Nobody understands why cutting is an addiction. Nobody understands why when I’m angry or sad, my first thought it to bleed, my next is to feed my drug addiction. Nobody understands that I’d be able to quit drugs easier than I would be able to quit cutting. I wrote this last night in hopes of trying to eliminate the confusion. I hope this poem is acknowledged.
Have you ever been hurt?
But I don’t mean for real.
I mean the kind that can’t be seen,
the kind only you can feel.
You keep it to yourself
the feelings you’ve come to accept.
But still, every time you look in the mirror
all you see is a fucking reject.
This pain will build
it rises, boils, and burns.
Sometimes it fades away
but often it returns.
Emotions at a maximum,
heartbeats in a rush.
Some only hold so long
before the pain is too much.
With razor in hand,
slowly dragging across skin.
Not bleeding blood,
bleeding pain from within.
Rage, sadness,
disgust, guilt.
Running down your wrist
with the rest of your filth.
Not trying to die,
but just trying to live.
To ease a secret struggle
because you don’t want yourself to give.
In minutes, it’s gone,
comfort as tears run dry.
But when the cuts heal over
everything’s stuck back inside.
They can’t be contained
they always need back out.
The lust, the euphoria,
fixing the pain nobody knows about.
The need never disappears,
it’s not something you out grow.
But unless you’ve been a cutter,
they’re feelings you’ll never know.
10 comments
Your poem is deeply acknowledged by me.
You know what i fucking hate?
I have cuts on my arms, large ones but no one sees it. But when they do,,,
they ask you: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? THAT’S SO STUPID. HOW CAN YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF? DOES IT HELP? DOES IT MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?
I’m like what the fuck, shut the fuck up. You’re right no one understands cutter and I’ll be honest, I never understood them before until i became one myself.
My need isn’t to bleed but my need is to see those scars. I look at those scars and I feel much better. Because i would rather have these scars on my skin then to have been scarred emotionally and mentally
I have “tuck”, my last name, carved into my forearm. There’s others ones too, a lot actually. I haven’t cut in a while. I’ve been doing pretty well lately. Because they’re not fresh, I’m not afraid of people seeing them. They’re mostly all just white or pink scars; they resemble a tiger. I say tiger because I’ve realized I am beautiful, fierce, strong, and fearless. It took me fucking years to come to this. There’s time when I still doubt myself and I won’t lie, I still think negatively about myself regularly. But I’m trying to install something else, at the very least convincing myself that I’m strong and fearless. Nevertheless, it’s a seemingly impossible task. But I still want to try. I’m fierce and fearless. At least, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of. So I say that I am. It helps.
I still get urges though. Those never go away. When my feeling become to intense and I crave it, I usually try to ignore it with drugs. But they don’t always work. When I get too overcome with emotion, the options of coping come in my head in this order: cut, drugs, poetry. Cutting is on my mind before drugs and drugs are what I practically live for. I’ve been cutting since about grade five, I haven’t been sober since grade seven. I’m seventeen and should be finishing highschool next year but I dropped out because people can’t understand what they don’t know. I’m intelligent and I’ve always known that. I just feel so outcasted by all the people surrounding me with their lack of life experience.
