Before you make that first cut, remember:
You will find the blood and pain realise addictive. Even though you think you can make a few tiny cuts that aren’t deep and will heal easily, they will get deeper. They will scar. They will take sometimes months to heal. And years for the scars to fade. If you think you can limit the cutting to one part of your body, think again. It will spread when you run out of skin. You’ll find yourself cutting in places you would never think of. Be prepared to withdraw from others and live in constant state of shame. Even if you are the most honest person ever, you will find yourself lying to the people you love. You’ll tell people your cat scratched you or you accidentally cut yourself on a wire. You will jerk back from your friends when they touch you as if their hands were dipped in poison. You will be terrified that they will feel something under the cloth of your shirt. Or just because it plain hurts to be touched. You will have to explain yourself when you yell “ow” when you bump your wrists. Be prepared for it to get so out of control you fear your next cut because you don’t know how bad it will be. Just wait for 10 cuts to turn into 100, because it will. Be prepared for your entire life to revolve around cutting. Cutting and covering up cutting. It will be the only thing you think about until you do it. You will dream about cutting and have nightmares about being exposed. It will haunt you day and night and take over your life. And just wait for the first time you cut ‘too deep’.And you freak out because the blood won’t stop. Your wrist will be dripping with blood as it trickles down you arms. You’ll be gasping… And you feel yourself shaking all over. You’ll be having a panic attack and you are terrified but you can’t tell anyone. You won’t be able to. So you sit there alone… Praying it will be okay. Promising yourself that you’ll never let it go this far again. But you will, further and further… But don’t worry, you will learn how to take care of your cuts so that you can go deeper and deeper and avoid going to the emergency room. And the better you get at treating your cuts, they deeper they get. You’ll have a stash of things you need for cutting: blades, glass, knives, tissues, body wipes, bandaids, medical tape, and scar reducers. Because of this, you’ll get pretty good at hiding things all over your room. Get ready to buy a new wardrobe too. You’ll be buying long sleeve shirts, bracelets, wristbands, long boots… The list goes on and on. Say goodbye to things you took for granted. Like wearing shorts or sandals, pedicures, and sleeveless tops. You will start looking at everyone in a different way too. Scanning everyone’s bodies for any signs of self harm. Just hoping that you might meet someone like you so you don’t feel so terribly alone. Hoping, just hoping that they will be like you. But they are not. You won’t even think about it as your eyes scan people’s wrists and arms, even when you are watching TV. You will see everyone’s clean arms and feel terribly ashamed and alone. You will start doing a lot of things alone. You will always have to wash your laundry in private, so no one sees the blood stains on your clothes and towels. You won’t go to the beach or pool, no matter how much you might have loved to before. Winter is fine but look out for summer. As the weather starts to get warmer you will scan your body covered in scars, panicking about what you will do to cover them up. Be prepared to do a lot of cleaning, scrubbing your bathroom floor and wiping the blood off your keyboard. Eventually, you won’t be able to make it through the day without cutting. You will start to carry blades everywhere, a=in your room, in your school bad, in your purse and even in the back of your phone case for emergencies. Next thing you are in a public bathroom, quietly slitting your wrists. Then you will prepare yourself to walk out like you’re completely fine, even if you’re still bleeding a little. And when you get really desperate, anything will become a cutting tool… Scissors, a needle, keys, even a pen. Doesn’t matter what it is because if you need to cut bad enough, you will find something. Another thing to get ready for, is the itching. Because you will itch and itch so much that you will look like you have fleas. In the end, you will wish that you never made that first cut. Because while you absolutely hate cutting… At the same time you love it and can no longer live without it. So remember all of this before you start cutting because it can and will ruin your life.
In the end, you will have become an expert on your body as you carefully destroy it…
11 comments
that last sentence… terrifying, I have been warned, thank you.
The last sentence is the one I feel the most…
I have my own views but I don’t want to glorify something one shouldn’t do. It hurts though. Definitely.
Pain is a big thing of it yes.
I feel like I’ve read this before at one point in my life…. But it sums it up fairly well. My most terrifying moment was once when I started bleeding in the middle of a class…. I accidentally must have torn open a scab, or something, but I felt my shirt’s sleeve get sticky and freaked out as I noticed my sleeve had gotten a lot darker (was a purple shirt)…. I was happy I had a jacket with me to put on and had to sit through 40 minutes of class while trying to act normal. :/
I’ve read a similar post to mine somewhere else a while ago so mine is sort of adapted from that but it’s my personal experience. I’ve done the same thing as you in class before, could just feel wet under my sleeve but it’s winter here so I had a few layers on.
I haven’t cut before, but I find it oddly fascinating, how it can become an addictive thing. I guess a sort of taking control and agency over your situation, however destructive. I don’t look down on people at all for doing it. In a way, how is it any different from smoking? Just with a whole lot more stigma. And just like with a whole lot of other depressive things, feel people are averse and put distance to it, out of being scared, recognizing they’re not immune to triggering something similar within themself. People would rather to ignore that, and keep at adopting the happy illusion
..which makes people like us feel more so alone, I suppose
It does unfortunately.
If you haven’t cut before it would seem surprising how addictive it is and I was the same before it happened to me.
When I made my first cut, I didn’t know any of this. I had no one that went through this before because I was barley a teenager when I first started. My ex best friend, our sophomore year, she told me she had self-harmed for the first time the night before. I tried to tell her that she will get addicted and she was like no, I won’t do it again. The next day I asked her if she did it again, and she did, but then she said she wouldn’t do it again, until she gave up because I knew she would do it again because she had became addicted just like me, 5 years later of hurting myself, I am still doing it…