Andrew Lawes explains how ‘self-harm isn’t about dying. Self-harm is about living.’
Warning: This article may be triggering for people dealing with self-harm issues.
The mind of a self-harmer is very difficult to understand. With depression being the complex, unpredictable illness it is, trying to pin down a reason behind self harm is very difficult, especially if you have never self harmed. The biggest misconception surrounding self-harm is that it is an indication of suicidal feelings. This may appear to make sense, but it is so far from the truth.
Self-harm isn’t about dying. Self-harm is about living.
When you have been hurt so much that you have become numb to the world, sometimes, you will try anything, just to feel something.
I still remember the first time I self-harmed. I was 14 years old. I don’t know where the thought to self harm first came from. No-one I was friends with self-harmed. It could well have been some celebrity or other, it doesn’t really matter. However it got there, the thought was in my head, and I could let it go.
My father had died a year or so earlier. I have many, many issues with him. Without going into detail, he was a violent alcoholic, who chose drink over me and my brother when we were children. He had never been in my life since. The problem was, the bastard died before I had an opportunity to confront him, to challenge him. I never had any answers from my father, and now I never would.
Since his death, I had veered between having so much emotion I couldn’t handle it, to being so numb I couldn’t feel anything. I was tortured by his memory, and now I would never have the chance to resolve my issues. I couldn’t cope, and even now, 15 years since his death, I still struggle. Nothing made any sense to me at all.
Then I found myself in the bathroom. I used a pair of scissors to prise the blades from the razor. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t care. I’d been completely numb for days, and I had this blade. I had a chance to feel something.
I rested the blade against the back of my left forearm. I felt the coldness of the steel as it lay against my skin. Slowly, deliberately, I dragged the razor widthways across my arm.
I didn’t know what I was doing. It was almost trance-like, as I watched the blood form on my arm and slowly trickle downwards towards my hand. I felt the wetness. I felt the warmth. For the first time in days, I felt alive.
That night was the first time I cut, but by no means was it the last. As my emotions, mixed with the onrush of puberty, became more confusing and made less and less sense, cutting became the only way to maintain any semblance of power over myself. When my emotions were numbed, cutting reminded me I was alive. When my emotions were out of control, cutting gave me back the power. The bleeding was my breathing, watching the blood flow was my meditation.
But I never wanted to kill myself.
When I was emotionally numb, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to feel. I wanted to be alive. When I was emotionally overcome, I wanted a way to calm down, to feel in control of the emotions that I couldn’t understand. The razorblade provided the answer to both problems. But, of course, it provided many new ones.
Hiding cuts and scars isn’t easy at any time, but especially not in high school. I played rugby. I played football. Both required changing in a room with many other people. After a while, people inevitably noticed. Truth be told, over time, I became sloppy over hiding it. Maybe, deep down, I hoped somebody would see. Maybe I wanted someone to talk to me, to tell me they understood, but no-one did. So I continued.
I’ve since read that self-harm releases endorphins into the body, and that this feeling can become addictive. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. All that mattered is that when I cut, I felt alive, I felt in control, I felt powerful. I didn’t care what people thought. I didn’t care about understanding why I hurt myself. All I cared about was that it helped me.
It took getting into a relationship with another self-harmer to see things from the outsiders perspective. Watching someone I love self-harm forced me to confront the consequences of my actions. I managed to stop self-harming, although I replaced it with a cannabis habit that had its own set of problems.
Apart from an episode 2 years ago, I haven’t hurt myself since the age of 18. I was going through a bout of depression unlike any I’ve ever known (see my story of Depression) and I was flooded with suicidal thoughts. The night I talk about, that was the first night in weeks I didn’t want to die. Because, no matter what depression did to me, I could control the bleeding. When I cut, it helped to take away thoughts of suicide.
My body is adorned with the scars of self-harm. But they aren’t scars of suicide attempts. They aren’t scars of wanting to die. They are scars of wanting to feel alive, and feel in control of the life I had. If I hadn’t self-harmed, I might not be here today. But I did, and I am.
If you know of someone who is self-harming, don’t assume it is because they are suicidal. Don’t assume it is attention seeking. Talk to the person, and listen to them, really listen. Find out the underlying causes of their desire to harm, and do what you can to help. Don’t preach to them, listen to them. Support them, but don’t judge them. Don’t try and assume you understand, because unless you have cut, it is very, very hard to empathise. But you can help. Listen to them talk, and try to support them through the process of understanding their emotions and connecting with life. It may take time, but with support, they can get there, and once they do, the urge to cut will fade.
Underneath it all, it isn’t about a flirtation with death. It’s about a desperation to live.
Picture: DaGoaty/Flickr
Good luck on your journey, depression is such a pain in the ass illness. I cut when I was in highschool too as a way to feel real pain n distract me from my emotional pain. Hope it all goes well with you to beat the illness!
This is so true. If only people would just try to understand.
It took getting into a relationship with another self-harmer to see things from the outsiders perspective. Watching someone I love self-harm forced me to confront the consequences of my actions. What were the consequences, from an outsider’s perspective? I ask, because although I am an outsider, I don’t get it. I have a friend who cuts. She’s said that it gives her a sense of control, as you did, and also that it lets the pain out. These seem to be significant benefits in return for a superficial harm, so my response to her is that while I’m sad that… Read more »
Cutting use to give me a real pain to focus on instead of emotional pain, when you feel so drained because all you have is emotional pain the real sharp pain distracts you. I guess the control is that you can control the level of pain you feel physically, and also the body releases endorphins to try limit that pain. Think of being sad, but you can’t cry, a numbish feeling where sometimes you feel nothing of joy or sadness but this mellow numbness that sucks, cutting can give you a real physical feeling. Often depression feels like an invisible… Read more »
I’m glad that you have found alternatives that work for you. I will certainly suggest the elastic band idea to my friend, whenever the topic next comes up. Masturbation is not something I could suggest to her – trust me on that. One thing I do try to urge her, is to look after the wounds, i.e., sterilise them with surgical alcohol (which stings like hell – bonus!) and dress them.
From personal experience (I SHed a lot between 14-20 and still cut on occasion, but not often), I really admire your support of your friend. When a couple of friends found out about me, they spread it around a bit, and lots of people reacted “stop straight away”/”you freak”/”you’re hurting us by doing this” etc, and that was because it disgusted/scared them rather than it would help me, so you give me hope. That said, I think there are some problems with SH in general: One of the problems with cutting is that it can spiral out of control- the… Read more »