Self harm

I've been called emo, psycho, attention seeking, a sinner and much more mainly because no one could understand why I was cutting myself. I decided to blog about self harm because it was a big part of my life during my eating disorder and so many young people suffer from it and feel completely judged or alone. I started cutting myself my junior year in high school right about the time I started "dieting". I still can't tell you what made me do it, it wasn't for attention or some fad that everyone else was doing. I was trying so hard to be perfect...I wanted to be perfect in school and all my extra activities, I wanted to be the perfect big sister, the perfect daughter, I wanted my mom to be proud of me. I was spending all my time thinking about food and trying to seem happy and my usual self at school while failing like a failure at home. Bringing home As, losing wt, taking care of my sister nothing seemed to make my mom happy. I kept thinking if I could just be better she would stop drinking, but nothing worked. The screaming inside of me built and built until one day I cut my arm open and watching it bleed feeling the pain was like a relief...like a ton of bricks were off my chest. It was one of those things that I thought would only happen once but it kept happening more and more frequently...it made everything easier...smiling was easier to fake around people I used it as punishment when I ate over my "approved" calories...it quickly became an addiction. I've heard cutters described as attention seekers or emos but I never did it for attention in fact I didn't even get caught for over a year I just wanted to make the pain easier to deal with. The addiction became out of control faster than I ever could have expected...I needed to cut deeper and more often. This lasted all the way through high school and college. My very last cut was three years ago on fourth of July and required six stitches. I have scars everywhere, people stare but I've stopped being ashamed of them. In treamtent I met so many other girls with eating disorder who were cutters and I felt like I wasn't so alone anymore or such a freak. Cutting is not a fad it is a serious and very dangerous addiction. When my friends would take my razors and hide everything they thought I could hurt myself with I went crazy...I would break glasses, picture frames anything to accomplish my need to get the bad out. Cutting was a release for me, for some its the opposite they feel like they are numb and cutting makes them feel alive. More people than you know have struggled with self harm it can come in the form of cutting, burning, hair pulling, even obsessively getting tattooed or pierced. For me my anorexia and cutting went hand and hand I wanted so desperately to please everyone esp my mom and I just couldn't do it. I know its hard for people to understand if they have never had the urge or dealt with the addiction but its so important to get help for the person who is self harming. This doesn't mean strip searching your daughter every night looking for cuts...the behavior didn't start overnight and its not going to stop overnight. The most difficult part of everything was the way people treated me...they judged me as a sinner, as an attention seeker not someone with a life threatening addiction. The urge doesn't go away I have just learned better ways to get through it...there are days I want to run for a razor and cut my problems away but the fact is that they are still there the next day when the bleeding stops. I decided to tackle the subject because its still considered so taboo...we can't change things if we don't speak out. If you know someone who self harms talk to them don't judge them or isolate them be their friend and if they are young its ok to tell an adult my friends did and I was angry for awhile but my parents needed to know. It took years of therapy and treatment and really working hard on my eating disorder recovery to stop cutting but I've managed it. The scars don't go away and to be honest I'm not ashamed...they are apart of me, apart of my story a story that I'm ready to tell.