Open letter: What it’s like to struggle with self-harm
Warning: This article contains content around the topic of self-harm that some may find triggering.
Before I even knew what “self-harm” was, I was doing it. I remember being as young as 9 and pinching myself until the tiny crescents of my nails were imprinted on my skin, or biting the inside of my cheek until it bled. I didn’t understand at the time why I was doing it, but I knew that the brief moment of sharp, bright pain was enough to make whatever I was struggling with not seem as bad, or as scary, or as hopeless.
As I grew older, I realized it was something I needed to hide. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from doing it. During my teen years, I started cutting my inner thighs since almost no one other than myself would see that part of my body. I would use nail files and hard bits of plastic to carve away at myself as a brief escape from my troubles.
A series of bad things happened to me — a boyfriend that got violent, a boyfriend that cheated, a trusted mentor that crossed the line — and things took a turn for the worse for my mental health. I know to most people it doesn’t make sense, but hurting myself was a way to assert control of the situation. When nothing else made sense around me, I would think to myself, “This is my body. I can decide what does or does not happen to it. It’s my choice and no one else’s.”
I was generally careful to keep the damage to myself, but one time at school one of my cuts opened up and bled through my jeans. My friend who spotted the stain grabbed me and whispered “You just got your period, do you have another pair of pants?” As she drove me home to get washed up and changed I remember being grateful that’s all she thought it was — a menstrual mishap and not a sign of something more sinister.
I rationalized to myself that I wasn’t being as destructive as some of my peers, who were reckless with drugs and alcohol and the general bad decisions that come with being an adolescent. I was smart, I was popular, I was well liked by my teachers and I was on track to get into all of the schools I applied to. What more could I ask for?
When I went away to university, things reached a critical point. Like so many other students, I found myself having a breakdown at the student clinic. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and given a prescription with the instructions to “give it a try and see what happens.”
With new medications in my system fluctuating my levels of serotonin, things would get better sometimes — but the need to cut always remained. Stressed about midterms? Cut. Bad grade on an essay? Cut. Too anxious to get out of bed and face the day? Cut.
At one of my lowest moments, I had such an overwhelming desire to self-harm that I used a piece of broken glass on my forearm. I had never hurt myself in an area that was visible before, and the following two weeks of wearing long-sleeves in the summer imbued me with such a sense of shame that it turned out to be my turning moment.
Before the cutting had always been an act of control to me, but harming on such visible body part left me shaken. The urge had taken over my will to hide it. What would be next? My wrists, my hands?
The following months were filled with trying out different doctors and different forms of therapy. Some people are meant for talk therapy and I am most definitely not one of them, I discovered. I met a psychiatrist who worked with me on figuring out what medications worked for me instead of turning me into a spaced-out zombie. I found a lot of success with CBT (cognitive-behavioural therapy) and various spiritual practices like crystals and aromatherapy (I know, I’m judging myself also). It was an incredibly difficult decision to get help and I continue to be impressed with the strides I’ve taken towards better mental health.
Am I recovered? I don’t know if I ever will be. The urge to cut is still there but I’ve finally learned skills that help me to control the thing that I once thought I had control of.
I haven’t engaged in self-harm in over two years. The scars on my thighs have faded, but the scar on my forearm is still there. Oddly, I’m OK with it. It’s a reminder of how deeply out of control I was, but also of how far I’ve come and how much happier I can be. And that’s something to be damn proud of.
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