I felt like my life was out of control. I felt numb. I felt like the most worthless being in existence.
At A Glance Author Toni Contact Toni@bme.anon When N/A Artist Myself Studio At home mostly Location England I didn't want to feel this anymore and that is why I self harmed.
I don't believe anyone can truly understand what someone who self harms goes through until they experience it themselves. For me it has been the only thing that I have been able to rely upon, the only thing that has been a constant support through some of the most turbulent times of my life.
I started self harming initially at the age of around 13 by my dog so much he'd bite me, so I ended up with bite/ scratch marks all over my arm – it made me feel alive, it meant I could cope.
At that time I knew what it was like to be alone.... My mum was depressed and my dad was abusive, I had no friends outside of school, and I couldn't talk about it at school because school was my escape from what was taking place at home. For a while I felt extremely suicidal... but I didn't want to die, I just wanted some sort of escape from what was going on at home.
I only really started cutting after my parents had split up and I had moved away from the only friend I had made outside of school, I had no social life, and was taking care of not only my brother and sister, but my mum too after her breakdown. Cutting for me was a way of keeping my emotions in control. In the beginning I didn't truly know what self harm was and to me, it didn't seen like what I was doing was wrong or bad, although I knew other people would see it that way.
Whenever I have self harmed I have always felt like I have been in a sort of ... very focused state of mind, my only goal was to self harm, it was the only thing I felt I had, and needed to do. I never felt the pain of it until afterwards and to start with I always felt huge relief because it transformed my emotional pain into something physical to take my attention away from what I was thinking or feeling inside. I also felt huge shame and slight horror at what I had done... mainly because of how I knew people would react if they ever saw, it has always been something very private and personal to me.
At the beginning I did very few cuts, no more than 20 at a time, and all very shallow... but as time progressed it slowly got worse and at my worst moment I would end up with 200 or more cuts on my arms at any one time, not counting the ones elsewhere on my body, that was when I knew it was getting out of control. I tried to stop, but it had become an addiction and I began to resent it each time I did it, where it had been a comfort before I now began to hate my body more and more.
After trying to quit again I managed not to cut but I ended up burning myself instead, a habit I wish I had never taken up... I found a whole lot more satisfying because it took me so long to heal, so the pain lasted longer, unfortunately it left me with a lot more scarred which were noticeably more visible.
Several years down the line I am still trying to stop self harming because I have always found it difficult to come to terms with becoming dependant on something other than myself to help me control my emotions, and I still get scared at the thought of it controlling me like it used to.
My problems have largely left me but my addiction I feel will be with me for life, the urge will always be there but I am trying to learn to love my body as it is - with all its scars, I am trying to see them not as scars of weakness but as symbols and signs of the hardships which I have been through and largely to remind my that what I have been through was real.
They are becoming beautiful to me, and are as part of me as any other part of my body; they no longer look foreign and out of place to me. I haven't succeeded in stopping I still have the odd relapse of will but at the moment if I ever do get the urge I'm not doing it to the same degree and I feel like I have some control of the self harm... its not the self harm which is controlling me.
I'm still trying to work up the courage to walk around in public without covering up my scars and not feeling any shame whilst doing so, I don't want to do it because I want people to see... I want to do it as a final conformation of loving my body as it is and not being ashamed of having used self harm to cope, its who I am and I cant change it.
I can understand why people self harm, why they want to carry on and why they want to stop, but I think it is important to know when to say when and when see that things are getting out of hand, because after all self harm can have very dangerous consequences. I think self harm is one of the most misunderstood acts which people undertake and no one truly knows what its like until it happens to them.