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.

Friday, June 7, 2002

June 7, 2002

THUD! And there it is folks, rock bottom. I knew it was coming soon. I've known it for months. I could feel it coming in every fiber in my body. I've been here before. I knew something was going to happen in my life, which was already spiraling out of control, to wake me up. I was going to get so dark and desperate, that I would probably explode, and then, I'd be ready to get better again. This is how it happens, see.

I've been cutting pretty badly again. And feeling pretty badly too, which pretty much goes without saying. I've been in this pseudo relationship/friendship, which has been nothing but bad for me. And it's not his fault, nor is it mine. You stick two mentally unhealthy (very unhealthy) people together, it doesn't turn out well. And finally I couldn't take it anymore. So I wrote him a letter (he called it a novel) about everything I've been feeling - not intending to ever give it to him. And then I went gun shopping.

I applied for a firearm license several months ago, and got it in April. I could be just a 72 hour waiting period away from offing myself. But I never made it into the store. I completly broke down. And when I say break down, I mean one of those honnest to goodness break downs. Everything just disapears, and you just fucking cry, because there's nothing else you can do.

I drove home through the tears, and cut. I cut like I've never cut before. Then I decided to give him the letter I'd written. They were things I definitly needed to say. I've never been so sure of anything in my life.

Of course when he got home and found the letter at his door, he was not happy. It was not an overly harsh letter, but it was not a particularly nice letter. He called me, and we decided it would be best we didn't talk for awhile. Which is probably best, and I fully expected that. But it still hurts. He's my best friend right now, in a bad he treats me like shit kind of way. Honnestly our relationship is so hard to describe or understand. I kept trying to tell myself I should ignore the fact that he treated me like shit, because I needed to be a good friend, and be above that, and understand why he needed to do it. He always told me 'you take it out on the ones you love most.' And for awhile that made it okay...in a weird way. But it can only be okay for so long.

After our conversation, I don't think I've ever been so low. I rarely reach out for help. Especially when I'm down. But I called everyone here I knew. Desperate to talk to someone. I finally called my best friend in Florida, (ignoring the time difference) and just cried to her for an hour - after waking the poor girl up at 3 am. And I made a decision.

I need help.

I will not survive this without it.

I know I need help. This much I know is true. But it's such a scary fucking thing. It's so hard to describe how getting out of such a shitty place can be scary, but it is. I've never been so scared in my entire life.

Today I made an appointment with a counselor. It's next Thursday. And I'm scared. But I know this is what I need to do.

I've done this before. Hit rock bottom, and gotten help. But it's going to be a little different this time, because I have no expectations. Before, I figured if I got help, I'd be cured for life, and just get better. Now I realize, I'll probably go back on meds for a while, and then take myself off, and go back through the whole thing again. Maybe. But it's okay. I don't need to go into this things, saying I need to get better right now, and forever.

It's kind of weird. Kind of like a drug addict or an alcoholic. They say you always fall back into it several times, before you can kick the habbit. I think it's the same with depression. It's a place in my life I know...and that's hard to just forget.

I'm doing this completly alone this time. Which kind of makes it even scarier. I don't have anyone right now. Except Annabelle, my cat. = ) LOL

But I know I need this. And this time I need to do more than just a monthly meeting with a doc, and meds. There are a lot of demons in my past I need to deal with. I will never get any better until I deal with my past. It's something I've shoved further and further away, thinking if I just kept shoving, it would fall off the face of the Earth. But now I think maybe I actually need to work in therapy.

There, I used the word. Therapy.

I don't know why I hate that word so much. Or why for the first time in my life, I am, fully and completly ashamed of needing help.

It's funny, I tell so many people to look into getting help. That getting help is okay. And I never had any problem with it until now.

But I think I've rambled for long enough tonight.

This isn't one of those moments of clarity, where everything seems like it's going to be okay. This is actually really scary. Which is maybe good. Maybe that means I'm due for real change. I should be scared. But right now...I think I'm okay. I forgot for a long time, that you need to take it one minute at a time. Looking at it in hours, days, weeks, or months is just too much to take at once.

Right now, in this minute, I'm okay. And I'll be okay in the next minute too...and eventually those minutes will lead to help...

I'm trying...that's all I want you to know.

I can do this.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

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.