Lindsavvy
November 19th, 2013, 03:02 AM
Hi Guys! I'm new to this forum. I joined for a specific purpose, and right now I am going to serve that purpose. :)
Now, before we get SUPER personal, let me introduce myself. My name is Lindsay, and I am a 20-year-old student at City College of San Francisco. I am currently taking a Women's Health class there, and this class has led me here to all of you! I am a former self-harmer of 9 years, and I am going to share my story with all of you in hopes that it will make a difference in your life and inspire you to reach out for help from others, and to end this torturous, never-ending cycle that you are hopelessly stuck in.
I want each and every one of you who self-harm, in whatever way it is that you choose, to know that it gets better. I know it's cliche, but I also know from personal experience that it gets better and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Not everything is shrouded in darkness, and not everything is terrible, right? Right.
I want you all to think about something that makes you smile, or laugh even. And I want you keep this somewhere in your mind the entire time you are reading this post, and for the rest of your life. I don't care if you stow it away in the dustiest part of your mind, as long as you can access it willingly.
And so now, my story... A story of sadness, despair, darkness, pain, torture... But also a story of HAPPINESS, HOPE, TRANQUILITY, AND ACCEPTANCE. Are you ready? Here we go...
When I was in sixth grade, I went to Cape Cod with my brothers and one of my dads (I have gay dads) for summer vacation. This was around the time that my dads were splitting up, and the family seemed to be falling apart. That summer was the beginning of the worst 9 years of my entire life. (Keep in mind, that is almost half of my life!!)
I was depressed the whole trip, moping around, sporadically crying, taking walks to the beach by myself early in the morning to sit in the sand and think about why life was so shitty. I had no reason to feel so shitty, or to have such a shitty outlook on life. I was in sixth grade. I hadn't even hit puberty yet!
So one morning, I walked back to the cottage from the beach, feeling extra depressed. I had never heard of self-harm before, couldn't even grasp the concept of it if I tried at that age. But I took a fork (yes, a fork) from the kitchen, locked myself in the bedroom, and I started rubbing one spot on my arm as hard as I could with the teeth of the fork. It felt fantastic. The adrenaline, the pain, the burning... All of it felt so wonderful, and it took my mind off, well... my mind.
As soon as the pain had faded, I was back to my "normal" self. Moping, crying, etc. My dad asked what had happened to my arm and I told him I had fallen off my bike. He believed me, of course, since I had never self-harmed in the past.
I was so embarrassed by what I had done because I knew it was not normal... so I did not self-harm for almost a year after that.
I started up again in seventh grade when I met this girl at my new school. We'll call her Jackie. Jackie was intrigued with the newly popularizing "Emo" culture that was swarming around the internet. As you all probably know, self-harming is a stereotype of "Emo" people.
Anyway, Jackie confided in me that she had been cutting. She even showed me her cuts! This was so new to me even though I had done it. I didn't know that people other than me did this kind of thing. I thought I was the only one. I felt a little bit better about myself, I even thought that cutting was normal!
I started cutting myself again that year. Only when I felt really depressed, hopeless, or alone.
But then I started cutting because I was bored. That's the mistake that I made. That's where everything went downhill. I started cutting regularly by the time I was entering Freshman year of high school. I had razors, box cutters, paperclips, scissors, knives, safety pins, etc. hidden around the house in places that I felt safe enough to cut. (By now I knew self-harming was not normal, and frowned upon).
I would cut my arms, my thighs, and my ankles. One time I even burned myself on the coils on the stove. (It didn't have the same release for me as cutting did, however).
The one thing that I noticed happening was that I was building up a tolerance for cutting the same way one would build up a tolerance for alcohol, cigarettes, or medication. I would have to cut more and more and more just to feel that same release I felt the first time I ever broke my own skin.
One day Jackie saw my arm covered in cuts and she told me that I NEEDED to stop. I promised her I would stop. I tried, I really tried... And it wasn't long before I was aware that I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to. I was addicted to cutting myself.