I’ve tried to kill myself three times. I’ve been raped six times by six different people. I was molested by a next door neighbour as long as I can remember him, which was I believe at age 9. I didn’t realize until I was fourteen or fifteen. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be terrified turning the fence before your driveway, knowing he could be out there. I was a bit of a prostitute to one guy when I was fifteen also; drug money. I’ve been with 20 people over a six month span. I signed up on a dating site when I fifteen to use guys for expensive liquor and drugs. It led to situations where I was stranded in a completely different city, completely lost, no cash. Nothing. I wasn’t about to call my mom to get me. I couldn’t disappoint her like that. She still has no clue. I’ve been so fucked up on drugs that you wouldn’t be able to imagine. I’m running out of drugs that I haven’t done. I puked up literal white foam once. I’ve puked in my sleep from being drunk so many times I’ve lost count. I mixed a blue valium, which is the highest dose, not sure about the mgs, with half a forty of rum (to myself) unknowing that’s the one of the deadliest things to do. I was in Ottawa visiting a friend. I blacked out almost immediately after we cracked the bottle. I managed to ditch her somehow. The next 7 hours I’ll never be able to know what I did or what happened to me. I got picked up by cops, I remember sitting in the backseat. then blank. Then I remember the moment after I told him my whole life story.. I’m not sure exactly what I told him, but it got me out of whatever kind of shit that I was in (which I still don’t know). But anyways, back on topic ;P
It feels so right at the time, so perfect, so…. painless. Watching myself bleed out all the emotions I can’t stand about myself. But when it comes to the explanation later, it always seems unreasonable as to whatever triggered it. When a friend of mine cuts herself, I don’t ask or acknowledge it. I let her tell me if she wants to/if she’s ready to. I’m covered with scars of all kinds. Emotional and physical. but I try not to be ashamed of it. All the horrible things I lived through, all types of scars that destroyed me, as painful as they were, they made me who I am now, you know?
Cutting is a love-hate relationship. I love doing it but I hate doing it. I try to avoid it. Let’s face it, rubber bands don’t fucking word. I grow my nails pretty long, I always have. The last time I wanted to was a few days ago. I fucked up a brand new phone two weeks after my mom got it for me, I was angry at myself and also drunk. (Sounds so stupid, doesn’t it? Who would wanna cut over a broken phone?) I found a method. I was at my boyfriends house and he was sleeping. I didn’t wanna wake him because he has sleeping problems. I hooked my nails into the top of my arms and dug deep, while pushing myself agressively into myself, making almost inaudible noises with a screaming face. It took a lot longed to become relieved and satisfied before I fell asleep, but damn, it really helped. If you’re cutting is love-hate like mine, try it if you ever need to. Methods therapists describe never work for me. I don’t think they’d recommend it, because it is still hurting yourself, but it’s the closest thing to the adrenalin rush.
I know I’ll cut again in the future. I know the desire to will never leave me. But some how, knowing of other methods to deal with myself makes it better. I can’t explain it. The whole time I’m digging into myself, I’m lusting blood and how much easier it would be to just fucking cut myself. but something kept me from doing it. Somewhere is my hope, my strength, my beauty. That’s why I call them tiger stripes. It’s hard to believe I have any of those traits, but them must exist in me if I try other options before bleeding out my problems. I’m a fucked up person.
Kudos! I love your poem, it rings so many truths. I loved the part about bleeding inner pain, its true.. You ‘cut out’ the inner feelings boiling over, release, euphoria.. But its only a matter of time until you decend again and need another fix another release. Theres a song i listen to sometimes.. Basically i had a friend who was in a band called sins of the flesh and they did a song called cutter..
What happened to our little girl?
She’s been corrupted by the world,we blame the bands she listens to,
all those foul mouthed freaks that look so gruesome,
the fault must lie with someone else,for we think she can’t think for herself,
so what if she’s lost the will to live?
well maybe that’s just the way she is…
She’s a cutter,because the pain gives her pleasure, unlike any other cutter,
because she believes she was born to suffer,
more than you or I could ever understand
why she should want to die by her own hands,
she slashes herself with sharpened steel,but the blood can’t wash away the pain she feels.
This phase your locked intodoesn’t make people notice you,
they don’t witness your decline as you fallvictim to the unkindest cut of all.
as your veins run dry of juicefrom years of sustained self abuse,
theres no flesh left to cut into,so now theres nothing left of you,
Thank you (: I just want people to understand it. but it’s so hard to explain to people.
That sounds awesome. I’ll try to look it up later.
People don’t understand addiction, it’s impossible to quit because you have to do whatever the addiction is to manage. So even after you break the addiction you still need it to feel decent. Happy people don’t get addictions.
