Recently I have been close to the deep end, and somehow I found a pen and decided to write all the bad things I felt about myself all over my body. Attached are pictures from that night. It turned into a very personal and somewhat beautiful piece of art.

Later after showing some mentors and friends the pictures I was asked to do another project like it. The difference being that the new project I used quotes that my peers had contibuted. Things so simple to discribe me such as “beautiful,” “healing,” and even “Wisher of the un-birthday”

I was then asked to take those pictures and make them into a video* and the end result was not only beautiful in a completely different way, but it also opened my eyes upon myself and I want to share my art with you.

- Kimber LeAnn Coon-

* I’m having a few issues with the video. To watch it, try using Firefox or go to the direct link.

 I’ve been having a hard time. No—that is an understatement. I’ve been having a hell of a time.

 A few months ago, I started a new job. It is my first “real” job—the first job that has allowed me to be 100% economically independent. Thus, it is very important for me. This job, however, implies a lot of stress. In all honesty, I don’t think the stress is related so much to the job itself, but more with my inability to deal with pressure. I am too self-demanding (as my therapist reminds me repeatedly), and this has taken its toll.

 About a month after I started this new job, I started getting sick. Basically, everything I ate made me sick. I went to several stomach specialists, and had about a million tests done, and nothing showed up. As the months went by, things got worse, and there was still no answer.

 Finally, the doctors concluded it is all in my head. That is, it is all due to stress.

 I usually would have denied such a notion except—well, the sickness isn’t my only symptom. About a couple of months ago I started having panic attacks. At first, I tried to ignore them, to force myself to realize it was all due to anxiety, but the truth is that they have gotten too bad to ignore.

 I don’t know if any of you have ever had panic attacks, but, in a way, I think the feeling is very much like the need to self-harm, except in extreme. I mean… there is the idea that there is something WRONG and that you have to ESCAPE— or, in my case, hide at home.

 I’ve called my old psychologist (she helped me with my self-injury a few years ago), and she suggested I go to the psychiatrist, though she believed I could get over it with therapy.

 The thing is, my moods have been soo— so ANGSTY that the urge to self-harm has come in full force. Even when I’m not in the middle of a panic attack, I suddenly get afraid… and then, I feel guilty and start apologizing for no reason, and then I’m hyper and want to get “things done”, and then I’m in impatient and angry, and then I’m frightened and guilty all over again. Of course, my poor boyfriend has had to put up with this: from watching me become petrified at the mere thought of going to his birthday party, to hearing me apologize to him about 100 times a day, to having me yell at him because he couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy himself an ice-cream or not.

 And then, I get sick again, and feel tired and depressed.

 So, last week, it was all a bit much for me and I NEEDED to cut. It was—I don’t know. I had the logical notion that it wouldn’t help anything, but I felt TRAPPED- trapped in my sick body, trapped in this instability, trapped without being able to explain WHY I felt the things I was feeling.

 I didn’t cut.

 As much as I wanted to, I resisted. What did I do? I grabbed some paint and paintbrushes and started writing what I felt all over my body. I couldn’t put things into my own words- not yet- but I wrote bits of lyrics that I felt said what I wasn’t able to.

 Then, I put on my clothes, and left for my first appointment with the psychiatrist.

 The point is—I felt embarrassed I had done it. My boyfriend (who saw what I had done later that night) insisted that it was fine, that the fact that I had used paint instead of hurting myself was good. Yet, I felt like the stupidest person in the world. I kept trying to pull up my shirt so the psychiatrist wouldn’t see what I had done. What sort of grown woman does things like that? I’m almost 26 years old! I want to be independent, I want to marry, I want to be so many things! And then I go off and do something teenage and silly like this.

 And I guess the reason I did it is because I’ve never been good at expressing what I feel. My psychiatrist asked if I had been having mood swings, and as much as my very loyal boyfriend and myself tried to minimize the situation, she saw right through me. She handed me some mood stabilizers, some anxiety pills, and told me to take a few weeks off work.

 I haven’t yet started taking the pills. My psychologist had suggested that I consult her before taking anything, since psychiatrists tend to over-medicalize people. So, my intention is to go to my next therapy session and convince the psychologist that I do not need those pills.