What I know now that I did not know then is that when you get hurt, your brain releases endorphins (feel good chemicals) throughout your body, and they make you feel good, almost euphoric. And these chemicals are so potent, that they can be highly addictive.
So my own body was working against me.
All throughout high school, I kept cutting myself. I was 51/50'd (sent to the psyche ward) for 72 hours in my sophomore year of high school. I was given away by my counselor. That's when my parents found out I had been cutting. One of my dads threw a huge bitch fit about it. He really didn't make me feel any better about it. He just made me more embarrassed, more ashamed to be me.
That's the Catch 22 about self-harm... You need it, you want it.. but right after, you hate yourself and it makes you want to do it more.
Then in my Senior year of high school, I met this amazing boy. We'll call him Dave. He changed me. He really did. At first, he did not know that I had been cutting. But why should he? We were just friends, he didn't even know I liked him.
He made me want to better myself, he made me want to stop cutting.
But of course it was never enough to actually stop cutting, because if I wanted to stop, I needed to stop for ME. For MYSELF.
I went to a therapist, and she taught me a really cool technique that helped raise my self-esteem. It is called "fake it to make it".
You look at yourself in a mirror. And you compliment yourself. Over, and over and over. You tell yourself you're beautiful, you're lovely, you're worth something, you mean something. You tell yourself, "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you." And you fucking mean that shit. Okay, maybe you don't at the beginning... But if you do this for even just 5 minutes a day, I promise you your self-esteem is going to soar through the roof!!
I decided finally in my sophomore year of college that I was ready to stop. I had been dating Dave for almost two years now, and he begged me to stop. He told me things about me that no one has ever said to me before. Sometimes I wonder if I just needed someone other than myself to tell me that I was beautiful, or worth it. But whatever he said to me turned a light on in my head.
I was ready. I needed to stop this. Not for Dave. Not for my family. Not for my friends. Not so that society could accept me... But I needed to do this FOR ME. It was time for me to step up, accept who I am, and stop wallowing in self-pity over everything, and take action to resolve problems, rather than run away from them by cutting, and letting them build up inside of me.
So I stopped. I stopped cold-fucking-turkey. This was the hardest thing I had ever done. There were days in class when I would leave to go to the bathroom just to cry and hit walls and punch stalls and stare at myself in the mirror until I couldn't fucking look at myself anymore. I was nothing without cutting, I thought. I thought I was going to melt away and just disappear and everyone, including Dave was going to forget about me.
But gradually, with the help of my friends, and Dave I was able to get better. And don't think that you can do this alone, because you can't. I thought I could do it alone, but it's like going through a drug withdrawal. It is IMPOSSIBLE to handle this on your own. The feeling is indescribable. You are going to need support, but you can do it, I promise you.
After nine long years, I felt like I could breathe again. I could be around myself and not walk on egg shells. I could go into my mind and not worry that I was going to want to kill myself. I could eat an entire batch of cupcakes and not hate myself afterwards.
You know that feeling when you're holding your breath under water, but you feel like you can't hold it anymore and you panic and think you're gonna drown? But then you reach the surface and finally breathe and you are just so relieved? You're alive, you're okay. That is how it felt when I realized I was finally free from myself.
Don't you want to feel that? Don't you want to feel like the planet isn't laying on your chest anymore? Don't you want your mind to be clear? No fuzz, no crap? Don't you just want to be HAPPY again?
I did this. This is my story. This is my life I am sharing with you. This is my success. This is my pain. This is my hardship. This is me.
And this ending? This ending could be your ending.
I promise that one day you will be free. You, too, will laugh and mean it again. You will smile, and it will be genuine. You will wear short-sleeved shirts, and skirts, and shirts that show your stomach. And you will wear your scars proudly because you are a fucking survivor. You fought a battle harder than any other battle. You fought against the darkness that resides in yourself. You fought against YOURSELF. And you WON.
Which is a ridiculously amazing accomplishment because you are a STRONG PERSON.
