and from that first cut the pressure is taken away. The more I do it the better my head gets. Only people who do this know where I’m coming from. Where is the help for us? Nowhere, because adults don’t do things like that, do they? Ask about, you will be shocked at how many there is that do the same as me.

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I’m forty-four year old. I’m a mother of four. The oldest is twenty-three, the youngest three years old. I don’t like what I’m doing to my body. My husband can’t even look at my body because of all the scars. I started cutting myself on my arms and legs. Then I went on to cutting my chest and belly. Then I started cutting my boobs. The pain it hurts like crazy. You get used to it. People look at you and think you’re mad. We’re not mad but someone in need of people to understand. Nobody understands what it’s like unless they do it themselves. There are no adult self harm groups in Doncaster, England. Why do people stare when they see the scars? I wish I could stop but the pressure that builds up in your body takes over. When that happens you have to get rid of it. The only way to do that is by cutting yourself. The more you cut the better you feel. I know there has to be a lot more adults out there who self harm but don’t want to admit it. I was like that. Scared of what people think. Now I say stuff them. I’m the one with the problem. I hope there’s someone out there who wants to e-mail me and we can get through this together.

I’m forty-four years old and have been self harming for three years. I started at twelve years old and kept doing cutting till I was fourteen. I don’t like what I do. People look at your scars and turn away start talking about you. That really makes me mad. People who self harm cannot help what they do. I have scars on my back, legs, arms, belly, chest and boobs. My husband can’t stand to look at me when I’m naked. It makes him feel sick. He doesn’t like what I do but I just tell him I do it to get rid of the pressure in my head. If I didn’t do self harming I’d go mad. I live in Doncaster, England. We have no self harm for adults over here. I would love to hear from people who hurt themselves the same as me. I think when you have people to talk to it helps. People who don’t self harm don’t no how to help. All I get is you keep on doing it I will fall out with you. That we don’t need. What we do need is for understanding. All I get is you’re an adult what you doing that for. I ask people not to judge me by what I do. I have feelings.

I ask myself why do I cut myself so bad the scars still show six months later. You can’t wear short t-shirts people look and stare. Go swimming they keep away from you as if they can catch it. Why don’t people understand what it’s like for us self harmers. I’m a mum of four and my twenty-two year old has cut herself. I see the marks on her arms and I feel sick. Have I passed my harming onto her? My husband can’t even look at me naked. It makes him feel sick. I’m forty-four years old and they say she should know better at that age. Is there an age from when to start cutting and when to stop? When I harm myself I can’t stop until I feel the pressure go away in my head. The cuts are getting deeper. I want to stop. I haven’t cut any of my body for eight days now. To me that’s a record and I’m proud for not doing it for that time. I have a three year old daughter. I don’t want to pass this to her. Your body they say is a temple. You worship your body. How can I do that? My scars stop me even liking my body. I look in the mirror see the mess it is. I feel sick it makes me cry. That doesn’t stop me. When the cuts are deep and I see the blood it hurts so bad. It’s so tiring I go to sleep. Then the pain sets in when I wake up. Why is there no help for us adults out there? You cant talk to family they don’t want to know. What chance is there to stop. We need self harm groups so we can share what we do with others. That would help us a lot. Just to talk to people.

The Story of 250 Scars and 25 Burns

Copyright, Sharon

The first time I saw self harm was on my then best friend. I was horrified, and I admit, disgusted. I thought she must have actually gone mad.

Three and a bit years later, I sat clutching my razor, tears streaming down my face, something aching and burning in my chest and I barely thought about it, I drew the razor across my bare skin. I saw the blood, felt the pain, and understood that this was my way of trying to kill that thing going on inside of me… this depression slowly consuming me.

I thought that first time was just a one off, to see what it was like, see if it would help. It did help, but I didn’t want to do it again, my close friend had been a self harmer and I’d seen the scars and didn’t want that.

But the feelings got worse and I turned more and more to my razor. After they discovered I was a ‘cutter’ they sent me to hospital for that and other things. It was there I learnt many new fascinating techniques for self harm, and there I started to burn myself with lighters and cigarettes, too. But cutting was the best way.

I remember the first time I went deep, for a split second I panicked as I saw my flesh snap apart, but only a split second, because I realised how much better I felt. They gave me seven stitches for that one. And it just carried on getting worse. I have had fifty-one double stitches in one sitting before.

I thought of self harm as the one thing I could control in my miserable life, but slowly, without me seeing it, it became something I could not control. No matter what it was, if I had a negative feeling, I would reach for my blade or shard of glass. I felt pathetic and weak for it so I cut, then felt pathetic and weak all over again. But I could not give it up.

I counted my scars the other night and came to 210 scars and twenty burns, since then I’ve done 40 more cuts, deep ones, and five more burns. My arms are very weak, it’s such a hard task to even open a tin of beans because I’ve damaged the muscles in my arms from constantly cutting too deep.

But it hasn’t stopped me. My feeling on the matter is that my arms are already messed up for life, so stopping now won’t change that, and so I continue.

My message for this story is: the moment you find yourself feeling a reliance on your blade, chuck every sharp you have in the bin. Please don’t turn your body into one giant scar like I am doing.

Because it is a huge addiction, and I wish someone had emphasised that to me before I started.

 

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