 Except—I keep feeling anxious. I keep feeling like tearing up my skin. And I HATE it, because I feel like I should be grown up enough to know better.

 So this is my story, and my excuse. I apologize to everyone who has sent contributions that I haven’t posted. I’m very very sorry. I promise that I will do it soon.

-Dusty-

The scars still shine
where the blood used to flow
My head’s screeching yes
my heart’s pleading no
 
And my hands are shaky
as i reach for the knife
To end all this pain
help forget all my strife
 
They’ll never know
They can’t stop me
Its my life, my choice
My pain, my body
 
But why am i scared
Why am i torn into two?
Half is saying “THIS IS ME!”
The other “Who are you?”
 
And the tears don’t run
cause my body is numb
as i press the blade down
i starts to drown
in the pain, in the relief
 
In the freedom of thought
That cannot be brought
By anything money can buy
 
And i know who i am
i know i am strong
i can do this, I’m right, I’m powerful
But why does it still feel wrong?
 
There’s so much to gain
from causing me pain
But I can’t stop,
Im addicted
 
I know i MUST stop
I’ve got to get better
Everyone says that I’m sick
 
But I know I’m fine
This is just how i live
Without spilling my blood
I’ve got nothing to give
 
I’m so scared of myself
of what i have done
I’m so scared of the power i felt
 
Of the need for more
of the hunger for pain
 
Im scared of myself
and what i’ve become
i can’t stop what I’ve started
It’s already done
 
Who am I?
Who have I turned into?
I’m so lost, so helpless
What do I do?

-Harmony-

Drain

Last night I cut my arms again

To drain away my soul

To drain away the friends I lost

To drain away my “home”

Last night I used that knife again

Just like the one you used

To cut my heart in little bits

To make me feel confused

 I came back down from my cloud

And it suddenly began to rain

And I couldn’t stop it

No, I couldn’t stop the pain

 And last night you broke my heart again

You told me you didn’t love me

And the voices in my head began

Trying to keep me company

And I’m just under so much pressure

And my family only hurts

I never really can measure

And you just didn’t care

 So last night I cut my arms again

To drain you and the world

To drain away myself again

To drain away the girl. 

- Dusty-

If you can’t see this image completly, please go here: Harmony’s Art

Aeondra’s story also brings up the issue of counceling. Many of the cutter’s I’ve know– both on and offline, view counseling as something negative. And yes, on the outside, sharing your life with someone you don’t know and who is getting payed to talk to you may seem absolutly invasive and futile. For me, however, therapy was very important; it still IS important, whenever I have a crisis. Perhaps it is  not for everyone… but I think that one of the reasons people cut is because they need to vent out, to manifest their internal pain in an external way, it is a way to defeat anxiety. For me, that is what therapy was about: venting out. Putting into words what I would like to carve into my skin. It may not have a practical purpose… but, if you think about it, cutting doesn’t either.

