i was told i didnt have enough information here

I decided I better tell my full story so people inderstand me better:

I started self-harming about two years ago. I had an argument with my best friend and this set it off. It wasn’t a serious row; it was quite a silly one to be honest.  However, I think this triggered off a lot of my self-esteem issues. I had a really hard time at school and was bullied a lot and I ended up finding it hard to get close to people. My feelings of self worth vanished again after the argument and in order to combat this I started to cut myself. Not seriously at first; surface marks more than anything else.  

My main method of self-harm was cutting, although, I did try burning quite a bit. This was nowhere near as effective as cutting. At one stage it got so serious that during the school holidays when I was working I would cut before going to work, at lunchtime and then before going to bed. Sometimes I would do it more than three times a day. I was also quite obsessed with how deep the cuts were. The worse I felt, the deeper they had to be. Sometimes if they weren’t deep enough then I would go over them again. I cut my legs because they were the easiest places to hide them. If things got bad and I couldn’t wait until I actually took my trousers off then I would cut my arm but wear long sleeves until they healed.   

Immediately before I self-harmed I would feel numb, completely numb. The whole point of cutting was to actually try and be aware of something again because it often seemed like I didn’t actually feel anything. It was quite a weird sensation. Sometimes I also felt quite detached. At times it was as if I was actually watching myself live my life, as if I was watching a film, I didn’t actually feel real and nothing around me did either. 

When I was cutting I never cared about how much damage I inflicted on myself. The more the better. However, I was always careful to avoid veins and arteries. Self-harm, in my opinion, was not about dying or trying to kill yourself, it was about feeling alive; if I felt a bit of pain then I knew that I existed. During my dark times the cutting never inflicted any pain. I was numb to it all but I wanted to feel – that was the whole point. Whenever I cut, all I could think about was the anguish inside me.

Straight afterwards I always felt relieved. I felt as if I could face living again, I could cope with any silly little problem like not knowing what I could have for dinner or that I had missed the bus. It made me feel ‘real’ again.

Later I always felt embarrassed about it. I used to do my utmost to try and hide it from others; if this meant wearing jumpers in the summer then that’s what I did. I never wore a skirt that would reveal anything. The embarrassment was horrible as I felt completely alone and isolated. I never realised how common it actually was.

I pushed so many people away from me. I used to hide in my room and wait for the flat to empty before I would even consider making food or even go to the bathroom. I avoided phone calls. I always pretended I wasn’t in. If I saw someone I knew on the street then I would cross the road so that I wouldn’t have to speak to them. I became lost in my own world of destruction.

I got the help I needed and I stopped for about 3 months, I convinced myself I was better and stopped going to see the doctor and I stopped taking my antidepressants. Then things went bad again and I attempted to kill myself. I ended up in A&E and I ran away from the hospital and was nearly sectioned.

I don’t do it for attention. I am only telling the world that I do it because I think I may need help ; I self-harm because there is no other way out for me.