Self-Injury

     For those of you who don't understand cutting, here is my definition that I created from my own beliefs, and from some other ideas on the net:

     The person who is victim to this behavior feels powerless in most every other aspect of life. Feelings of guilt, or the absence of any feelings at all, are often the triggering emotions. Cutting is the act of self-injury. This includes cutting skin with sharp objects, hitting head against walls, burning with lighters, and breaking bones. Cutting the skin with sharp objects is the most prevalent, this is why it is commonly referred to as "cutting." There are many different methods of self injury, and there are many different reasons that people do it. It varies in every individual situation. Si is not a simple thing to stop. It is symbolic of profound emotional damage, and chaotic feelings of guilt, pain, sadness, neglect, abuse, and many others.

Many cutters accidentaly committ suicide, and the ones who don't are treated like psychotics and outcasts by most of society. The scars created by self injury last forever, not only on the exterior, but on the inside also.

My story:

The first time I cut was a suicide attempt. Atleast I thought it was at the time. I had just spent a semester wasting my energy trying to feel emotional satisfaction by pursuing my roommate's boyfriend. When I got what I was after, I felt like shit and my roommate wanted to kill me. I was spending entire days in my room because I was scared to go into any other part of the house. (Because I still spent time with her boyfriend.) By the end of the semester, my personal and emotional chaos had spilled over into my academic work, and I realized that I was failing every class. I didn't see a way out, and I felt completely isolated. My ex-boyfriend came over and found me in the tub. The ambulance came, yadda yadda...it was all very dramatic, and I hated every second. I felt completely out of myself. I did it for a way out. I just wanted to feel sane again.