So, please.. Just help yourself. Do yourself a favor. Make yourself happy again.
Love to all of you,
Lindsay
Now, before we get SUPER personal, let me introduce myself. My name is Lindsay, and I am a 20-year-old student at City College of San Francisco. I am currently taking a Women's Health class there, and this class has led me here to all of you! I am a former self-harmer of 9 years, and I am going to share my story with all of you in hopes that it will make a difference in your life and inspire you to reach out for help from others, and to end this torturous, never-ending cycle that you are hopelessly stuck in.
I want each and every one of you who self-harm, in whatever way it is that you choose, to know that it gets better. I know it's cliche, but I also know from personal experience that it gets better and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Not everything is shrouded in darkness, and not everything is terrible, right? Right.
I want you all to think about something that makes you smile, or laugh even. And I want you keep this somewhere in your mind the entire time you are reading this post, and for the rest of your life. I don't care if you stow it away in the dustiest part of your mind, as long as you can access it willingly.
And so now, my story... A story of sadness, despair, darkness, pain, torture... But also a story of HAPPINESS, HOPE, TRANQUILITY, AND ACCEPTANCE. Are you ready? Here we go...
When I was in sixth grade, I went to Cape Cod with my brothers and one of my dads (I have gay dads) for summer vacation. This was around the time that my dads were splitting up, and the family seemed to be falling apart. That summer was the beginning of the worst 9 years of my entire life. (Keep in mind, that is almost half of my life!!)
I was depressed the whole trip, moping around, sporadically crying, taking walks to the beach by myself early in the morning to sit in the sand and think about why life was so shitty. I had no reason to feel so shitty, or to have such a shitty outlook on life. I was in sixth grade. I hadn't even hit puberty yet!
So one morning, I walked back to the cottage from the beach, feeling extra depressed. I had never heard of self-harm before, couldn't even grasp the concept of it if I tried at that age. But I took a fork (yes, a fork) from the kitchen, locked myself in the bedroom, and I started rubbing one spot on my arm as hard as I could with the teeth of the fork. It felt fantastic. The adrenaline, the pain, the burning... All of it felt so wonderful, and it took my mind off, well... my mind.
As soon as the pain had faded, I was back to my "normal" self. Moping, crying, etc. My dad asked what had happened to my arm and I told him I had fallen off my bike. He believed me, of course, since I had never self-harmed in the past.
I was so embarrassed by what I had done because I knew it was not normal... so I did not self-harm for almost a year after that.
I started up again in seventh grade when I met this girl at my new school. We'll call her Jackie. Jackie was intrigued with the newly popularizing "Emo" culture that was swarming around the internet. As you all probably know, self-harming is a stereotype of "Emo" people.
Anyway, Jackie confided in me that she had been cutting. She even showed me her cuts! This was so new to me even though I had done it. I didn't know that people other than me did this kind of thing. I thought I was the only one. I felt a little bit better about myself, I even thought that cutting was normal!
I started cutting myself again that year. Only when I felt really depressed, hopeless, or alone.
But then I started cutting because I was bored. That's the mistake that I made. That's where everything went downhill. I started cutting regularly by the time I was entering Freshman year of high school. I had razors, box cutters, paperclips, scissors, knives, safety pins, etc. hidden around the house in places that I felt safe enough to cut. (By now I knew self-harming was not normal, and frowned upon).
I would cut my arms, my thighs, and my ankles. One time I even burned myself on the coils on the stove. (It didn't have the same release for me as cutting did, however).
The one thing that I noticed happening was that I was building up a tolerance for cutting the same way one would build up a tolerance for alcohol, cigarettes, or medication. I would have to cut more and more and more just to feel that same release I felt the first time I ever broke my own skin.
One day Jackie saw my arm covered in cuts and she told me that I NEEDED to stop. I promised her I would stop. I tried, I really tried... And it wasn't long before I was aware that I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to. I was addicted to cutting myself.
