What's Your Story? **SI**

[Forget Me]

I guess this is kinda random - but when I did it, it helped me.
Write your story. How you started, why you started, what problems you have had, anything you think has contributed to your SI. and then stick it together in a story. its not gonna be used for anything, it is just gonna sit on the site. but there are places you can send stories like this, so i you feel like it you could have a look for one of them.
it seemed kinda lame to me at first, but it really helped me out.... so go ahead. Write away!

heres mine to give you ideas and so on.

My name is Laura. Don't ask me why I am how I am - I'm pretty sure that no matter how curious you are, I am infinitely more so.
I guess I started cutting about a year or so ago. I don't think it matters all that much, to be honest.
I first came accross self-injury when I was about 11. My friend had been injuring for some years at this point - I think. I guess I knew she did things like scratching her skin for ages, but it only really occurred to me that it was bad when I read her diary - with permission. I looked up to her - to me, she was strong, invulnerable even. I guess I didn't know her and all the things she had gone through then. At that point, I avoided the subject at all costs. It was something I didn't understand. I didn't want to mess up and make her hate me. She came to be my best friend and I didnt want to lose her.
When I got to high school, I met another girl who cut herself badly. She became one of my closest friends as well. I guess this really began my fascination with it. I thought about how this helped them, because by that point I knew it did, though I don't remember anyone telling me. It was instinctive, I guess.
I wondered how they could do it, why it helped, how it helped. I wanted to know if i could do it too. I wanted to know what I could take. You have to understand that these are two of my closest friends, I looked up to them almost as much as i look up to my big sister.
I tried it, I couldn't. It hurt too much. I knew it was a stupid thing to try, to get into. But it was a fascination, a compulsion to test it, see if I could do it, how much pain i could take.
But then something happened. I dont remember what. I just had a bad morning, I guess. I was angry at someone, I think, for humiliating me about something. And I was angry at myself for being humiliated. So i sat in science and scratched the back of my hand raw. I wanted someone to notice at that point. No-one did. But it had calmed me down. And it felt good.
Next time I felt alone, I hit myself and punched a wall. It didn't hurt like when I was experimenting. So I kept doing it.
And then I tried cutting again. And sort of... kept going.
I started on my legs. I knew that punching walls was all very well, but cutting I had to hide. I had seen my friends' experiences with professionals and there was no way I was going to let them know I wasn't perfect.
And I guess it all went downhill from there. I'm still struggling, you could say, though I don't really see it like that. Sometimes I think I might be depressed, but most of the time I tell myself that that's stupid and I am no worse off than anyone else. Other people can cope, why shouldn't I be able to?
Right now, I'm in a bad place. I cut pretty often and I constantly hate myself. I feel I'm not good enough and never will be. Maybe one day I will be, but right now, I really doubt it.
One of the thigs I hate most is telling other people things will be okay.
I just wish I could believe that myself.
Maybe it would help if someone took the time to say it to me once in a while.
Once someone told me that depressed people are the most self-involved people in the world.

[katja]

Im not one for elaborating on things. Basicly i started self harming when I was about 11. I never saw it as a big deal untill my friends got freaked out about it when i was around 15. ever since then ive found it really hard to keep friends, I have no problem making them but after my first friends reactions, friendships never been something that means much to me. hence my bluntness with people. Anyways, I never knew why I cut, Ive always been really moody though and I've been having psychological help for a long time. I recently got diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which is kind of a relief now i know there is something wrong and im not just a freak or even a hormonal teenager. I've decided I'm gonna do everything I can to avoid medication but the whole life managment thing I have to do now sucks. When I was about 17 I had a really rocky time with confronting sexual abuse, which is something I've chosen to ignore and forget about now. I'm doing well in college and have a cool boyfriend and some nice friends. I stopped self harming about 6 months ago but I say that everytime I've not done it for a while, I guess thats my 'story'.

