Why Start?

[Atonement]

So, while I was showering this morning (odd, I know) it popped into my head. Why did we start self harming? Like I understand why we do it, but why did you start? How did you discover it.

Note: Should your reply require any type of story, please keep the graphic content to a minimum.

[Sapphire]

I am ashamed to say it, but the first time I did this was at the age of 13 when one of my friends handed me a bit of wire in our graphics class one day. She said that she got all hyper when she scratched herself with it and so we sat there scratching ourselves and we had a great laugh because it made us hyper. Next time I was feeling low, I picked up a compass and scratched myself with that. It made me feel better. Things spiraled from there.

I honestly didn't know anything about depression or self harm until people spotted that I was having problems and sent me to a mental health team.

[Atonement]

Mine is kinda similar to that ^^, only really it started in about 7th grade when all the guys in my grade figured out eraser burning and did it as a sign of being able to take pain and a man.. Ironic that I wouldn't do it but when I did it, it relieved me. And now, look how "macho"I am... ha.

[Ironic Infidel In England]

Mine, I found out that pain gave me a rush when I was slashed.

I tried it to myself.

[ssgliberty]

i heard people talk about it but i dident know what it was so i looked it up and tried it but it only makes me more deppressed and i cant stop.

[Attax]

I don't do cutting as much but emotionally pain. It kind of helps through difficult times, and makes me want to percevere towards things. . . wierd i know

[Zephyr]

I was undiagnosed bipolar disorder for years.
The cutting itself started when I was 11 or 12.

As I've said before, when I get manic, it never ends well because it all comes crashing down like a collapsing building. When I crash down from a mania, I get psychotic. I get psychotic, the only thing that can snap me out of it is hurting myself or wait until it passes.

If I wait until it passes, I tend to start hallucinating, laugh, scream, cry... odd things. A few examples that I can remember...

1) There were two women that I could hear yelling at me that wern't there, so I filled the bathtub with cold water, sat in it fully clothed and started screaming and crying uncontrolably. At the time, my mom was never home, at all, so I basically lived all by myself, so I was like that for days on end. This was when I was 13.

2) Another time, also during that time period of living on my own, my friend Tim had come over to keep me company because he had found out about my cutting, though he didn't know why I did it. Well, since he wouldn't let me cut myself, I ended up going out into the garage, smashing a Jesus audio tape with a hammer, wound myself up in it and layed down on the garage floor for hours, hallucinating that Jesus was there, laughing hysterically because I've never believe in God ro Jesus. After this incident, Tim talked to my mom, told her that I had serious problems, that she needed to pay more attention to me and that I needed to see a doctor. I was 15 at this point.

I had a good run from the time I got medicated until this last March...

3) The only thing I remember is that I was 4 years old again and I was screaming and crying, wondering where my daddy went. Eventually, and I don't know how, I had ended up ballingmyself up into the corner in the garage on top of the workbench, moaning, crying, hitting myself in the head and trying to pull my hair out. At that point, my sister had randomly come up to visit, so she sat there with me for a long time until it passed.

So you see, it's either go off into these psychotic fits where I hardly remember anything or hurt myself to snap out of it. A few times I tried to kill myself in these psychotic fits. It really insn't intended self-harm. The cutting gave me a new sensation to focus on. The sight of the blood and the feeling of it pouring down my skin would get so intoxicating that it was all I could focus on and it made me feel alive and well. An affirmation that I was still here.

[DarkWingedAngel]

i know why because you get depressed
like me
don't no how i started but i did

[Rutherford The Brave]

I started it after I got heavily into drugs. I never told Vt but back in 7th grade, I had a bad drug problem. I used to smoke Weed in the bathrooms. Getting to the point, I started cutting after I realized that I was driving my life into the ground. Then I met my ex-girlfriend. We fought almost everytime we hung out then we had sex, it was awful for me.

[nachtspiegel]

I've been doing it since I was about four or five years old. The only time I'd cry when I got injured is when I stopped bleeding, or if I didn't bleed at all. I used to instigate getting injured by the cats and dogs that were around when I was younger (I lived with my parents and siblings at the time, and we had something like seventeen cats and seven dogs, plus fourteen people in a three bedroom house.)

When I was five, I started burning myself with the stove and with my mom's lighters. Starting in Kindergarten, I did ink burns, eraser burns, and scratches with pencils. I started ramming my head into brick walls and throwing myself onto the ground in about first or second grade. When I was in fourth grade, I cut my wrists with a pencil in class. I saw the counselor once and nothing else happened.

I started hiding razors and knives when I was about eleven or twelve. I used to do it in class, using broken pens under the desks at school, or hiding behind the dividers. (At the first middle school that I went to, most of the classrooms didn't have walls. They were set up in huge common areas with dividers, and some of them jutted out into the hallway because they didn't fit right.)

I've always had off and on periods. It's not a non-stop addiction. I self-harm in phases. Sometimes, for months on end, I cannot control it. Sometimes, I can keep myself from doing it with relatively little restraint. Here lately, I've been in-between. I spent 45 minutes cleaning up the bathroom floor a few days ago. Three marks, but they were deep.

I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt at the beginning of the summer, and I was formally labeled as a self-mutilator on my psychiatric record. The entire time I was in the hell hole, I went through searches more frequent and invasive than most of the patients on my unit went through. I had a roommate that self-harmed, and he was one of the few to understand.

I am a master at self-destruction. It's one of the only things I feel good at. I feel sick and ashamed. I can't cope with it but I cannot imagine my life without it.

[just-me]

i remember i was 13 and all the emotions had just built up and i wanted to punch walls if im hoents, but id done that once before and my mum had screamed what the hell was i doin and said somethin had dropped on the floor. my parents couldnt find out, they wouldnt understand. so instead of punchin walls i started scratchin awayb with a hair clip until i had removed a fair chunk of skin from my hand. how things escilate, i wish i had never done it, it truly is like an addiction when im low.

[Sunshine Girl]

i think i remember..
a year or more ago i had a huge fight with my mom and stormed down to my room and started throwing stuff around. I accidently knocked a picture frame off my dresser and the glass went everywhere. when i was picking it up a piece sliced my finger.. i didnt realize it till there was blood dripping. and things kind of went from there....
i wish i could stop now. it feels almost impossiple though.

[BlackenedSilver]

What happened was, I was already banging my head on the walls, when I was upset or angry. (I have been doing that since I was a child)
This guy I liked totally rejected me, this distracted me from all my exams and I got so overwhelmed with everything. so.. I got really upset with myself and felt like I deserved to feel pain and pulled a chunk of hair out, but that wasnt enough so I broke a sharpener and started cutting.
It just gave me that sense of Im getting what I derserve and a release for my emotions.