I was sexually abused, things were stressful. I was 8 and in school. I scratched myself til I bled with sticks. What is sick is that other children saw and tried to copy me and see if they could scratch deeper. This was while we sat outside on the cold concrete every assembly. When they found they couldn't do it deeper than me, I got deeper every time and one day I carved HELP into my leg and got called a freak.

i saw a guy who has gotten stitches b/c he cut his arm with a knife.

i actually thought it was kinda cool. before then, i'd always seen it as something girls did..

so one day i got really pissed off and decided to try it myself...
ha ha

monkey see. monkey do

I was bullied, in fact, I was the lowest on the ladder in first through third grade. I was held back in first grade because I was short and I bet my original class would've been a lot more mature and less troublesome.

Anyway. The first time I remember doing SI was with erasors on the top of the hand, it was a game from my classmates and the winner went the longest. I won my first time and also got the game banished 'cause mine was just that bad.

I discovered a cutters chatroom over the summer after that incident. I was simply curious. Extremely curious. And then I found out all the regulars were funny, fun people. I hung out in there a lot and my social life ended up taking a huge turn to being mostly on line.

People got annoying. I hated popularity, I hated current politics, I hated shitty school systems and oil production and animal extinction and... Ugh. Lots of stuff that still drives me nuts today!!! But, anyway, I specifically remember telling my friend that "this is what people do, some people, when they get really sad" and didn't even bleed --!! but I did show a friend with an exacto knife in the middle of art class. That's when I realized how strange it really was to some people, while I found it strange for a moment I looked passed it and figured out why people were doing (all within that chat room, anyway.)

The first time, though, the very first time I can say I meant to do it, I wanted to do it, I needed to do it... LOL Was 'cause of a boy that wouldn't date me. He sent me confusing, conflicting messages and then I had to deal getting my period for the first time. Also, this was within the first couple months of Jr. High. He just upset me enough that I grabbed a steak knife and did a good doozie on my shin. I dunno if it was necessarily for attention... I felt like I had plenty of attention... I just didn't like where I saw the world going... And here I am now, everything I hated and didn't want to be... Did it all so I wouldn't have to become a total nerd recluse

**** MAJOR TRIGGER ****


i remeber the day i started it came home just sat here in my roon with a sharpener in my head and then just slowly got the blade out and dragged it lightly acroos my skin and the release felt so good in so many ways

the day that i first got blood i came home from school...my mom yealled at me for about an hour for not putting the dishes away...i had washed them, as well as cleaned the enire house while watching my three younger siblings the night before...she never came home until 5:00...i left for school having not slept...i stood there while she yelled...i knew i'd get it if i cried...i kept my mouth shut, ran to my room when she finished...grabbed a tack out of my wall and dug at my skin...till i was too tired to drag it back and forth again...it bled...a lot...i cried myself to sleep...bad times...

i think a lot of the storys here
point to emotional over load

i think with me it was a cry for help but to know one

like shouting help in a wood where no one hears

there is a lot of personal pain in these reasons most in silence

i ask myself
are these reasons out dated now ?
is that time so far away that it needs to be left behind for a new way?

i fell when i was faced with a situation very close to the one that stared me

so i can see why i fell in to that reaction
but i have pulled out because
a lot of time has passed now from that time when i did cut
and i can see that i am someone else now.

before i fell back in to that action
i had to fight it a lot
because i thought this will fix the inside
fight im having

but i was wrong really
the situation was an outside one
and i didnt have a wounder way to cope
the outside things just got more easy to cope with after a while

i dont tag my self as a cutter
that is a bit like saying i am power less
to some thing invisable

i dont want to act out my lable
to be "something" in this world

who am i?
i am cutter

.i have identity
but its a bad choice
friend dont run to your aid for long
in fact they back away more than ever
so as a way to reach for help
its not a very good choice

.i know in the bad times you dont care about
anything in the world
its a solitary thing

but that time with all the mixed up thoughts
,is when it shows there is something
inside that you need to give time to heal
or not blank out

i had had thoughts of how much i have faild
as a person
or how i never was someone that could be good enough for people to love
or even things always just never work for me

these are all statments that could be argued against
if i didnt feel so weak or worn down.