[Tori1989]

As a child I remember punching walls/hitting myself when I got upset over something, but it seemed normal to me. When I was 13 I got angry over something, nothing major, just an argument with my parents. I don't know why I did it, or even how I knew what to do, because i'd never met anyone who SI'd before, but I ended up cutting myself. The relief I got felt good, but it still scared me a little. I swore i'd never do it again. A couple of years later the same thing happened. Id been feeling down for a while, and I just needed something to take me over the edge again. I had another argument with my parents, and remembered how good it had felt last time I tried cutting. I did it again and it felt like I had finally found a way to take away the pain. I started cutting regulary, once a day at first, finally building up to around five times a day, like a routine. A few months later I somehow realised that I felt much worse than I did a few months earlier, and decided that I needed to get some help. I plucked up the courage to see my Doctor, and was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder. Since seeing a councillor I have felt much better, and haven't cut at all for 2 months.

[GlassWings]

Lets see... I started cutting about a year and three months ago when I was having terrible panic attacks. They'd come multiple times a day, no matter where I was or what I was doing. Most nights I'd resist sleep for as long as possible because I was afraid that something bad would happen to me. One day I cut myself shaving and... like the blood and mark it left behind. Then I started doing it when I was panicking and for some reason it calmed me down and helped me feel safer.

When my panic attacks stopped (partially because I realized I could control it, partially because I cut aspartame out of my diet) I stopped cutting. Then eight months later I started up again... I was beginning to feel "broken up", like there were two extreme pieces of me fighting for dominance and only SI could keep me safe from the affects of each. The first state I encountered I called "the Numbness"... during this state I felt no emotion whatsoever and had difficulty relating to other people and my own body. It seemed to get worse the longer I allowed it to continue and sometimes entered a stage in which I ceased to care about my own life and health. The other state I called "OCD" (because it resembled the common traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder). In this one I felt anxious and rushed as if my thoughts were too fast to understand. I often ended up acting out compulsions like arranging books, avoiding even numbers of steps/breaths/etc, and generally not touching anything for fear of being contaminated by chemicals - even my own hands!

When school started I went to the school councellors on the advice of my best friend. Blah, blah, blah, they told my mom, therapy was 'set up' (it still hasn't started, because I'm moving soon and things conflict). My mom took away my tools and made it very difficult for me to SI... soon I was cutting less and less because my last hidden tool was getting dull and ineffective. By this time I started becoming depressed and numb and things were hard to concentrate on in school. Eventually I developed anorexia-like ED-NOS as another control method and - in some ways - a way to harm myself instead of cutting. This caused another state called "Ana" to develop.

I'm moving in about two weeks, changing schools, changing courses, changing everything. Hopeing the councelling will come together soon.

[darkkyss]

I'm a little older that most of those who've already posted, but i thought i'd share my story anyways...

I started Si'ing as a younger child, scratching, picking at scaps, biting my nails until they hurt and bled.. These things were natural to me.

I didn't pick up a razor until i was 24. My husband had just left me, after cheating on me with several friends. I'd had a nervous breakdown a few months before and was still dealing with backlash from that, from my GAD and Depression, added too all of this my impending divorce. I was a mess.

The first time i picked up a razor was actually to kill myself.
I had planned on slitting my wrists and getting rid of all the pain for good. I did a practice cut, just to test the sharpness of my razor, and fell in love with the feel. After I cut i didn't want to kill myself anymore. Suddenly i had a solid reason for the pain.

I started cutting more regularly, to help cope with the overwelming emotions i was going through. Later, after the emotions got under control, i cut because i felt so numb.

I cut off and on, regularly. Sometimes every day, sometimes only once a week. I played with different areas of my body.

I stopped cutting three months ago, and i'm trying my damnest to not pick up a razor again. I don't know if i'll make it, but i'm giving it my all. I still think about it daily.

Thats my story.

[pointeless]

Not so much to tell really... I can't remember the age when I started cutting exactly - since I was young i'd picked at my skin and banged my body against walls to bruise... just pre teens when I first started cutting I think - ocd filled me withn intense fraustration and self hate, at the time I didn't even though that it was ocd... just me being 'stupid'. Bullying made me hate myself and want to hurt myself,punishment myself etc... I bottled stuff up. I started on the soles of my feet... as a dancer it hurt the most, I liked the feeling, the burning on the floor, I liked the patterns... moved to my thighs... then my arms and thighs, then arms thighs and stomach.
Experimented with burning, only really started burning again recently. For around 3yrs of my life I cut everyday, one bad phase with alot of deep bad cuts... then I eased off a bit, main;y just shallow stuff when I do cut now. Trying to quit... slipping up lately especially with trying to stop burning to.
Guess i'm a work in progress... when the ocd is bad the SI is ok... when the SI is bad the ocd is kinda ok-ish
A sea saw effect
One day hopefully everything will be in check

[what_if]

Not too much to tell, but ok...

