I hear things now and again on TV and in magazines about cutting, but no one ever talks about what it’s really like to experience. It hurts. It hurts like hell, but in a good way. There is something in you that wants to stop you from hurting yourself, some sort of self-preservation reflex, so when you triumph over that, you feel stronger, brave even. The pain is the question and the answer. I didn’t feel crazy or out of it when I would do it. Honestly, it was probably the most present I have ever been in my life.
Even though I went through a period where I seriously thought about suicide, cutting doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to kill yourself. I think it means the opposite. I wanted to feel, I wanted to be alive; I was just sick of being in pain and feeling like I had no control over my boundaries. So, I took control and self-administered my pain to myself in doses that I could control.
When the blood started coming out, it felt like bad energy was coming out of me. The deeper I could go, the better I felt, I guess because it made me feel strong that I could endure that pain. After, when I was bandaged up and walking around in the world, I felt at peace, and I felt excited about what I was hiding. It was mine, in some way. And I wasn’t doing that cry-for-help-maybe-someone-will-see-it stuff. I went to great lengths to hide it. To this day, only my ex and my doctor know about it.
There is not a time when I cut myself that I didn’t feel better afterwards. It always worked.
Something that bothers me when I read about cutting is that people automatically assume that the people doing it are different or sick or failed people. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If you met me, you would never know I had that in my past. Through all of that, I excelled in everything I did. I was a top student, a talented artist, a great friend. I had a lot of boyfriends. I am attractive and have a nice body. I am an aunt, and my nieces and nephews adore me. I have always had great jobs, I was successful in many ways, and everyone thought I had my shit together. But underneath it all, I was in pain.
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