There are still times when I feel like my life doesn’t mean anything. I still consider suicide as an answer to my problems. I still cut occasionally but I’m trying to stop. Honestly, the only reason that I’m still living is for other people; the people that I love. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone or anything. Committing suicide would only hurt the people closest to me. That is the worst thing that I could do.
I’m fourteen years old, almost fifteen. I had fallen into depression about a year ago when I had discovered that I had been assaulted by a 50 year old male. He had been my music teacher. It hurt me since I was already in bad shape as it was and I had really trusted him; everyone had. I had slipped up because I had trusted other peoples’ judgments. It wouldn’t happen again.
School life wasn’t going well, all of my friends weren’t really friends, they were merely acquaintances. Part-time friends. I was afraid to be who I really was and my personality was muffled. Soon, I stopped talking to people and began to drift away, becoming anti-social and depressing to be around. I was silent most of the time and sat in corners. I was not trying to attract attention, but rather just the opposite. But as most things happen to me, the teachers noticed things. They asked me what was wrong and I refuted all accusations and changed the subject. I kept everyone in the dark until February.
All winter, I lived my life in my room. I kept the door closed and listened to headphones, trying to block out the world and return to my imaginary refuge. Soon, I resorted to cutting, starting shallow and working my way deeper. Being naïve, I cut on my wrist and lower arm, but wore long sleeves. At times, I ran into the dilemma of P.E. class in which I simply wrapped it in a bandage and faked temporary injury even though the real injury was far from temporary. In fact, I still have scars to remind me what it felt like.
It was the morning of February 14, Valentine’s Day, when my parents saw them. They dismissed my younger brother from the table and gave me a speech about how scared they were of me and  that they wanted me to go to counseling. I had to go over the entire story while I left out most of the story because either they were personal secrets or I honestly didn’t know why. They watched me closely the next few months, but I managed a few episodes behind their backs. It was becoming a habit instead of a chore.
I have no problem mutilating myself. It’s one of my main flaws. I was caught once more in March, but at that point it didn’t matter. My parents forced me to go to counseling and wouldn’t let me go into my room until it was bedtime which made me all the more angry.  It was the second time I had gone and I still didn’t like it. I pretended to like the counselor and lied most of the time. I wasn’t going to tell a complete stranger my secrets. The last time I had done that and put my trust in someone, it had ended catastrophically. Then a good thing happened. I was accepted into a boarding high school.
I pretended that I was enjoying every single day of the summer before school, but really, I was dying to get away. I didn’t care how bad it was there, it couldn’t have been as tormenting as it was at home.
I started school and hated the school but loved the people. I couldn’t leave now that I’ve made so many friends. I’d roomed with the best girls I’d ever met and it all worked out. I became friends with most of the teachers especially my English teacher. I could tell her anything and she would be able to take it without flipping out on me like everyone else that I knew did. She became my best friend. Soon, I realized that she was a teacher who was married, had a home and another life and I was only a minor part. I realized that I had to back out of her life because I was taking up too much of her time even though she insisted that she loved talking to me. I didn’t believe her. I hadn’t believed anyone who said that I was beautiful or funny or intelligent or great because they were just wasting their time. Ever since early childhood, I’d never been able to take compliments because I thought they were just trying to say it to be nice. My life seemed to be a big lie.
I began cutting again. It felt good. Like oxygen flowing into air-deprived lungs. I found that even though I was learning and loving, the school made you into an non-emotional robot. I didn’t have the ability to cry. I was tearless while I cut my thighs in the dorm bathroom. After I was finished, I ran outside to cry but realized that the one tear that fell dried up almost as soon as it left my eye. Just like me, shriveled and dry, with no life left, just an empty shell.
So here I am, not knowing what I’m going to do with my life, whether I’m going to throw it all away or keep it for the good of others. I would much rather feel pain than nothing at all because at least that would prove to myself that I’m still real and not a ghost of the past.

- Aeondra

This is another entry from Scoby. I recently had a period like this and it sucks. I honestly think cutting is an addiction– you can rationalize it away all you want, you can resist doing it, but the desire is still there- the anxiety to doing is still there. There are periods in which that anxiety gets harder to control. I control it by trying to focus on other things, by avoiding music, by watching lots of silly movies, and, sometimes, just by crying. How about you? Are there periods in which you feel more need to self-injure? How do you control the urge?

Having one of those moments (more like weeks). My legs (and other places) are so hairy cause I don’t think I can trust myself with a razor, because I am so masochistic that I might just. I know I’ll always be a cutter, it doesn’t matter that I’ve gone six months without a hit, cause thats what it it, I’m a junkie, but what I am addicted to is not something a dealer can sell me. Calling me anything else would be wrong or invalid. Right now I have the shakes, I am sweating, and I am actually thinking about going to shave or cut a bagel – something that I can blame it on, cause I live on a floor with 25 other people and a roommate who would know something is up if I started wearing long sleeves shirts and pants to bed even though she’s never around. 
That may be why I have it so bad. I don’t think I’ve had the shakes this bad since the time I decided to stop and had a fight with my best friend. Okay,  honestly,  I decided to stop the second time (see? relapse, total junkie). I am just so fucking lonely, new city, new people, new family at home that I want to see grow up, like I want to see the twins and Rylee and Nevah, and my baby boy grow up, and I am here getting shitty marks! I know I should be working right now, and I am not going to put this off until tomorrow. I am going to do this tonight, not going to finish but going to start, really start it tonight.  I just need to vent. I really need to breath, it seems like breathing  is the hardest thing for me to do without hurting, and I sorta just want the pain to stop, I want to stop missing everyone! I really didn’t think I would miss, my family so much! I really didn’t think that I would miss my best friend this much! I knew I would miss her, but its been 103 days with out her, 36 to go before she leave for 240 days. Like, I knew it would be totally hard and different being without her. We’ve been best friends for 9 and a 1/2 years, and it kinda hurts being away from her. Everyone says we aren’t friends, we are not anything but ourselves– we don’t exist without the other.