I first began SIing when i was around 12. I had recently met a girl at my school, and we'd become great friends. We were with each other every hour of the day, everyday. One time, she came to me and told me she had cut herself. She'd always been telling me about how depressed she was, but never anything to this extent. I was always there for her, but she was slowly draining the life out of me. I was probably one of the most innocent and naive people you'd have ever met back then, and this girl really changed that in me. She pretty much sqeezed every ounce of life in me out, and replaced it with a darkness that i'll never forgive her for.

It was quite a while after this girl had told me about her cutting, that i started SIing. Things were getting a little rough for me at the time...i finally discovered that my dad, who i had idolized my entire life, was pretty much just an arrogant unfeeling dickhead. That hit me kind of hard. I've barely had a relationhip with him since around that time. My sister had been in and out of hospital with medical problems since she was young, so being away from her and my mom (who would stay with her, and leave me with my dad) was definitely hard.

Another of my friends also SIes. Having both my best friends do this was extremely hard for me to deal with...especially after i realized just what kind of people they both were. I see their scars whenever i'm with them still...it scares me, because it makes me wish i was still doing it too.

My mom, my sister and me were always very close, so whenever i would SI, i'd take a lot of care in thinking up my excuses even before i would actually act. I used many many methods, but the one that most affected me was when i would bang myself against walls. I still have a lot of trouble typing that out.

When i first started SIing and cutting, the cuts were very superficial, never deep. But they gradually grew, and i began using different methods to harm myself. (Wow...this is actually really hard to type out ) I found that taking many painkillers at a time daily was another very efficient way of harming myself, and i took to that for quite some time. In a way (having given up my SI and other habits), and as bad as they were for me, i miss my all the awful things i would do to myself. I'm sure i'll be fine without them, but i really do sometimes wish i had never stopped.

But....four days will mark a month SI-free for me now So there's my very vague and shortened life story

~ Nat

[Small]

I can't remember, it doesn't matter how hard I try, I can't remember lots of my childhood. People tell me I act childish sometimes, but I can't really remember what its like to be a child, so whats wrong with me doing some parts of it again?

I'm pretty sure that I have hurt myself in one way or another most of my life, I have trichotillomania, and when I was 12 I had a bald patch on the right side of my head - no-one but my mam ever mentioned it, and it was hidden under the rest of my hair. I'm better now, but I still do it a little. I have always chewed the skin around my nails, sometimes til they bleed, I have always picked at scabs, and stuff like that. I am funny about food, when I was two, I would only eat cereal - coco pops for breakfast, rice crispies for lunch, weetabix for dinner. After that I would only eat bread, cucumber and salad cream for every meal, except breakfast, which was still coco pops - I would also eat a sunday roast, but no vegetables. (I recently found out that my mam would liquify the veg and mix it with the gravy so that I was getting the vitamins ). This diet lasted until I was about 12 or 13, when I started adding a little more. I have only started adding veg to my diet since I moved out of home at 18, latest triumph being tomatoes - but only cooked, and in sauces.

Theres not much I remember, but there's spme stuff that my mam has told me - like the crereal thing above. She also told me about something that may explain the trichotillomania thing - when I was 2 or 3 (I can't remember how old my mam said I was) I wouldn't shut up, and my dad picked me up by my hair and threw me across the room, my hair stayed in his hand.

But there are some things that I remember - like seeing my dad stamp on my brothers head and telling him he was sick for laughing at a lizard being blown up by a cowboy at the start of a film. I was my dads favourite out of the three of us, so I got less abuse than my brother, and my parents split up while my sister was still very young, so she got less exposure to him - we still saw him after my parents split, so she still grew up with him, but shes the most confident of the three of us. My mam tells me that from a ver young age I used to work very hard at making my dad happy, I was always paying attention to detail in art work, and apparently I wouldn't say a new word until I had worked out how to say it properly. This meant that he would be nicer to me, but I have since realised that because I was good at the same things as my dad, while my brother never seemed to be able to impress him, then I was diverting punishment from me to my brother. Also, when I was about 13 and for about 2 or 3 years after that I used to get an urge to cut off my left hand - it still happens sometimes, but nowhere near as often. I consider my left hand to be useless.

