By Anonymous, Contributor, Emerson College
I remember the first time I did it. I was in 5th grade, a chubby ten year old girl with larger than average thighs and frizzy hair. I was an awkward child who didn’t know how to socialize. I sat alone at the lunch table, named leaves and sticks on the ground at recess so I wouldn’t be playing by myself, and rode my bike back to my house solo as I watched the other children who lived in my neighborhood ride home together. I was alone. I felt alone at home, alone at school, and alone inside.
One day, I was sitting on the toilet of the Florida rental house my family had moved in to at the start of the year. While we waited for our new house to be built, we lived in this rental house during the meantime so I could acclimate to my new environment. However, acclimating with people my own age was a joke. Wherever I was, Massachusetts or Florida, I was a freak.
I opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and touched the cold silver handle of my father’s razor. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I had only heard about it on the internet, but I was desperate. I wanted to try anything to feel happy, to feel as if I wasn’t the only person who knew I was alive. So I brushed the cool, sharp blades over my left arm and watched as small drops of blood surfaced. For then that’s all I needed - just a few speckles of red to release the anxiety and self-hatred building inside me, ready to explode like a bomb.
I brought my arm to the sink and watched as the water turned pink and my frustrations trickled down the drain. I threw on my older brother’s large sweatshirt and wore one just like it until the end of middle school. In 8th grade, my best friend saw one of the scars on my arm when the sleeve of my uniform sweatshirt slipped up. “Oh my god,” she said. “What happened?” I didn’t respond to her urgent questions and just brushed them off, explaining that my cat got aggressive when we were playing a few nights before. She believed me. I wore the same black sweatshirt that advertised my small Jewish day school every day and sweated as the Florida sun pounded on my cheeks.
A few weeks later I was washing my hands after a frog dissection in science class and, thinking no one was around, quickly pulled up my sleeve so I could get all of the formaldehyde off my hands. The same friend from before was behind me, quietly studying the fresh and old scars on my arm. “Your cat got you again?” she said. I could tell in her voice she understand what she was looking at. I pushed my sleeves down violently and took my seat in the corner desk.
That night I knew it was all over. I knew she would tell one of the teachers who would tell the Rabbi, who would probably think I was a mess of a child and force me to see a counselor. I sat down in the same position I sat on that first day three years ago and lifted up my sleeve, gently rubbing my fingertip over the scars that told a story of pain on my arms. This time my father’s razor blade would not be enough. I needed something sharper, something that would cut deeper and let me float away into a world of freedom, a world where I could finally be happy, be me.
I reached into my mother’s makeup bag for the thin manicure scissors she used to cut my fingernails, and fiercely punctured my skin with its sharp tip. I cringed as I forced myself to use the scissors to pull away my tender skin and create a deep canal that ran across my arm.
This was the last time I cut myself. It was also the last time my parents let me be alone for a long time.
Moments after dropping my mother’s manicure scissors, I passed out on the bathroom floor from blood loss. I woke up in the hospital’s emergency room with a needle in my arm. The doctor gave me fifteen stitches and a pediatric shrink came to lecture me on the dangers of self-harm and how I needed to learn new coping mechanisms to control my anger. I had nothing to say. I was embarrassed, depressed, numb.
It's five years later, and I haven’t cut since. Every day is a challenge. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder, who am I? Who is this sad young adult who thinks all the time about hurting herself? Every day I struggle to stay “sober”. Self-harm is an addiction just as serious as drugs or alcohol. Instead of poisoning my body with narcotics and alcohol, I allowed blood to drip down my arms, risking cutting too deep and killing myself. But since the night that led me to the hospital, I haven’t touched my arm with a razor blade. I have controlled my hunger for an escape and learned a new way to cope with the self-hatred that often overtook me.
Depression is a serious problem in the world, and it affects almost everyone on some level. As a college student, I become overwhelmed with the opportunities of success and failure all around me. Often, I am tempted to drop back down to the low place I was once in, but stop myself in order to keep control. I know I am not the only person struggling with these temptations, but what I don’t know is why self-harm is such a taboo topic. Just as sexual assault, drug addiction, and mental illness have stigma attached to them, so does self-harm. America needs to wake up and begin to address the growing epidemic that is plaguing our society.
Many adolescents, young adults, and even older members of our community are struggling to cope with an addiction that is not spoken about. In order for me and other self-harm survivors to move on and grow, this issue needs to be spoken about. At home and in school, younger generations need to learn about self-mutilation just as they learn about drug and alcohol abuse. Society needs to step up and begin to combat this problem that can tear apart younger generations all over the world. One in nine teens self-harm. This is far too many. When will people begin to understand the urgency? When will people look at the scars on my arms and allow me to tell my story? When will our generation learn?