What I know now that I did not know then is that when you get hurt, your brain releases endorphins (feel good chemicals) throughout your body, and they make you feel good, almost euphoric. And these chemicals are so potent, that they can be highly addictive.
So my own body was working against me.
All throughout high school, I kept cutting myself. I was 51/50'd (sent to the psyche ward) for 72 hours in my sophomore year of high school. I was given away by my counselor. That's when my parents found out I had been cutting. One of my dads threw a huge bitch fit about it. He really didn't make me feel any better about it. He just made me more embarrassed, more ashamed to be me.
That's the Catch 22 about self-harm... You need it, you want it.. but right after, you hate yourself and it makes you want to do it more.
Then in my Senior year of high school, I met this amazing boy. We'll call him Dave. He changed me. He really did. At first, he did not know that I had been cutting. But why should he? We were just friends, he didn't even know I liked him.
He made me want to better myself, he made me want to stop cutting.
But of course it was never enough to actually stop cutting, because if I wanted to stop, I needed to stop for ME. For MYSELF.
I went to a therapist, and she taught me a really cool technique that helped raise my self-esteem. It is called "fake it to make it".
You look at yourself in a mirror. And you compliment yourself. Over, and over and over. You tell yourself you're beautiful, you're lovely, you're worth something, you mean something. You tell yourself, "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you." And you fucking mean that shit. Okay, maybe you don't at the beginning... But if you do this for even just 5 minutes a day, I promise you your self-esteem is going to soar through the roof!!
I decided finally in my sophomore year of college that I was ready to stop. I had been dating Dave for almost two years now, and he begged me to stop. He told me things about me that no one has ever said to me before. Sometimes I wonder if I just needed someone other than myself to tell me that I was beautiful, or worth it. But whatever he said to me turned a light on in my head.
I was ready. I needed to stop this. Not for Dave. Not for my family. Not for my friends. Not so that society could accept me... But I needed to do this FOR ME. It was time for me to step up, accept who I am, and stop wallowing in self-pity over everything, and take action to resolve problems, rather than run away from them by cutting, and letting them build up inside of me.
So I stopped. I stopped cold-fucking-turkey. This was the hardest thing I had ever done. There were days in class when I would leave to go to the bathroom just to cry and hit walls and punch stalls and stare at myself in the mirror until I couldn't fucking look at myself anymore. I was nothing without cutting, I thought. I thought I was going to melt away and just disappear and everyone, including Dave was going to forget about me.
But gradually, with the help of my friends, and Dave I was able to get better. And don't think that you can do this alone, because you can't. I thought I could do it alone, but it's like going through a drug withdrawal. It is IMPOSSIBLE to handle this on your own. The feeling is indescribable. You are going to need support, but you can do it, I promise you.
After nine long years, I felt like I could breathe again. I could be around myself and not walk on egg shells. I could go into my mind and not worry that I was going to want to kill myself. I could eat an entire batch of cupcakes and not hate myself afterwards.
You know that feeling when you're holding your breath under water, but you feel like you can't hold it anymore and you panic and think you're gonna drown? But then you reach the surface and finally breathe and you are just so relieved? You're alive, you're okay. That is how it felt when I realized I was finally free from myself.
Don't you want to feel that? Don't you want to feel like the planet isn't laying on your chest anymore? Don't you want your mind to be clear? No fuzz, no crap? Don't you just want to be HAPPY again?
I did this. This is my story. This is my life I am sharing with you. This is my success. This is my pain. This is my hardship. This is me.
And this ending? This ending could be your ending.
I promise that one day you will be free. You, too, will laugh and mean it again. You will smile, and it will be genuine. You will wear short-sleeved shirts, and skirts, and shirts that show your stomach. And you will wear your scars proudly because you are a fucking survivor. You fought a battle harder than any other battle. You fought against the darkness that resides in yourself. You fought against YOURSELF. And you WON.
Which is a ridiculously amazing accomplishment because you are a STRONG PERSON.
So, please.. Just help yourself. Do yourself a favor. Make yourself happy again.
Love to all of you,
Lindsay