I didn't cut for the first time ( as far as I remember) until I was 20, I was in my repeat 2nd year at uni, and I don't know why I did it. I can manage long periods wothout cutting - the longest being about 6 or 7 months, and it used to be that I only cut really when I was really, really upset or angry. Recently its been something I've turned to more.

So, there you go, sorry its a bit long. Oh, yeah, I'm female, and I'm 24yrs old. I also have what some people may call a "power-object fixation" which means that I feel happier and more confident when I have a knife with me.

[Blake 1]

I have been depressed for as long as I can remember. When I was little I endured some SA for about 3 yrs but then we moved across the country so it stopped and I blocked it out of my mind. I would always pick at myself or bang my head against things or use my toys to hurt myself. In elementary school I remember coming home and crying or having really bad stomach aches every single day. In high school I fell into a deep depression and my stomach aches got so bad that I couldn't stand upright cause I was in so much pain. I went to the doctor who did all these tests and diagnosed me with clinical depression and GAD. After he told me what I had he looked me in the eyes and told me that I was crazy. Well that made me feel really bad and with everyhting else I had going on I started to think about suicide. I started to cut at age 16 after my first unsuccessful suicide attempt. My parents were at my school meeting with my guidence counselor about my suicide attempt and I was sitting on my bed trying to do homework but I was so anxious and scared and everything that I couldn't concentrate and the thought came in my head to take out my pocket knife and cut myself. I didn't know that self-injury existed back then so I don't know where that thought came from. So in the next 6 months I attempted suicide 7 more times and I started cutting on a daily basis and I had panic attacks. Eventually the panic attacks subsided but then memories and flashbacks of the SA started coming back to me and I continued cutting multiple times daily. Since then I've stopped cutting for months at a time but I always start again.

[marshmallowfluff]

gone

[oneWayOneLifeOneLove]

I started SIing when i was in 7th grade When my dad moved away. I think i started because I was upset that he was gone i would get in a lot of fights with my mom and i also was having alot of problems with my friends. Than over the summer that i was going in2 8th grade i was at the pool and my cousin somehow found out that i cut and he told all of my friends. Than once they all knew i really work on stopping soo i could just tell every body that i used 2 but dont cut any more. That way no 1 would be able to make fun of me. And it was actually worked for about 7 months. But than I stared having a lot of problems with my friends and i started again. And ever since than i have been cutting. And toward the middle of sept it cot alot worse bc the school found out that i cut and there trying 2 get involed and some1 told my mom and it was just awful. But now im trying to stop and its going kind of ok.

[Naiia]

Oh, this is a lovely idea. Thanks.

Slightly over a year ago, (last October) I was raped by a friend of mine (yeah, this is going to be a happy story ). And for about four months after that, I pretended like nothing happened. I kidded myself that it was just drunken sex, nothing wrong with that, right? But somehow, I knew better than that I think. I just wasn't ready to accept it. And, I am beginning to realize, I had never learned to deal with problems. I was used to just shoving them under the carpet since emotions were "unacceptable"...but this was too big. The rug couldn't cover this one up for long.

And so, despite being afraid of this guy, I continued to go hang out with him on the weekends. And I hated it, and I hated myself for doing it. He treated me horribly, and it was just...uggh.

I started going for long walks in the middle of the night. Almost, I think, hoping that something WOULD happen to me. Something real, so that I had a reason to feel the things that I did. My grades started slipping, I started skipping classes, and I stopped sleeping.

By the beginning of January, I was in a deep depression. I continued walking around alone at night. I never slept, I couldn't cry, I didn't eat simply because I had no appetite, I thought about suicide constantly. I didn't go to any classes, and my grades were ridiculously low. By now, I WANTED to stop seeing this guy, but I was afraid to. And I was so alone, I didn't know whether it was worse to be with him, or without him.

