Self Harm: A Personal Account

It was never about the blood for me, it was about the release, the emotion, the feeling of something other than the numbness I seemed to suffer everyday.

I will never get better. There is nothing left inside of me anymore. I can't fight what I can't see. I never sleep at night. I lie awake. There's nothing. I don't feel. In my mind there are few options. Die now, or suffer slowly. Always being told to quit, but they don't see I have already. I quit the day I realised I was not alive. There's scars to hide from you, to hide from everyone, again. Why am I killing myself like this? I regret so much.

Is there anything left?

Should I be condemned? Or congratulated on having found a way to survive? All I am doing is converting a emotional pain, to a physical one. After all, physical wounds are easier to heal. Give me a plaster, it will all be okay tomorow. It's always okay tomorrow.

When I was 14 I felt like my world had caved in. After a minor overdose attempt I was diagnosed by doctors as having clinical depression, and suddenly I didn't know what was right, or wrong. I knew I had a different perspective on the world, I couldn't see it how other people did, but all that mattered was that I was different. For years I'd never understood what I was feeling, but I felt so numb, and when I didn't feel numb I felt depressed.

Self harm was nothing new to me. From the first time I went school I would hit walls, give myself friction burns, anything to try to get of this frustration. I felt like I didn't belong, I felt trapped in my own life. Its hard to explain to a person who has never experienced it, but I didn't feel alive. Before I even left primary school my self confidence plummeted. I was convinced everyone was talking about me, that I had no friends, and one day, I didn't have any left. My self esteem was low, and so I began so starve myself each day. My parents knew what I was doing, but thought it was a phase. They told staff at school to check my lunch box each day, but I was cleverer than that. I knew they were onto me, and there were always ways around it. I never considered for a second that I was ill, or anything other than normal. The way I saw the world told me that I was normal. I was an unhappy child, I couldn't see why the other children wanted to play. I wanted answers to the questions in my head, answers no one could give me.

Starting high school was a change for me, I made a few friends and tried to get on with my life. My moods were erratic, and I could often go from happy to sad in a matter of minutes. I had an awful temper, and would often shout and scream at people, then five minutes later, run away and cry. I didn't understand that I had a disease, because no one knew I had one. My teachers suspected something was wrong, but thought I was attention seeking, so they took it no further after ringing my parents.

The first time I ever cut I was nearly 13. I can't explain what changed that day, or what made me do it. Nothing had upset me, nothing had happened, I just knew I couldn't take anymore. I sat in a class, dismantling something which had a blade in it, then when no one was looking I removed the back of my phone, and hid it there. My little secret that no one would ever know about. It was a few years before anyone worked out what I hid there, and in the end my best friend wrapped the blade in a message she wrote me, I never used that one again after.

It started off small. I cut once, and that was it for months. I found myself wondering why I'd even done it that once. But, the next time something upset me, I found myself instinctively reaching for a blade. And thats how it continued for three years. Within a few months my arms were a mess. I dreaded the summer because it meant I would either boil with my jumper on, or lie to all my friends. I'd always hated liars, but suddenly my whole life was becoming one.

On May 22nd 2002, I hit rock bottom. I looked old enough to pass for 16 by now, and my little blades were a thing of the past since I had discovered penknives. I sat in my German lesson and was half way through a test when I felt I darkness pass over me. Its very hard to explain, but in that moment, and just for that moment I really thought I had gone crazy. I don't remember anymore of the day, until around 10pm at night. I sat in my room and I lined up packets of pills, and a craft knife. I very calmly sat, and wrote out my suicide note, and then sat on my bed. If this was all there was to life I felt I had been let down.

I was about ready to swallow every pill I could find when my phone rang, and although I didn't answer it, it shock me back to reality. I took a lot of the pills, and I don't remember much of the night, except that I was very ill. The next morning I begged to be taken to hospital, I knew I needed help, and my parents took me to the emergency doctors. There they gave me my first diagnosis of clinical depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder.

I was sent to therapy where me and a counsellor talked about my past. We tried to find what was causing my depression, but didn't ever get very close to solving it, and my self harming got worse.

Many people always talk about self harming in too light a manner. They talk about the way they will never cut too deep, they are always in control. I felt like that, I felt like I was invincible. That was until one night, I realise the bleeding was not going to stop this time. Its all very well saying 'I'll be careful', but when it comes down to it, sometimes its easy just to get stuck in a moment. For me that moment came when I was almost 16 when one night I realised I had gone to far. For me it was a turning point. In all the years I had been sel harming I'd never thought what I was doing was out of control. I knew it wasn't normal but I thought I had it under control. Then I knew, that really I was starting to let my self harming rule my life. Thinking back now, there was rarely a week that went my when I didn't self harm at least twice, and I know that over a period of 2 years, I never managed any longer than 10 days without self harming.

Looking back now, it was controlling me.

Once I realised that, the road to getting better was clear. I confided in my doctor who prescribed me medication. Then I told my youth worker and a few close friends about my problems. Together we worked out some coping tactics, and different people helped me with different things. My youth worker helped me keep track of my medication and asked me each day if I had taken it. My friends were very supportive, and I have been forever greatful to them. My GP encouraged me to firstly harm myself in ways that were less destructive, such as snapping an elastic band on my hand, or holding ice tightly, then ultimately to stop doing this. It took about 2 years, but eventually I more or less stopped self harming. Although I have had a few set backs along the way, I feel like my life is my own for the first time in my life.

Although you might think 'it's okay for her, that worked for her' I have missed so much out that I can not go into here. It was not ever easy, not for a second, but in the end it was worth it. Even though everyones situations are different, the mesasge I want to give is the same. Never give up, never think that you are alone in what you feel and do, and never be afraid to speak up, and ask for help.