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Tohnia

Story

Copyright, Tohnia

Everyone knows that girl. The one that is outgoing, nice, and has friends. Well, I wasn’t that girl, but I was the one that was the loser in school. The one that had no friends, and didn’t really have any group to ‘hang with’. The worst time for me was in grade 8. It was at this time that everybody had established the groups that they would hang out with in high school, and there I was, still lonely and basically friendless. So, in a moment of rage and self loathing, I just began to slice. No preamble or anything. Just slicing away until I could feel no more pain. After that one initial period, I stopped. For a while anyway. I moved on to burning and pulling out my hair. By the time grade 10 had rolled around, all my scars had faded, but I couldn’t stop. The urge to just cut away all my feelings was still there. It was about there that I realized that I had a problem. I never came out about my cutting, but I knew that I had to get help. When I stood by the edge of a pond, and just thought about jumping in, I knew that I had to stop. So, as a coping technique, I began to write. And write. Everything that I went through was recorded in a flowered journal that never belied what dark and gloomy secrets it held. It was at this time that I got a boyfriend. So now I wasn’t the basically friendless loser, I was the friendless loser with a boyfriend. Well, that didn’t las t long. We ended up breaking up. It was about this time that I actually regained control over my impulses and my body. I still wrote everything I was feeling into spiral bound notebooks, but by now, my writing had become a bit more refined. Soon, I had another boyfriend, and I had moved on a bit. But I still have relapses time and time again, but I try to get over them and move on. What I am now is not what I was before. I have moved from being a friendless loser to somebody that has friends, many of them close ones. The voice inside my head will never leave, and for that, I am grateful. It is that voice that will tell me when things have gotten too intense for me.

Untitled

Copyright, Tohnia

When you first start to cut, burn or whatever you do, it feels so right. I mean, you’re not harming anybody right? At least, that’s what I thought before SI took over my life. I found solace in the blood pouring out of the cuts that I had made… and a kind of peace with the world. From cutting I moved onto burning and scratching. I found scratching worked the best, because the scars faded easily and weren’t all that deep. But I can still see their faint whiteness on the tan of my skin. When I finally woke up and saw what I had become… scratching my initials into my arm in summer school, I knew that I had passed the realm from the hidable scars to ones that were visible to others around me. I began to try to distract myself by writing, reading, taking a walk… anything to keep myself away from the urge. Writing and music seemed to do the trick, and I can safely say that I haven’t cut in over two years. I never went public with my ordeal… choosing to keep it to myself and a few friends. When I actually came out with the fact that I cut… it was a long time after. When I had reached the one year mark without a cut, I felt safe enough to tell somebody. What that taught me was that I still had that little voice in my head… the one that lingers there and wraps itself around my brain… and that voice will never go away… for it is the invisible scars that fade even after the visible ones fade… I hope that this story can help others like me out there… People who have hurt themselves and are looking for a way out.

 

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