So, one night I sat down...I'd been contemplating suicide for a long time. I grabbed a razor and cut my leg. I just wanted to see if I could do it...later, I'd do it for real, to end everything, but this was just sort of a test. I never expected that it'd make me feel better, or that I'd get addicted to it. But, apparently, I was wrong.

Finally, in the middle of January, I started accepting that things weren't right. I finally told a friend about what had happened, and a few weeks later my Aunt convinced me to go into counseling. And it was awhile before things started looking up, but eventually they did. And, really, things ARE a lot better now. They're not perfect, but they are getting better. And that's okay, I guess I can be patient for awhile longer.

So....yeah...that was a long boring story...

[theboldeditalics]

Replies OK via reply or PM

Okay so, being a typical self injurer, I have abandonment issues, built up anger, blah blah you know the type.

My feelings of being alone stem from these reasons:

1) When I was 10 my parents divorced. There's a loss.
2) My two older sisters with who I am very close to, went to college.
3) She then decided to move me away to a big city, away from the LAST REMAINING important people in my life, my friends. Now, these friends aren't like normal friends, I would see these people every day for YEARS. They were family.
4) When I finally got 'settled' (which never actually happened, I still hate it) she decided she'd rather have sex with her ugly boyfriend than be my mother. She left me, emotionally, and a LOT of the time, physically.



I heard about it on a TV show.

I liked the way it sounded, looked.

I tried it, and it's all down hill from there, I'm going on 4 years now...

[In_Retrospect]

I've never liked myself. I was always weird, different, awkward. I first started hitting myself with rocks and my recorder when I was eight. I'd smash it into my leg until my ankles swelled up so much I couldn't walk and I'd tell my mom I fell in gym or riding my bike. Then, I began scratching my arm for hours at a time until I had horrible, raw, cuts. I told my mom I had caught my arm in between the chains of a bridge at school. Finally, that became too obvious so I started to pull at my hair in huge clumps. I never thought of this as SI because I was too young and things just don't happen to kids.

Later, when I was eleven and started middle school, I went through a period of incredible depression and began cutting my arms with knives, boxcutters, glass and razors. My mother has never been one to discuss feelings. I was simply expected to do well at school (4.0 GPA was a given) and be happy. When my grades began to drop because I felt so tired and alone she would yell and nag at me which caused me to feel like the biggest failure alive. I felt ugly and fat even though I was underweight and I stopped talking to people because I thought I was incapable of normal socialization. This year was my own time of visiting a therapist who thought I had bi-polar disorder and recommended that I visit a phychaitrist. Unfortunately, my mother refused to send me to one and I have never been back.

I alternate between manic states and depressive states and until a few days ago I hadn't been depressed for six months although I had continuted cutting once every three days or so. Now, I feel myself caught up in the cycle of depression again and have began cutting on a daily basis. My mother found out and is treating me with contempt and calling me "crazy" which makes me both...angry and guilty (?) or maybe (sad?) one of the things I like about cutting is that it gives me a clear emotion to identify with when I can't find any other feelings. When I cut at least I know pain.

[In_Retrospect]

Oh, this is a lovely idea. Thanks.

Slightly over a year ago, (last October) I was raped by a friend of mine (yeah, this is going to be a happy story ). And for about four months after that, I pretended like nothing happened. I kidded myself that it was just drunken sex, nothing wrong with that, right? But somehow, I knew better than that I think. I just wasn't ready to accept it. And, I am beginning to realize, I had never learned to deal with problems. I was used to just shoving them under the carpet since emotions were "unacceptable"...but this was too big. The rug couldn't cover this one up for long.

And so, despite being afraid of this guy, I continued to go hang out with him on the weekends. And I hated it, and I hated myself for doing it. He treated me horribly, and it was just...uggh.

I started going for long walks in the middle of the night. Almost, I think, hoping that something WOULD happen to me. Something real, so that I had a reason to feel the things that I did. My grades started slipping, I started skipping classes, and I stopped sleeping.

