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Addiction, arrow, Blood, body, brain, Breathe, burning, Dance, Dark, decision, deep, desperation, Door, eaten, embers, emotions, emptiness, Feelings, flesh, Hell, hopeless, judge, Need, needs, nerves, overcome, Pain, Past, peace, proof, question, razor blade, sacrifice, Salvation, satisfaction, scars, self harm, Skin, Suicide, survive, Tears, therapy, thoughts, urge, Void
Trigger Warning for Self harm and Suicide!!!!!
As someone who cut himself in the past and luckily found a way to escape the addiction, I wanna help people understand from my experiences, why some people harm themselves, are unable to stop or to control there urges.
Have you ever been really thirsty or hungry? Have you ever been addicted? Addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or something else? Have you ever felt the urge, that you need to consume something now to stop your body and brain from bursting? That there is only one thought controlling your whole self?
We humans have basic needs like food, water, sleep and socializing. Those are the most common, but pain can become one of those as well. To start you have to ask yourself the question, why would someone cut themself? Nobody just wakes up one day and out of nothing, starts to cut themself. It is the door at the end of a long and dark way, a corridor of desperation, a corridor you never wanted to walk along and yet you are still here.
For me it started all with a feeling of emptiness. A feeling like a black void, that swallows your feelings and emotions until you feel nothing. Imagine a porcelain doll and your coming close. This feeling became more and more unbearable. With every passing day and week it felt more and more, like I was being eaten alive from the inside. The emptiness became a emotional pain. I could feel it tearing through my stomach, like I had eaten some glowing embers and now they were burning through myself. Together with thoughts that pierced my body like arrows, thoughts about the pointlessness of life and suicide, I was reaching my breaking point.
When I bought my first razor blades it felt surreal. Later that day, I made one of the worst decisions of my life, but also the decision, that probably saved my life as well. The first cut left a pleasant feeling. The pain of my arm numbed the emptiness and my thoughts. With the blood those left my body. You live from moment to moment and never think about tomorrow. Your only thought is to survive this day. Imagine being stuck in a storm and then after hours of rain and thunder you reach the eye of the storm. A small time frame of peace. It feels like this. A small time of peace from the hell of your own existence. Imagine you are drowning and desperately fighting your way back to the surface. You take a deep breath before the invisible hand pulls you back down and the struggle continues. What would you do for that time of peace? The time where you thoughts don’t pierce yourself and you can breathe again?
Pain is one of the strongest feelings your nerves can transport and also reaches the brain quickly. If you smoke a joint it takes a couple of minutes till it hits you. Pain is there immediately. Pain can be a tool to offer a fast salvation from hopeless situations. But as with many things, you need more and more. You have to cut more and more, deeper and deeper to reach the same satisfaction your first couple of cuts brought you. It becomes a addiction, one of your basic needs. Without it you won’t be able to function. I wasn’t able to function without cutting myself and where I went, the blade followed.
Physical pain numbs the emotional pain, physical pain helps you to cope with suicidal thoughts, for a brief moment of salvation, you butcher yourself. Self harm can save your life for a while, but when you have to cut deeper and more it is another story. It is easy to judge, but I wanna see what you would do, if you were in my shoes 11 years ago.
There are better ways to cope with your thoughts and the feeling of emptiness. But you have to learn about those ways, you have to talk about your problems and thoughts with professionals in therapy. But those ways are always harder then self harm. And to get up and get yourself help is harder then the dance of blades on your own skin.
I am scarred, everyone can see, what I did to myself. They are the proof, of the sacrifice I had to offer in order to stay alive, when I didn’t knew any better. It is my biggest mistake, that probably also saved my life. I am not proud of them, I am still shedding tears. Had I knew better back then, I would have never cut myself.
I am still paying the price for my actions. My brain and my body remembers. When my mind gets cloudy and reality becomes harder to bear for me, the first thought that sneaks into my mind is about self harm. A picture usally follows this thought, the picture of a razor blade and after that many more pictures about blood and open wounds follow. My scars begin to hurt with this familiar feeling when your skin starts to split and wounds begin to open themselves. It feels like a invitation to do it again. Just once, it will all be alright. Shut up, fuck you, get out of my head! It is really fucked up. I usually have to fight really hard to suppress the urge to cut myself. My body and brain remember the fastest and most efficent way to overcome dark or suicidal thoughts. Is it the best way? Hell no, but it is the fastest.
Please don’t judge others with scars. Nobody wants to hurt themself and yet we still cut deep into our own flesh. Not for pleasure, but to stay alive in a abyss of depression and desperation. To take a breath, when hopelessness is making it hard to breath for yourself. Offer a helping hand, a open ear instead and ask if they wanna talk or if you could support them in finding the help one needs and deserves. I know, that this would have helped me back then.
It is easy to judge, but hard to understand. It is easy to cut yourself, but hard to overcome your own past.