 SI is sorta how I deal. I was sitting in class and I peeled  off  like 3 layers of clothing in about 2 minutes. I just am having a rough time, and I know if I can just make it another 48 hours I’ll be able to see my dad, and that will make everything better. I am almost sure it will. Just lonely… 
 

Poem

I’m a junkie looking for a hit,
Just don’t know of what quite yet.

Just trying to hold on while I am drowning  in air
Suffocating in plain old oxygen 

Skin is just clawing,
trying to scratch whatever is there out

- Scoby

The first contribution is a poem by “S”. I was going to tell you about how reading it made me feel, but I think I’ll let it speak for itself. It is perfectly eloquent on its own. 

This person has been a great contributor to this site, not only through the posts she has sent, but also in making me believe I made the right choice by creating it– not to mention she is one of my closest friends, and one of the people that have kept me sane in the past couple of years =)  You can read “S’” story here.

Delicate Balance
Our minds they work
The same way
We see the same things
Death and decay

Just don’t say
Anything

Open your wounds for me
Let me feel what it’s like
To be you
Open your wounds for me
Let me feel what it’s like
I know you

Deceased but breathing
That’s me, yea, everything
Operating on souls
That’s you so I’m told

Just don’t say
Anything

Open your wounds for me
Let me feel what it’s like
To be you
Open your wounds for me
Let me feel what it’s like
I know you

Slits in your skin
Same as mine
You don’t have to tell me

Open your wounds for me

Don’t say anything

Let me feel what it’s like

Just don’t say anything

Pictures fade but scars will remain
Permanent truths on our sufrace

Just don’t say anything

-S

Mother’s anger,

and Father’s lies,

made fresh new cuts,

and darkened eyes.

But, I suppose,

you know this story,

Just your everyday,

Cutter’s glory.

Mother’s screams,

you try to ignore,

but, it’s hard to block out

the slamming door.

Father’s that promise,

that they will show,

but they never do,

and you always know.

Everyone you love,

leaves you behind,

so you push people away,

fearing what they might find.

And then you find someone,

whom you thought you could confide,

so you tell them your story,

and how you’re feeling inside.

And, all of the sudden,

You aren’t the same,

because by telling them this,

you have caused them shame?

I’m not sure,

but this is how I see,

all of you people,

that keep judging me.

You share your feelings,

and your criticisms too,

and just because I cut,

I’m inferior to you.

But haven’t you ever,

banged your fists against a wall?

screamed? maybe shouted?

Cried in a bathroom stall?

It’s all the same,

be it my blood or your tears,

or the staggered walking,

after your daily beers.

It’s just the way,

you choose to deal,

with all this pain,

that you feel.

So take a look,

behind darkened eyes,

and the fresh new cuts,

that you despise.

And actually try,

to understand the story,

behind your everyday

Cutter’s glory.

- Cierra Richards-

I started cutting when I was twelve. It began on accident. I was having a bad day. I had a lot of those in junior high—friendships were in flux, early crushes were painful and awful. I was at stage crew, constructing or tearing down a set and I scraped my right arm on a nail. Normally when something like that happens (I seem prone to stubbing my toes when I’m in a rush or already in a bad mood), I yelp and curse my luck. But this time I realized that the rush of pain felt like a wave of relief, a release for all the dark emotions I’d been bottling up that day. I wanted to scrape my arm again.