By the beginning of January, I was in a deep depression. I continued walking around alone at night. I never slept, I couldn't cry, I didn't eat simply because I had no appetite, I thought about suicide constantly. I didn't go to any classes, and my grades were ridiculously low. By now, I WANTED to stop seeing this guy, but I was afraid to. And I was so alone, I didn't know whether it was worse to be with him, or without him.

So, one night I sat down...I'd been contemplating suicide for a long time. I grabbed a razor and cut my leg. I just wanted to see if I could do it...later, I'd do it for real, to end everything, but this was just sort of a test. I never expected that it'd make me feel better, or that I'd get addicted to it. But, apparently, I was wrong.

Finally, in the middle of January, I started accepting that things weren't right. I finally told a friend about what had happened, and a few weeks later my Aunt convinced me to go into counseling. And it was awhile before things started looking up, but eventually they did. And, really, things ARE a lot better now. They're not perfect, but they are getting better. And that's okay, I guess I can be patient for awhile longer.

So....yeah...that was a long boring story...

It wasn't boring at all. Don't apoligize for something so personal. You have great courage.

[HURTING8705]

well here's my story for anyone who is interested.....

I'm not exactly sure why I started. no particular reason I guess jsut a mixture of things....see about a year and a half ago things had gotten pretty bad for me. my boyfriend of 8 months broke up with me, my best friend whom i thought of as a sister moved away. school sucked without her and i was constantly fighting with my parents.
a new friend (who became a boyfriend a short time later) was a cutter. i had heard about SI before but its just not something you imagine yourself doing. its always somethine you hear about on tv or read in a magazine it could never happen to you, until you try it. but anyway he cut a lot and we would spend a lot of nights talking about how we felt and why this was happening to us. my ex was still calling me all the time (mostly for sex) and we would fight a lot. It was around this time that i first tried cutting and I couldn't believe how good it made me feel. I would write a lot of poetry and letters to my ex and cutting would help some of those horrible feeling to disappear. I got to be pretty obessed with it, cutting 3 and 4 times a day.
I finally quit after about 5 months (and another break-up). I've been SI free for almost a year (in 2 weeks) and i am really proud of myself for that. However, 3 months ago I lost my Dad to a heartattack. These past 3 months have been horrible, and I've almost slipped on several occasions. But thanks to my wonderful new boyfriend (who i love very much) I have been able to overcome my urges and stay SI free.


well i know that was boring but there it is....

[ebmcs]

I was in middle school and was upset and knocked something heavy off my dresser. It landed on my foot by chance, not intention - and the pain was overwhelming, (I still have a discolored scarlike area from it)... but it immediately calmed me down. I felt like I needed to be punished, and hurting made me feel better.... it was addictive and filled that need and so hitting etc. slowly became a coping mechanism, and that grew into more over the years.

I am moving away from it now ten years later. It's hard though because part of me struggles so much to let go even while part of me is ready....

[ebmcs]

Oh yes - and welcome, HURTING8705. A welcome cow, per tradition, and the first one I've given thus far!

[mephistopheles]

I don't remember my childhood, well, not big chunks of it anyway, so I don't know when it started I just know I've always done it. My brother did it as well but I never found out until just after he killed himself, which was just before I told my parents everything, being gay, si, general mental problems. They threw me out of the house and I have very little contact (bar funerals) with any of them except my grandmother, which is weird, because she never acknowledges the fact that I told them anything, in fact she writes letters as though I just saw her yesterday. That was three years ago. Since then I've been diagnosed as schizophrenic, split personality disorder, manic depression and a few others which I forget. Last year my father killed himself, my Mother tried to twice, I tried to once and my sister succeeded this year. Leaving me with two relations. I can't even begin to comprehend recovering, it's knocked me sideways, I can't survive without si'ing for even one day.

n

[ghoulie13]

when i was little i only lived with my mother and my sister.
my mother's friends would always tell me i have such long eye lashes for a boy. how they like them and such. i used to pull them all out. when i got older and i started getting acne i used to take a razor and make long little cut in my face to hide the pimple and i would tell everyone that it was a cat scratch. (i had no cat). for some odd reason nobody really wondered. then i started in school with whatever i could find, [edited] anything. i could not seem to get enough. now i am older and none the wiser. there is so much more. so much.. never enough time to tell it all.


sorry..