30 Day Self Harm Challenge: Day 1

Hey everyone!  This going to be my first challenge that involves subject matter that I'm passionate about, but a different topic every day.  So I guess we'll see how it goes!

 This is an actual picture of my wrists from when I was 13

30 Day Self Harm Challenge: Day 1 - How Long Have You Been Self-Harming and Why Did You Start:

First off, I want it known that I no longer self harm.  At least not actively.  I slip on a rare occasion, my most recent one I already posted about.  But I don't consider myself an "active" self-harmer.

I began self-harming when I was 11 years old.  I was in middle school.  All through my school career, I was picked on and bullied.  I had no friends in middle school.  None.  I was a book worm and a nerd with braces and clothes my mom still picked out.  I was overweight, had a bowl-cut, and did i mention the braces??  I was pretty much the butt of every prank and joke the middle-school bullies pulled.  

One day, it was particularly bad.  Mom had made me wear this pair of overalls with Sylvester and Tweety Bird on them.  NOT the thing you wear to middle school when you're already being picked on.  But I wore them.  Well, a girl in my class had put ketchup in my seat at the lunch table.  To this day, I still won't sit down without looking.  Well I sat and ketchup went all over my ass and when I stood up... You get the picture.  Half the cafeteria got a great laugh before I was able to get to the bathroom.  My teacher wouldn't let me go to the office to call my mom to bring me a new pair of pants.  Then a little boy kept following me around singing "Ella Ella Ella doo-doo stain!!!"  It was mortifying.

That same day, I was in art class.  Still with ketchup on my ass.  Kids were still laughing at me.  I started crying.  Which attracted laughter like blood attracts piranhas.  I ran out of the classroom and into the bathroom.  It took me a minute to realize that I still had the Exacto knife I was cutting clay with in my hand.  I barely thought about what I was doing before I drug it across my wrist for that first sweet time.  The release was instant.  I did it again.  And again.  And again.

I sat and let the blood drip to the floor and cried.  It hit me what I'd done and the pain set in.  Eventually I stopped the bleeding, pulled my sleeves down and went back to class.  I never knew that was the first day of an addiction that ran rapid over my life for the next 11 years.  

I cut when I was depressed, mad, sad, sometimes for no reason at all, just so I could have the adrenaline rush and the crash that followed so I could sleep at night.  It was a major part of my life for so long that I still think about it and even crave the feel of the blade biting through my flesh.  

There are a lot more reasons why I continued cutting for so long.  A few of the big ones were because I hated the fact that I was realizing that I was attracted to women and I was punishing myself.  I was morbidly depressed and unmedicated.  I hated pretty much everything about my life and I blamed myself for anything and everything that went wrong.  As did my mother, so that didn't help much.

There are other reasons, but the list is really long.  Looking back on it some of the reasons were stupid.  But we all do stupid things in our young age.

So this challenge should be interesting.  Fair warning though to any of my readers... Some of these topics and the things I write about may be graphic.  They may also be a trigger.  So be wary.

Scooter Out.