I didn’t, but the next time I was upset I took a safety pin and scratched at my ankle. In grade school we used to carve the initials of the guy we’d decided to like (and I phrase it that way because those weren’t true crushes but strategic decisions made to meet approval of so-called friends) into a tree. By eighth grade I was carving initials into my own leg. Since I started with safety pins the scars were light and faded fast so I could easily cut over them when my crush or eventually boyfriend changed. Now if you look closely right above my ankle you see the name Sid… for my cat, whom at one point I decided was the only boy I loved.

I graduated from safety pins to scissors and scissors to razor blades. I remember trying to break open my first razor. A pink Lady Bic. I cut up my thumbs trying to pull it apart. Little ruffled flaps of skin that reminded of window blinds. Finally I stomped on the pink Lady Bic repeatedly with my combat boot until the plastic surrounded the blade cracked and freed it. That was too much effort so I got a box of straight razor blades and kept on in my wallet at all times. Where hopeful teenage boys carried condoms, I kept my razor blade in case of emergency. I saved that old wallet and you can still see where the blade cut through the leather.

When the razor blade wasn’t handy, I used other sharp things. I accidentally-on-purpose broke a hand mirror. Fuck seven years of bad luck. My life was all bad luck. I scratched the word “Lost” into my stomach with the shards.

During my lowest, most upset and desperate moment, needing to X through the initial of my emotionally and psychologically abusive boyfriend that I’d stupidly carved in my thigh at one point, I found a rusty piece of metal in a parking lot. I cut so deep it made me sick. I almost vomited at the sight of the wound and I panicked, wondering after the fact if I’d given myself tetanus or some horrible disease. But in that moment I’d needed to cut so badly it didn’t matter. I was like a junkie so in need of a fix, they didn’t care who they shared needles with. I was a junkie, though my fix may be harder to understand. But cutting was numbing, it was cleansing, it reminded me I was alive, and it made feel like I was claiming my body as mine.

Even after that moment in the parking lot with the rusty metal, when I realized how dangerous what I was doing had become, it didn’t stop me. I wore long sleeves all the time because my arms were a mess of scabs, scars, and fresh wounds. I put so much energy into carefully hiding them, but one day I hit rock bottom and showed my parents.

I was stressed beyond belief. I’d just gotten into my first car accident—not really a big deal, no one was hurt, just the back bumper ripped of my car—but it was a huge deal to me and I had a big test the next day and I was panicked and overwhelmed. So I ripped off the army jacket I wore constantly to hide my scars and showed my parents what I’d done to my arms. I said, “I need help.” I remember thinking that they would probably check me into an institution and I wanted that because I needed a break.

My parents didn’t have me committed, but my act of show and tell led to therapy and lots of uncomfortable talks. I wish I could say it helped immediately, but it didn’t. I’d been cutting for five years and would continue for five more. That was just the point where I recognized it was unhealthy. For awhile after that, I would cut and feel guilty about it. Then in my late teens/early twenties when I was drinking heavily I just didn’t care. I was bent on self-destruction. I was shocked to make it to my twenty-first birthday. And that shock forced me to settle down.

I don’t remember my last cut. I remember a lot of moments when I said to myself that this will be the last time, but it wasn’t. What helped me heal was writing. I went back to school for creative writing and I also went back to therapy. I learned slowly that writing made me feel just as good as cutting, better really because there was no guilt afterwards and no scars, just a sense of accomplishment.

Have there been times I wanted to cut or injure myself in someway? Yes. When one of my dear friends died last year, I kept having urges to just scrape my wrist across cement or accidentally snag  my arm on a nail like I did when I was twelve. But I didn’t because I haven’t in eight years and I don’t want to go back to that again.

Words are my way of dealing now. Not just writing, but doing what I couldn’t back then: talking. Talking about what’s hurting me, admitting aloud to someone that the pain is so great I want to cut to let it out and allowing them to comfort me. That’s why I write freely about my history with self-injury and I wrote about it in fiction because I truly believe that breaking the silence is a step toward healing.