WARNING:

If you are a cutter, please be sure you are in a SAFE place when looking at this site. Even though you may be okay now, it may give you the desire to cut.
I know just writing it made me want to.

I'M BACK!

Many of you may remember me from my old website www.angelfire.com/ks/Cutters/index.html but I'm trying to move that over here.

Yes, that website (pre-blog) left off pretty dismally, but I'm still alive and kicking 5 years later! (With many trials & tribulations in between. I hope we'll all be able to catch up here!

Thanks for all your support of the years, it has been absolutely invaluable.

Saturday, December 8, 2001

December 8, 2001

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long! But I'm still alive! I got a lot of letters from all of you, thanks for caring so much! I'm sorry I haven't written back. I've been going through a really bad time. Worse than it's been in several years.

But there is some good news to report. I've had a couple of really, really good days lately. Do you ever have those days where you just wake up, and you are sure that you are actually moving twoard something...rather than trying to stand still, and remain unnoticed? They don't come very often. At least for me they don't come often. In fact there are only two other times I've ever had one of those days. One was when I was in 8th grade. My ill grandmother was living with us, I was depressed, and in general very unhappy. This was right after the first time I ever tried to commit suicide. And one day this sudden calm came over me. I remember it so well. It was a summer evening. I was looking out of my bedroom window, and I could see the sun setting over the homes in my neighborhood. The sky was lit up with brillant orange, pink, and blue. For the first time ever, the fog in my head cleared. It wasn't just a 'wow everything's going to be okay!' moment. It was more than that. It's actually kind of hard to put into words. Actually, I don't think it's possible to describe the feeling at all. I just hope all of you have felt it at one time.

The second time I ever got this feeling, it lasted for more than 5 months. Those were the best months of my life. I finally felt like I knew what the hell I was doing. So much of my life has been spent feeling lost. And when you finally feel like you found the map, it's an amazing feeling. But, I digress. The second time was after I graduated high school. I graduated pretty young, at 16. I was taking summer college classes at an art school, film and television classes. I was going to school in Chicago, and meeting so many new people. I don't know why everything felt so clear, but it did. I felt like I knew where I was going. I was very in touch with my depression and all of my feelings. I was very open with everything. I actually woke up everyday without panicking about everything in my life. My heart no longer started to pound right when I woke up. I no longer woke up to a churning stomach, and dread.

I don't know what changed, but I think life is all about chapters. My life is very cylical. I go through really bad times, and probably treat myself very badly. Then something happens in me, and it's the begining of a new chapter.

So what began this new chapter right now? I don't know. I recently had closure to some important relationships in my life. And though they may not have worked out like I wanted them to, something in me suddenly feels like they weren't a waste of time. I like to think you learn important lessons from every experience. And even though I know this, it doesn't make pain any easier to take. But they say time heals all. And maybe they are right.

So this chapter in my life isn't begning with a brilliant sunset. But the begning of good things don't always need a lot of fanfare. Sometimes simple things are just as beautiful.

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My Story

How will you know I'm hurting
If you cannot see my pain?
To wear it on my body
Tells what words cannot explain.
--C. Blount


I cut myself.

And to me, that seems normal. It's how I deal with life.

The first time I cut myself I was a Junior in High School. At the time, I had never heard of self-mutilation. I didn't know that it was something that 1% of the population actually does! I had never met anyone who did this. I used to think "how could someone even do that to themselves!"

Until I tried it.

I was on the phone with my best friend. She started talking about how sometimes she would scratch herself with a needle or razor. I think I said something like "How can you do that? Doesn't it hurt?" (Little did I know, soon I would be answering the same questions from other people.)

And I tried it.

I had a razor sitting on my desk and I lightly scratched my arm. There was no blood. I did it a few more times. And what happened amazed me. My heart started pounding, and I felt alive. Suddenly I was in control, and everything in my head seemed to clear. It was a high that I had never felt before.

Suddenly my life seemed managable. I could control the pain, and I knew no one could hurt me any more than I could hurt myself. I was a little proud of the fact that I could be this strong! This made me feel better than I had felt in a long time.

And that's where it started....

So I started cutting regularly. It started with a few fresh cuts ever week or so. Then I was doing it 2-3 times a week - once a day - and at the very worst times 4 - 5 times a day.

I stoped eating lunch in the cafeteria, and started locking myself in the bathroom so I could cut while I ate. A few times the blood seeped through to my jeans, and if anyone asked, I always told them that I spilled ketchup, or chocolate on myself at lunch. I used to cut my arms in 3's. This way if anyone asked about them I could say a cat scratched me. I would wear sweaters in the summer, and I would never, ever, EVER put on a bathing suit. (I still can't today because of the scars)

Where did I cut? Anything that could be hidden by my high school gym uniform. (At this time I had already started changing in the bathroom stalls so no one would see my cuts) I cut my shoulders, upper arms, stomach, thighs, and ankles. Once I cut my wrists, but this wasn't a suicide attempt. I'm not sure what it was. I read somewhere that "Suicide is the exact opposite of self- mutilation. People who commit suicide want to die. People who self-mutilate just want to feel better."

When I started cutting more frequently, I started cutting more deeply. Some of cuts would bleed for up to 3 days non-stop. I started to scare myself. My closest friends started to get scared. And then my parents FREAKED. They started to accuse me of being on drugs, being crazy...actually they didn't know what to think. This all landed me in a doctor's office with 3 prescriptions and therapy sessions three times a week.

But this didn't change my behavior. I didn't want to change. Eventually I landed myself in a Mental Hospital for 2 weeks. And I still wasn't ready to change. I learned all of the alternatives, I was taking medication for my depression, and seeing doctors. But none of it did me any good. You can't help someone feel better who doesn't want to.

So eventually my parents got frustrated, and all of this was so expensive that they just said "forget it." In a way that made me feel like I really was a lost cause. Like there was NO hope.

But there is - I think.

I have hundreds of scars on my body...especially on my upper thighs. But, they are fading. I haven't cut that badly for some time. Sometimes the fact that they are going away scares me...I don't want to lose my scars. They kind of symbolize what I've gone through with this thing. I call them my battle scars.

I don't let myself buy disposable razors anymore, because they are too easy for me to take apart. But when I get desparate enough - really anything can be used as a weapon. I've scratched myself with my finger nails, push pins, safety pins, snapped rubber bands around my wrists hard enough to leave bruises for up to a week, and I've even burned myself before. But I remain, primarily a cutter.

And sometimes I think maybe I'll always just be a cutter. Maybe I don't want help. I don't know how to stop this. I don't know how to make this better. I mean it's just me. You think that I could just say I'm not going to cut anymore. But it's much harder than that. You have to want to stop. And even though I know that I should, that doesn't mean I want to.

So how do you make yourself stop something you love doing??? Right now I don't have an answer to that...I'm hoping that someday in the future I do. This isn't easy. In fact stoping is probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

But the fight continues.

I'm trying.

I can do this.