Confessions

I wanted to write this because I'm in a really weird spot at the moment. I just felt like I needed to get it out there before I exploded with emotional unrest. Haha...

I've been self-harming since around the age of 14. It started with "I just want to see what happens" and escalated into self-harming whenever I was upset. A couple times, my mother caught me and tried to intervene. She even threatened to send me to a psych ward to help me out. I insisted that it was just a phase and didn't really think much of it; I didn't understand why she was so upset. Those urges continued until the end of my senior year, when I met my boyfriend. I quit smoking and harming to make him happy, and didn't really tell him much about it. I call that period of my life "The Dark Period" because it was really awful in perspective and I haven't ever told many people what happened. I just tell them that I don't want to think about it.

I'm now 21, but I haven't really been able to shake the habit. Usually, I cut my arm up and that will "suffice" for the time being, but recently I've also been starting to starve myself for a few days at a time if I'm really upset. I kind of feel like I'm in a different mind when these things happen; sort of like, well I don't know, having an out of body experience. I'm remotely aware that it is happening, but I just let myself continue to let it happen. It almost feels like I have no self control over what I'm doing to myself. The most recent episode was about two weeks ago, when I was (very wrongly) afraid that my boyfriend of three years was cheating on me. I have a habit of getting extremely paranoid for no reason, and that is usually the panic that sets me into my "mode" for lack of a better word. Well, my boyfriend was out of the house, and I figured no one was there to see it happen, so I took out my box cutter that I keep on a shelf. I think I might have gotten my arm badly enough that there will be scars in place of clear skin, and I've taken to wearing a fleece jacket every day so it can't distract or attract attention. Luckily, the weather is getting colder, so for now, it works.

Last week, after he found out that I thought he cheated on me, I went into a rage about how awful I felt (not about the cheating, but about life) and how I could feel the depression from my earlier years coming back and haunting me. I went about three days without sleeping because I think I convinced my brain that the depression was a physical being. Obviously I know it isn't, but really, I wasn't in a state of mind to deal with it. I had gone so long without sleep and without eating that I could almost feel the hallucinations coming on. In a panic that my boyfriend was going to think I didn't love him (paranoia...), I shoved the sleeve of my jacket up and screamed at him that "This was the last week of my life" referring to how I had harmed myself three times that week because I felt so alone and unwanted. He literally tackled me and started to take the jacket away from me, and immediately I thought that I never should have shown him and that was the moment where I think I realized I can't do this anymore. It's really not worth having to hurt other people, miss school, work, and be in physical pain anymore.

I honestly don't know what it is going to take in order to make this stop, but if it's something that has helped other people, I'm game to at least try. It's been a part of my life for so long that I'm afraid I might not be able to live without it, but it's just like having a drinking problem or otherwise; it takes time. I'm willing to try if you're willing to help.