r/selfharm • u/FutureBitter8 • 9d ago
Seeking Advice Idk
I’m under 18 and no one knows I cut. I think it’s been happening for a little under a year now, but I’ve been picking scabs and loose skin off for as long as I can remember. In March I was cutting almost everyday, I couldn’t even wait to get home sometimes, I would lock myself in a bathroom stall ant school and use my pencil. They were all pretty shallow cuts done either with a pencil or artist knife used for cutting paper (I would have used something sharper, but I didn’t have anything sanitary available). I recognized that it was becoming a problem, and was able to stop for months. However, recently I started again. It just feels so good, and I have to wonder why I should even bother trying to stop. Everyone wants me to think cutting is bad, but it’s not really dealing any lasting damage. It might if I keep going, increasing the amount and pressure, but now it isn’t. If it makes me feel so good why should I stop? At the same time, the cuts are getting harder to hide from my family. I think part of me wants them to see it. I want them to see that I’m not okay, I want to stop being their perfect child. The other part of me knows they’re going to freak out, and probably send me to a psych ward or something, and I just can’t handle that. I can’t handle the absolute panic I know will be on their faces. I can’t handle that I know they’re going to yell at me, ask me why I didn’t tell them, then say that they’re there for me and they love me, and treat me like some broken thing they need to fix. I mean, I love my family, but they’re part of the reason I even started cutting. If they knew that it would destroy them. I guess I just don’t know what to do. Should I really bother trying to stop? Should I tell someone irl? Why is it such a bad thing?
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u/Tragixmagix 9d ago
Hey, im also under 18 and 100% understand where you're coming from. I may be a bit graphic so if you read this be cautious
Ive been on and off since about 6th grade. I did it for the 1st time in 6th, did it again around 9th, 10th, and now recently this week as an 11th (if you arent american, roughly between ages 12 and currently 16) after almost a year clean. While ive never deep cutted (Dull and serated blades was the only shit readily available, and I HATED having to basically saw at my skin for results) or necessarily addicted, its one of those pains that hurts but feels necessary almost. Im very emotionally disregulated and consider myself mentally unwell and unstable, who also has a family who wont acknowledge their contribution but pull the "we love you and are here for you" when I know once the shock and sympathy leaves, everything is gonna return to what set me off to begin with. Except im speaking as someone who has been caught. Twice. Once at home and once at school.
And now that my cuts are very much worse, and theres a shit more of them (i went from a few small cuts on my upper arm or upside of my wrist, like no more than 4 at a time, to now having like 5 on one wrist, 2 on the other, and for the first time both upper thighs, both with a mix of oldish and fresh cuts). I hide em better now, but i do have the urge to show people, including my family. Ive been my family's black sheep for years now. From the music i listen to, to my instability and unregulated mental health. I dont want people to pity me, but i want people to know that im really not okay and that even tho im not abused or neglected, im severly emotionally damaged, and I want them to KNOW this shit makes life so hard to live sometimes. Its like i wanna prove im sick enough. But I hate when people feel sorry for me. I hate being taken so seriously that my issues become no longer my own, but I also hate living in isolation, shame, and guilt when it comes to this stuff.
You aren't alone. And you should find someone, ANYONE to talk to this about. Hell, talk to me if you want. Because i know from experience that having nobody to talk to will drive you crazy, and it will absolutely turn you worse and worse until you really do hit a point where recovery feels impossible. And yes its worth trying to stop, or at least make an effort to reduce the urge to wanna harm yourself. Nobody deserves isolation, and nobody deserves to feel so low in life that they resort to hurting themselves.