I’ll define my drug “addiction” a little better. Unless I’m upset, I don’t let drugs take over me. Same with cutting. I don’t steal from people, I don’t spend a whole paycheck in two days on drugs, I can go a couple days at a time without doing speed or anything past smoking pot (I don’t smoke cigarettes), and I buy myself normal stuff that addicts wouldn’t on regular occasion. I’m a user. most days. Not necessarily an addict. I can maintain my control because I’ve already been through all the stealing and hurting my family and stuff. I understand addiction very well. I’ve seen people shoot up random pieces from a drawer in hopes it was drugs, and they didn’t believe most of it was dirt. I’ve seen people take apart toasters for the copper wire.
Drugs help me keep my sanity.
I’d be way more depressed if they weren’t in my life. They help me get over the initial onset so I can deal with myself (without them) after. I want to hurt someone because I’m angry? Take a bong hit, feel better, forget I was even angry. (The doctor would provide say, a mood stabilizer, still a drug, much more harmful), I’m antisocial and extremely shy, so doing speed gives me energy and confidence to talk to people at work (Doctors would probably give me antidepressants, which takes months to work, if at all). I get extremely hurt by someone, if I snort a bit of heroin (which isn’t often at all) and my emotions become completely numb and it gets rid of the initial first hit of pain, which is always the worst. Then back to my normality even after they were off. I threw out my shoulder the other day and it hurt like you couldn’t imagine. Snort some morphine, pain gone for hours. Tylenol/Advil doesn’t do shit for that. I’m not even really that fond of opiates, aside from heroin which I distance myself from because of how great it is.
and Mind altering from hallucinating is amazing. Have you ever done a hallucinogen like LSD or Mushrooms? It’s fucking awesome. I’ll add prescriptions have also made me hallucinate. The best experiences I’ve had in my life were on drugs. Do you see where I’m coming from? I’m perfectly content with my life right now. It’s the best it’s ever been. I know I’d probably never be able to quit drugs, but I still go about my life happy while using them.
I’d NEVER try to talk anyone into doing them, nor would I pressure them to. I freak out at people that do that. It’s completely unnecessary.
thats a lie happy people do get addictions
See as well for me cutting is just another form of self harm, i call mine my crimson regret, i call my scars my map of pain… It reminds me of zebra print due to the way the scars line on my arm,
I have so many “traits” i do without thinking.. I binge eat, i starve myself, i pull my hair out.. Head hair, eyelashes, eyebrows.. Any hair will do.. I cut, burn myself, drop things on my toes, punch doors, even a light switch on one occasion.. When i was younger i used to lie down in the middle of te road waiting to be run over, go jogging with no shoes on in winter..
I have said this several times now and people will get bored of reading it.. So appologies! I started selfharming at 3 years old, im now a ripe old ageof 27 (eep!) I dont cut or burn very often only when ive exhausted all my other “feel better” methods.. I do however have eating issues most days and pull out my hair every day (linked to anxiety).
The hair pulling is an addiction, i do it without thinking.. Controlled eating / binge eating is deffinately an addiction.. But it controls me, i dont control it, no matter how much i try to convince myself otherwise.
My anxiety is in social situations. I can’t look people in the eyes. Immediately my eyes avert from theirs and I stare at the floor, the wall, their shoulder, anything to look like I’m paying attention without looking directly at them. It’s instinctive for me, also. I remember this one vice principal I had, I HATED her. I dislike many people, but I only hate about four. She’s one. She would always say, “hey! Listen to me! LOOK INTO MY EYES!” I’d get suspended for not doing it. It was literally impossible no matter how much I tried to. There’s only one person who’s eyes I can get lost in, and that’s my boyfriends, usually during sex. I don’t even look my mom in the eyes.
I call it turning my mental pain into physical pain. I am a hypochondriac so i have stopped cutting because i feel that if my cut gets infected they are going to chop of my hand. But i still get the urge to do it.