They say the first cut is always the deepest, mentally.
Physically it started with a small scrape, just enough for the skin to break…but not enough for any bleeding to occur. Looking back, I still wonder what made me self-harm for the first time two years ago. Why did I think that cutting my arms would make me feel better?? I didn’t want to die, yet couldn’t have cared less if I did.
At the time I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong. I just needed to release all the pain that was inside. Every time I self-harmed, the chaos within my mind would stop, and there would be a moment of calm. And that moment of calm was exactly why I could not stop self-harming after that first scrape.
You probably think I’m crazy! I mean who deliberately causes themselves physical pain in order to release the mental pain inside?! It seems so irrational right?? And it is!
But I still continued to do it because I was thinking irrationally and I desperately needed that feeling of calm that came with it. It was almost as if something had taken over me. Whenever I self-harmed, I couldn’t control myself – I was being controlled.
People self-harm for different reasons. For me, I guess it was just a mess of anxiety/emotions within me that needed a way out. I just wanted to stop feeling emotions altogether. But sometimes I felt so emotionless/so numb that I simply self-harmed just for the sake of feeling pain. In one scenario I self-harmed to stop feeling emotions…yet in another scenario I self-harmed in order to reassure myself that I wasn’t a hollow shell; that despite the numbness I felt within, I could still feel pain. Wow I confuse myself sometimes.
My eating disorder made me feel like an empty shell at times, but at other times it made me feel anxiety through every single cell in my body.
Another thing about self-harm is that it leaves scars. Scars that you’ll look back on at one day and wonder why on earth you ever started. It’s been two years since I started self-harming. I’ve stopped now and I can proudly say that I am officially 3 months free from self-harm!
And here’s why I finally decided to stop:
Whenever I self-harmed, I came to the realization that I simply was not thinking straight. The chaos within my mind clouded my vision. My mind convinced me that whatever I was currently feeling would be permanent, and the only way to release those emotions was to self-harm. The chaos within my own mind made me lose all ability to think rationally. All the while I thought self-harming would make me feel better. But in reality it just made me feel worse – it made me hate myself even more. And I’m glad I finally came to realize that!
Once I realised that self-harming didn’t make me feel better, I stopped. Well…tried to. Of course there were times when I’d relapse, but slowly the urge to self-harm reduced in frequency. Now the urge to self-harm is barely even there anymore. And this makes me wonder if that feeling of ‘release’ I’d gotten from self-harming before, was even real? Or was it something my mind made up to mask the feelings of guilt and shame I’d feel afterwards?
Self-harm is not worth it. The scars that remain, the physical pain that follows, the look of hurt on your parents’ face when they find out; none of that is worth that ‘quick release’ you trick yourself into gaining from self-harm.
Eventually you learn that feelings will come and go – feelings won’t kill you. Feelings will only kill you if you allow them to. All feelings will come to pass, and just because you’re feeling this way now, doesn’t mean you’ll be feeling like this forever. Remember that!
The first cut is always the deepest. I’ll always regret the day I first self-harmed, but now at least I know I’ll never regret the decision to stop.
My life is worth living. My body is worth taking care of. And so is yours.