tw: self harm, suicide

This is going to be the hardest article I've written. And I've written long articles on feminist and political theory, and honest tributes to sexuality and body image. They say that our best works are the things we are most afraid to write. So this better rock. Here it goes.

We begin with high school freshman Kayla. She is confused, she feels unloved. She's not quite sure how to do her makeup. She is just now discovering she can sing. She takes the bus to school. She recently came out as bisexual and has a raging crush on her friend. She falls asleep in English but her teacher understands. She looks at her arm one day in Biology and decides she wants to leave marks on it.

She goes home and cuts into her arm with a thumbtack, in five parallel lines. Somehow she thinks she can get away with wearing long sleeves every day. Her stepmom notices the marks. She gets put on medication for depression.

I don't exactly remember why I started cutting myself. I don't think there's any one reason for doing anything that we do, especially when we are in a complex state of mind. I do know one thing: I wish I had never started self harming. Do I resent myself for it? No. But if I had the chance to redo that part of my life, I would. It would save a lot of secrets, a lot of shame, a whole lot of broken hearts.

If you ever know what it's like to truly be addicted to something, you know that a whole other part of your being controls your need for the addiction. Your heart is always aching for you to stop. Your soul is breaking with each relapse. For me, self harm was not a habit. It was an addiction. There was a point in my life where every day I would cut myself. I would keep track of days I went without it as a way of progress. I don't think I got past more than 6 days.

My spirit was in a dark place, it was indescribable. I believe there is a difference between having depression, and having a severe, soul-sucking, heart-shattering depression. A depression where every single moment is like wading through mud, where even happy moments feel like nothing. Where you literally go to bed each night begging the universe to not let you wake up the next morning. It's hard to describe to someone that has never felt it, but you basically always feel like you just had an awful breakup. It's like the world dumped you.

Scientists believe self harm releases endorphins and therefore gives a brief relief from sadness. You have to be in an awful, numb, state of mind to result to this. I was there most of the time. Even days when I was doing alright, I would cut myself. It became routine. If I skipped a day of cutting, I would not feel an accomplishment. I would feel lost.

My mom, dad, and stepmom all tried their best to understand. It is a hard thing to understand, to see someone you love deliberately hurt themselves regardless of your love, ultimatums, and incentives. I can't imagine what it must feel like to ask your daughter to stop hurting herself, and she flat out tells you no. I recall my mother seeing me cut myself on a day where I won an award. She cried out to me, "I thought today was a good day."

I thought today was a good day, too. Which is why it had hurt so much to be sad.

When you are addicted to self harm, you eventually come to a place of acceptance, and you decide not to stop or try to heal. This is the darkest place you can be. This is the point where you don't care how deep you cut, how much, where, when, how, who notices.

The school social worker will call you in and sigh, because she got another report from your teachers that you have cuts all over your arms. Your therapist stops listing off alternatives to self harm, because you stop listening to them. Your family has no idea what to do.

Everyone has given up.

I was at a point where I was put on medicine that is normally prescribed for heroin addicts. It made me vomit, so I stopped taking it.

Very few things brought me joy. Choir and theater were small parts of my day that got me through my freshman and sophomore year.

I honestly did not think I'd be alive for college. I figured I'd either kill myself on purpose or by accident. At one point I was very, very close to being put in the hospital. This is a very gruesome thing for me to type now, but at this point in my life it seemed completely reasonable. It was like a passing thought, almost like "Taco Bell sounds really good right now."

I couldn't tell you how I came out of my addiction and deep depression. When someone asks me how I did it, I just say: "time".

I can't label this as a success story. Those close to me know I still have self-harm relapses. It's been 6 years since I started cutting, but I know I'm in a better place, because now I self harm maybe once every few months. That is nothing compared to every single day, sometimes twice a day. I am in a better place.

I now understand myself and my mental illness better. I can sense when I'm going to have a bad mental health day, and I work to cope with it. I can usually find alternatives to hurting myself. Sometimes I can't, and that's okay. I was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which has already helped tremendously with understanding why I act the way I do sometimes. Self harm is a very common symptom of BPD, along with uncooperativeness and very negative self image.

I wear shorts and short sleeves almost every day. I used treatments to reduce most of my scars, but there are still some there. If you were to sit down and count all of them, even the faded ones, you would count over 500 scars. It's certainly not pretty, but I'm not going to go out of my way to hide them when they aren't going anywhere. Friends and partners have been supportive and understanding. Some haven't. I move on.

I wrote this article not only to get my story out there to those who may not know it, but to show others addicted to self harm that you're not alone. I know it's cheesy and cliche to say, but it's true. Instead of waking up each morning wondering where the nearest sharp object is, I wake up thinking about my classes, my friends, doing my makeup.

And though I still have my depression, anxiety, and BPD to deal with, most days I come home and think:

I thought today was a good day.

Note: My cover photo of this article is a picture of me at this time in my life. I was a fairy in the school play, with noticeable cuts on my arm.