The Cutting

I don't remember when I first became a cutter. Is it strange that I can't bring to mind my first time?

I know I was young. Around 14 or 15. At the time, I was on antidepressants for tension headaches. They were supposed to be tranquilizers. To help me sleep and help ease the tension.

What no one knew at that time was that I'm bipolar. Antidepressants make the mania worse. My mood swings were a daily roller coaster. The depression was also really bad. My parents chalked it up to teenage angst and hormones. I figured that was it as well. Puberty really bumped my bipolar disorder up big time.

I believe the first time I cut, I was thinking suicide. I was that down. Dragged into a pit of despair. I was either numb or in heart crunching pain. Everything was dark. For most of my years after that, things would remain to be dark.

I didn't cut deep enough in the beginning. Thinking killing myself would destroy my parents. So I held back.

Eventually, cutting became more of a way to cope than to kill. Like I said before, I was experiencing panic attacks at this point. But I didn't that's what they were. All I knew was that cutting made it better. The ritual of cleaning the skin, pulling out my special box of "tools" and doing the deed. I felt the anxiety flow out with the blood. The depression too. Then I'd clean up and bandage up and feel fine.

Do I recommend this coping mechanism for panic attacks? Not at all. I don't even condone cutting. It took many years to stop. I cut for everything. Anger, depression, anxiety, to spite someone who pissed me off, to control something in my life when I felt everything else was chaos, to punish myself for being "crazy."

I had boyfriends during that time who all looked down upon me for it. Told me the scars on my hips, thighs, stomach and arms were ugly. I was ashamed and hid them. Wearing long sleeves even in summer.

It wasn't until I stopped, that I now don't care who sees the scars. And I have to thank my current boyfriend for helping me quit. He never supported cutting. And the one time I did it when we first started dating, I broke his heart. It was over a fight with him. Jealousy on my end. Having been in so many abusive relationships before, I had a hard time trusting this one. He had to work very hard to gain my trust. It took a long time.

I stopped cutting. And not for me. I realized that trying to quit for anyone else had always led to me cutting just to spite them whenever they hurt me. But this guy never intentionally hurt me. So taped up my special box and put it away in some other boxes in the closet.

I don't ever forget about it. There are even times when I am at rock bottom and I long for my "tools." I know where they are. But I fight the temptation to go back there. Once I start again, it will be so easy to fall right back into that addiction.

I don't want that crutch. I will try and battle this out without it.