I remember the first time I did it. I was in 5th grade, a chubby ten year old girl with larger than average thighs and frizzy hair. I was an awkward child who didn’t know how to socialize. I sat alone at the lunch table, named leaves and sticks on the ground at recess so I wouldn’t be playing by myself, and rode my bike back to my house solo as I watched the other children who lived in my neighborhood ride home together. I was alone. I felt alone at home, alone at school, and alone inside.
One day, I was sitting on the toilet of the Florida rental house my family had moved in to at the start of the year. While we waited for our new house to be built, we lived in this rental house during the meantime so I could acclimate to my new environment. However, acclimating with people my own age was a joke. Wherever I was, Massachusetts or Florida, I was a freak.
I opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and touched the cold silver handle of my father’s razor. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I had only heard about it on the internet, but I was desperate. I wanted to try anything to feel happy, to feel as if I wasn’t the only person who knew I was alive. So I brushed the cool, sharp blades over my left arm and watched as small drops of blood surfaced. For then that’s all I needed - just a few speckles of red to release the anxiety and self-hatred building inside me, ready to explode like a bomb.
I brought my arm to the sink and watched as the water turned pink and my frustrations trickled down the drain. I threw on my older brother’s large sweatshirt and wore one just like it until the end of middle school. In 8th grade, my best friend saw one of the scars on my arm when the sleeve of my uniform sweatshirt slipped up. “Oh my god,” she said. “What happened?” I didn’t respond to her urgent questions and just brushed them off, explaining that my cat got aggressive when we were playing a few nights before. She believed me. I wore the same black sweatshirt that advertised my small Jewish day school every day and sweated as the Florida sun pounded on my cheeks.
A few weeks later I was washing my hands after a frog dissection in science class and, thinking no one was around, quickly pulled up my sleeve so I could get all of the formaldehyde off my hands. The same friend from before was behind me, quietly studying the fresh and old scars on my arm. “Your cat got you again?” she said. I could tell in her voice she understand what she was looking at. I pushed my sleeves down violently and took my seat in the corner desk.
That night I knew it was all over. I knew she would tell one of the teachers who would tell the Rabbi, who would probably think I was a mess of a child and force me to see a counselor. I sat down in the same position I sat on that first day three years ago and lifted up my sleeve, gently rubbing my fingertip over the scars that told a story of pain on my arms. This time my father’s razor blade would not be enough. I needed something sharper, something that would cut deeper and let me float away into a world of freedom, a world where I could finally be happy, be me.
I reached into my mother’s makeup bag for the thin manicure scissors she used to cut my fingernails, and fiercely punctured my skin with its sharp tip. I cringed as I forced myself to use the scissors to pull away my tender skin and create a deep canal that ran across my arm.
This was the last time I cut myself. It was also the last time my parents let me be alone for a long time.
Moments after dropping my mother’s manicure scissors, I passed out on the bathroom floor from blood loss. I woke up in the hospital’s emergency room with a needle in my arm. The doctor gave me fifteen stitches and a pediatric shrink came to lecture me on the dangers of self-harm and how I needed to learn new coping mechanisms to control my anger. I had nothing to say. I was embarrassed, depressed, numb.
It's five years later, and I haven’t cut since. Every day is a challenge. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder, who am I? Who is this sad young adult who thinks all the time about hurting herself? Every day I struggle to stay “sober”. Self-harm is an addiction just as serious as drugs or alcohol. Instead of poisoning my body with narcotics and alcohol, I allowed blood to drip down my arms, risking cutting too deep and killing myself. But since the night that led me to the hospital, I haven’t touched my arm with a razor blade. I have controlled my hunger for an escape and learned a new way to cope with the self-hatred that often overtook me.
Depression is a serious problem in the world, and it affects almost everyone on some level. As a college student, I become overwhelmed with the opportunities of success and failure all around me. Often, I am tempted to drop back down to the low place I was once in, but stop myself in order to keep control. I know I am not the only person struggling with these temptations, but what I don’t know is why self-harm is such a taboo topic. Just as sexual assault, drug addiction, and mental illness have stigma attached to them, so does self-harm. America needs to wake up and begin to address the growing epidemic that is plaguing our society.
Many adolescents, young adults, and even older members of our community are struggling to cope with an addiction that is not spoken about. In order for me and other self-harm survivors to move on and grow, this issue needs to be spoken about. At home and in school, younger generations need to learn about self-mutilation just as they learn about drug and alcohol abuse. Society needs to step up and begin to combat this problem that can tear apart younger generations all over the world. One in nine teens self-harm. This is far too many. When will people begin to understand the urgency? When will people look at the scars on my arms and allow me to tell my story? When will our generation learn?