To Self Injurers:
Cutting to relieve pain is like a drug addict shooting up to get high. However, with a drug, you can make the commitment to avoid it at all costs. You can refuse to be in its presence. With self-injury, there will always be an opportunity to fall back into poor coping skills. You can find an object to cut with just about anytime, anywhere.
Maybe you only cut occasionally when things are really bad, maybe you’re just trying it for the first time, or maybe you have escalated to the point where your life is in danger. No matter what degree of a cutter you are, there’s a problem that needs to be admitted. You’re not handling things in a healthy way, and you owe it to yourself to get help.
It’s difficult to say what brings a cutter to the disease, but poor coping skills can be developed during almost any crisis in your life. You might have tried it for the first time after failing a class, maybe you’re trying to process the physical or sexual abuse you’ve suffered in the past, or maybe the love of your life just decided that they don’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore. Regardless of how it began, cutting is about taking some kind of control over your emotions. Since you can’t control how you feel inside, you’re going to control how you feel and how you appear on the outside. You get some kind of satisfaction from the blood that trickles down. What you find eventually find is that more and more is necessary to be satisfied. The greater the satisfaction, the closer you are to ruining your life.
So before things get any more dangerous, you must learn not only how to be courageous but also how to truly let go. Let go of the absolute need to be in control, let go so the true issues can surface, let go so the people who love you can help you out of the darkness, and let go so that you can be free to actually live this life. Do it now so you don’t bury your problems so deep that you lose the perspective that what your problems are now, probably won’t be that way forever.
Don’t be afraid to get help. Take all the support you can get and don’t be ashamed. Get help from friends, family, and professionals that have seen people survive this. Just as drug addicts need rehabs, counseling, and support groups, so do the cutters to overcome their addiction. This is going to take courage, commitment, and time, but the reward is having the opportunity to become the person you deserve to be.
Make it one day. Then wake up and make it another day. Then get up and try to make it again. You deserve a chance at a better life.