I eventually told her that I had hurt myself. She made me show her, and asked me why I did it. I couldn’t reveal that I had read her journal.

To further the humiliation and embarassment of the whole ordeal, she escorted me to counseling and had me tell my counselor what I had done. But, I don't think that I would have told my counselor on my own if she wouldn't have gone with me.

I remember that I felt very angry, confused, and upset, and hurting myself was on impulse. Hurting myself released pent-up emotions, but it also gave me power over my girlfriend's emotions. It was something I relished at the time because I resented that she did not love me anymore.

“In order to understand self-injury, you must understand that it is wholly separate from suicidal ideation. A person who self-injures is not trying to kill herself, though she may also be suicidal. The driving force behind each is very different: Self-injury is an attempt to soothe oneself, so that one can survive, while suicide is a complete surrender to pain. Speaking from my own experience, I can say that when I have been suicidal, I have had no hope whatsoever. When I have had impulses to self-injure, however, I do have hope and realize I need only to get through this particularly awful moment...and things will get better.

“Most people who have never deliberately hurt themselves are generally pretty confused and often horrified that anybody could consider such a thing, much less get relief and comfort from it. While it is different from drug abuse in many ways, it is in others quite similar. A person uses a drug, such as alcohol, to escape a bad day, a troubled relationship, painful memories, or any number of negative emotions.

"Drinking numbs the person’s emotions to a point where they are either bearable or not felt at all. Self-injury works similarly. An emotion, any emotion (anger, sadness, loneliness, fear, self-loathing), begins and then escalates to an unmanageable level. A healthy person with normal coping mechanisms might at this point call a friend, or cry, or take a hot bath. Someone who hasn’t learned how to soothe herself in a healthy way, but still needs a release from the pent-up emotion and pain may turn to self-injury as a means to do so."

This is usually how my self-injury happened:

I got upset about something, and my immediate thought was to hurt myself. If I was in a depressed state already and nothing in particular was making me feel bad then I would think about hurting myself, but may or may not have done it.

If I wanted people to know how I was feeling, I would pick a spot that was visible. For example, I would pick my arms if I wanted people to know what was going on. If I didn’t, I would pick my stomach or chest, areas that no one would see.

Then the search for the tool started. After I cut myself I would throw away the instrument to prevent it from happening again. When I got the urge and couldn't control it, then I would have to find a new tool to use. Kitchen knives would have been the obvious choice, but I went through those quickly and did not own sharp knives for a while. I would find a pin, find something to heat to burn myself (even going as far as buying cigarettes to burn myself with), pry open a shaving razor, break glass, etc. in an attempt to find something to injury myself. Sometimes by the time I finally found something that I deemed a satisfactory tool I would have lost the urge to hurt myself. Other times, if nothing on hand would do, I would go to a store to get something.

I did not think about how many and how deep. I did not evenly space my cuts or otherwise make designs. Once I decided to cut I quickly and sloppily did it. If I cut deep enough to produce a few drops of blood, I took delight in watching it run down my skin. I liked to touch it and feel its stickiness/wetness/warmth.

The pain distracted me from whatever brought on the cutting in the first place. The euphoria the cutting brought did not last more than a handful of minutes before I felt ashamed, guilty, and disappointed in myself.

It takes a long time to get better.

Sources:

1. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves: For the New Century. New York: Touchstone, 1998.

2. Taylor, Sarah. “Beneath the Skin: Self-injury and the Road Back.” 7 Jan. 2003.