My Story

Beginning

Self harm has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. As I child I suffered emotional and physical abuse at the cruel hands of my Father. I will never know whether this abuse was the cause of a life plagued by self harm as I do not know which one came first. However I do know that both made my childhood traumatic and desperately sad. I used self harm to cope with the confusion in my mind. For twenty years I punished my body on a regular basis by punching or hitting myself, scrapeing my skin or banging my head. It was my secret shame and until I reached my teenage years I did not think of it as abnormal behaviour although I did feel that I should keep quiet about it - and I did for many years. It was shocking to discover that not everybody self harmed but I'd always felt I was different in some way. I was scared to tell anyone although there were many times when I came close to confiding in someone but the words were never there.

Free from the abuse but not self harm

I was sixteen when my Father left and I haven't seen him since, after 6 years I'm still not sure whether I will ever want to contact him. My Mother stopped coping for the year after he left and seemed to be falling apart in front of me. I felt a responsibility to care for the family and I did my best although I never felt this was good enough. The pressure was too much for me and although I tried to maintain a strong front at home, at college I couldn't cope. I buried myself in college work but couldn't totally hide the pain I was in. That's when I saw my first counsellor but in the year I saw her I never said a word about self harm even though it was all that was getting me through each day. I was suicidal and tried to take an overdose but never swallowed the tablets which only added to my feeling of failure - I couldn't even die. I started to carry blades around with me. I don't really know why but they gave me a sense of comfort when I felt them in my pocket. I'd sit and gently pull them accross my wrist never even breaking the surface of the skin. I stabbed the point into my arm a few times but never anything serious. At this time I was also starving myself and the eating disorder that started when I was 12 had taken a firm grip. Then my Mothers health improved and I went off to study at university. I started eating and stopped carrying the blades around with me.

Cutting

The first year at university went okay although I was still self harming. Again I hid myself in mounds of work. Things caught up with me at the end of the year and I stopped coping for a while. I told someone about my history of abuse and I had another course of counselling, again never saying one word about self harm. The second year I managed to survive using self harm but the need to tell someone was getting stronger. I felt as though I could explode but also wanted to succeed on my course and I felt that a confession at the time would jeopardise this. I was probably wrong. When I was twenty and in the final year of my degree my levels of distress increased due to a number of factors and my head just seemed to break into a thousand pieces and there was a constant noise of voices. I have always heard voices but they were never as loud or intrusive as they were in that time of despair. I'd hit rock bottom. I returned to the comfort I had once found in the blade but this time I needed more than just to brush it over my skin. This time I scratched and then I cut and cut and cut and cut. And it felt so good and for a few moments my mind would reconstruct and the noise switched off. I'm not sure why, but the cutting made me realise that it was time to seek help - I felt an overwhelming need to talk. It's not that I wished to stop cutting as it was the only way I felt I could survive. I just needed to tell someone and I did. I told someone I trusted and the reaction of rejection that I had feared for so long never happened. Somebody knew, somebody had seen my wounds and they didn't walk away. I know that many self harmers who decide to tell about their self harm get an unsympathetic response but I also know that there are some people who are willing to give the time and care needed. I feel lucky that the response to my confession was good. It would have devastated me if I had been rejected.

Stopping

After confessing I was advised to see another counsellor so I did. I felt comfortable talking with her but I don't respond well to my mind being analysed, never have and never will. A Doctor prescribed me anti depressants which just made me drowsy and numb. I stopped taking them after I had an allergic reaction - I had kept saying that I thought they were making me very tired but nobody listened. I also had a psychiatric assessment but they had no answers accept to say I wasn't mad and send me to a unsympathetic psychotherapist. I only attended one appointment and in one hour he managed to put me off therapy for life. I will never let anyone talk to me in such an undermining way ever again. At the end of my final year I stopped cutting, more so that I wouldn't look like a freak in the end of year performance show that required wearing sleeveless costumes. I replaced cutting with bulimia. I graduated with a first class honours, god knows how I managed to do that in the blur of antidepressants. It didn't take me long to get back to cutting after graduating but this time it was combined with bulimia. I was a mess. I did a couple of miserable jobs to keep me financially okay but I could feel my mind breaking down on me. I thought constantly about suicide but was too distraught to do anything about it. I was already dead as far as I was concerned. I felt so alone. Then, from somewhere I found some hope and I decided that in a final bid to save myself I would make some changes in my life. I moved back in with my Mum to live in a beautiful Cornish town that I love. As I write this I can say that this move worked. A couple of weeks after I moved, I stopped cutting and have now been living without it for a year. The bulimia stopped a few months after. I'm in a job I enjoy. I still self harm occasionally by hitting myself and banging my head but these are now rare occurences. I still suffer from depression but I cope with it and value every day that I feel alive. I never thought I'd ever stop cutting and I would be lying if I said I never missed it because I do. Sometimes I am tempted to just see how it would feel but I know that could send me into dangerous territory. I just want self harmers to know that it is possible to reduce how much you self harm and even stop. Of course you need to be ready to do this but if you want to do it you will. I was a survivor when I was self harming but I can honestly say that I feel more of a survivor now that my life does not depend on it.