cutting at one time was something to cling to
but really its destroying who you are or could be
and its to much hiding ,there is to much pressure with out that in the first place.

i could say i would rather be held by someone
that loves me instead of the times i cut
but back then i had a big problem with people
being close to me pyhsicaly

so it was like all doors were closed like some crule joke on me

it was very hard at first to stop
but it can be done
i used to say to myself if i had a friend
who was hurting would i cut that person

and my answer was no
i would not it would just hurt them more
and then i would say
at least give your self that level of care
and not hurt me anymore

stopping is like getting your life back
you becaome a person again
and not some empty shell
with your thoughts trapped inside

a lot of the rules in your head about what you are as a person can be very out of date
walk away from the ones that dont fit you anymore
or at least question if you are still the person
that these old rules have trapped for so long

sorry for the long post
all these storys have just raised so many thoughts
thank you

Started because of anxiety, nervousness, got put down a lot and never got a full-time job that lasted

Do it to stop the pain (have trouble sleeping at night or concentrating all day)-need to read and get absorbed in the story or keep busy.

Still keep on thinking about doing stuff (mostly just pick to the point of bleeding and feel calmed).

i started 1 1/2-2 years ago when i was in the hospital on the psych ward. i took the light bulb out of the bathroom and cut my wrist. now its just off on but i always cut so deep that i have to sew it up. i want to quit so bad.

I started because I was struggling with severe depression. Just couldn't seem to get through it, kinda felt like I was fighting a fog. I couldn't seem to acomplish what I wanted in life ect. I hated that feeling, pain is something you can get through, a fog like that is almost impossible sometimes. SI made me feel in controll, I could do what I decided too. It also gave me something to think abotu something I could get through. Pain was easier to concentrate on, easier to take then facing the black maze that depression kept throwing at me.

I was 14 and we had a friend at school who claimed to be depressed. This was just her excuse so she could treat us like shit. She would make up stupid stories about how she slit her wrists so bad and had to go to hospital the previous night and shes sitting there in a short sleeved shirt not a mark on her damn wrists at all. Anyways she was rude, whiny, abusive, bossy and then when i got sick of her and didnt invite her to my birthday party she went and told the school counsellor (who is a useless bitch i might add) the counsellor made me see her and she told me i was an awful person and that i should be ashamed of myself and that i was the reason my friend was depressed. That day i went home from school feeling like shit and took a safety pin and dragged it along the back of my hand. The way it ripped into my skin felt so good and i loved the blood that welled up inside. The way my hand burned after id done it was so soothing. It all stemmed from there and just got worse and more frequent till it peaked last year. Im almost stopped now though :)

My best friend died unexpectedly a few weeks before we were supposed to start high school together. My family didn't help me deal with it and I never really did. Depression followed and then I met a guy who cut himself. He became my best friend and I was always so worried about his cutting. I didn't understand what he got out of it; why he continued to do it. So, one night at work, I took my box cutter and slide the blade along my wrist. I really didn't expect it to become a problem for me.... it's been two years since that night and I haven't really stopped.

I was bullied at school that was when it started, hitting myself. I always swear to myself I will never do it again but end up doing it.

For me what triggers felf hurt is whan I feel like I am in a mental box and there is no way out whichever way I try to think.

At this moment I cannot see any good in me this is when I do it. Some how my wife has a way of making me feel like this often nowadays.

It is almost like I have an SI personality which is different to my normal personality. I really need to stop doing this, for my own sake and for my family.

Alantm, I know why you started this post and I understand, you like I, are trying to solve the mystery of why we do this and how we can stop doing this.

I cannot give you a solution the only thing I can say if it helps is that the core to this problem is self hate. The self hate, at least in my case comes from never feeling that I can be the person I want to be and that I am continually failing myself and people around me.

I started eight years ago. I have been abused in a lot of ways, and was isolated and turned everything inward. One summer day I started out with just a few scratches on my calf and then it got worse and worse I got completely addicted. It was a release from the constant tension I felt in my body and gave me a sense of control over what I was feeling when everything else was spinning out of control. I still deal with it every day. I haven't cut in a while, but self injury is still very present in my life.