MPD/DID - Memoirs: Self-Injury

Self-Injury (SI): History and Recovery

The Good News First:

My last episode of self-injury was July 31, 2000!

How I Stopped Self-Injuring:

I stopped believing that I was a “cutter” and had to learn that I was “someone who cut.” I had to own that I cut myself to deal with painful emotions, disturbing memories, dissociation, and stress. I had to realize that I cut because cutting worked. Therefore, I had to believe that I could find something else that worked to replace cutting.

I challenged myself to make a few small changes. First, I had to use sterile cutting instruments and I had to clean my wounds properly to avoid infections. This minimized the risk of cutting, but also taught me an important lesson about self-care. Staying alert and present after the cutting also helped avoid dissociation, so one alter couldn’t cut and leave someone else to deal with the mess.

Then I made a rule that cutting would be allowed only if I talked to someone for 30 minutes about what was going on (the trigger, memory, feelings, stressor, etc. that was fueling the urge). If I couldn’t find someone to talk to, then I had to write about it for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes were up, I was allowed to cut if I still felt that the urge was too strong to resist. Most times, the urge was decreased enough that I didn’t need cutting. The last part of this agreement was that when I did cut I had to do the least amount of damage necessary to get the the urge under control. If all of these steps were taken, no one inside had the right to complain about the cutting, which usually only created more stress which led to more cutting.

Over time I found that talking and writting were much better than cutting. They also had nice positive side effects such as building relationships, increasing trust between alters, and learning how to safely feel emotions. They also worked at ending the stress or trigger rather than delaying the fact that we had to deal with this stuff.

I started with small victories. A day without cutting, then relapsed. A week without cutting, then relapsed. A whole month without cutting, another relapse. I’d stumble, but I’d get back on track. I realized my relapses were getting further apart, and less severe in damage each time. I made six months without cutting, then relapsed. I made a goal of getting married after one year without cutting, and I made it. It’s now been over five years. The urges still pop up on rare occassions, and I am surprised when they surface. But I remind myself I don’t have to listen to the urge, and that I have other coping skills I can use. I have finally reached the point where I’ve been able to throw away all my “secret stashes” of razors.

All of the small victories have added up to a very large victory.

How It Started:

It is hard to say when I began to hurt myself. I remember standing infront of the mirror when I was eight years old. I wanted to commit suicide but I didn't know how. I was also terrified of what would happen if I tried but failed to complete the job. I didn't fear dying at my own hands. I feared my father killing me if he found me alive after attemtping suicide. Anyway, I decided that if I hated myself enough, that it would kill me. So I began a hate-fest.

I blamed myself for all the abuse. I blamed myself for my father hurting my brother. I blamed myself for my parent's fighting. I began to eat ALOT. If I could be fat and ugly, then that would surely help the hate-fest. Not only that, but it helped me not to feel the out-of-control feelings that I had. Somehow eating gave me a sense of control. It also gave me the hope that if I was fat enough or ugly enough that no one would ever want sexual contact with me.

I remember hearing my father attack my brother one night. I knew it was my fault. I sat in my closet and listened to the whole thing. I felt I had to. It was my punishment to listen and remember forever. Later, when the memories came back, I'd bang my head against the floor or the wall... whatever... just try to knock them away. Maybe to "repent."

The sexual abuse lasted for a long time. It became a "normal" part of my day. I would go to bed, listen to my alarm clock radio while I waited for the everyone else to go to sleep, and then my father would come to my room. When he was done, I could sleep. But when the abuse became less frequent, I felt lost. I was always on edge. When would he hurt me? When would be the next time? Tonight? Tomorrow? To ease the panic in order to sleep, I began to abuse myself sexually. I began to use objects to act out the abuse. The pain and the shame felt intense. But I felt in control again. I could finally sleep because the abuse had happened so I'd be safe for the rest of the night.
In high school I began to want to remember my abuse. I thought that if I could just remember it all then it'd stop haunting me. I would dissociate into a memory, then use masturbation/self-inflicted sexual abuse in order to try to *feel*. I could see the memories but I couldn't connect to the part of me that felt anything. I was so frustrated.

In college I found my most visable form of self-harm (aside from being obese from my love-hate relationship with food). I found cutting. Ironically, the first cuting instrument that I used was a red Swiss-Army knife that my father had given me for Valentines Day. (Isn't that just fucking odd that he'd give me THAT for VALENTINES DAY??)

I was under a tremendous amount of stress. I was a depressed college kid who was going through sophomore slump to boot. My memories, and their feelings, were coming back. My life was spinning out of control. I sat at my desk, hating my father, and wondering why he had sent me the knife. Maybe he knew what I'd do. I don't know. Maybe he hoped I'd kill myself to get the hell outta his life.

I slid the knife across leg. I didn't feel anything. I cut again, and then a few more times. I wanted to see the blood. For some reason, I needed to see the blood. To know I was alive, I guess... to have something real in my choatic life. I cut about five times, three inches long for each cut. My biggest concern was the carpet.

I felt saner. Things felt calmer. The world was spinning slower. I was in control again. It worked.

I cut frequently. I specifically picked on the of two blades for cutting. The other blade could be used to odd tasks that pocket knives get called on for. But the other blade was my secret.

Cutting became a weekly event. I fell deeper into depression and felt more and more suicidal. I couldn't sleep at night. Finally, I couldn't sleep in the day either. I began to take sleeping pills, washed down with alcohol just to sleep without nightmares. One night, I laid on the floor, pills and alcohol in my system. It was hard to breath. So easy, I thought, to just stop and fade away.

Something snapped that night. The next day I threw the knife into the lake. I thought that by getting rid of it that the cutting would stop. It didn't. There were still scissors. Once, I couldn't find any scissors in my room. But I found a seam ripper in my sewing kit and used it.

I hid my cuts. I didn't want people to know. It was *my* secret and no one was taking it away from me. I didn't tell my therapist. I didn't tell my best friend. I cut my stomach, my upper thigh, my abdomen, my hip, my breasts. Anything that was covered when other people were around.

I struggled with cutting for years. I began to use utility knives, wallpaper scrappers, straight razors, knives, sewing needles, scissors, broken glass/mirrors, even paperclips. No one knew. My family didn't. My dorm roommates didn't. I cut when I was alone. If I couldn't be alone in my own room, there was always the bathroom stall or shower. One of my favorite places to cut was a bathroom all by itself in a building people rarely were in at college.

I began to look for other ways to hurt myself. Burning, because it was easier to carry a lighter around in public than a razor. Pouring hot wax onto my skin, because it left no mark and had no risk of needing stitches if I messed up. Hitting myself, once with a hammer which scared myself more than any other form of self-harm. But they didn't give me the blood, so cutting still was my method of choice.

I finaly told my therapist. I finally knew that I wasn't safe. The cutting and depression were getting too far out of my reach. What had started out as a coping mechnism, something I did in order to feel in control of my life, now felt like it had control over me. I would think about my next opportunity to cut while still finishing up my current cutting session. I worried that I had become addicted to cutting somehow. Soon it'd be suicide if I didn't get help. I agreed to go inpatient.

Immediately I began thinking of ways I could get sharps into the hospital. Ways that I could cut from inside the hospital. Places I could stash the razors. I could slip them into my shoe sole. I could unscrew my cassett tapes and hide razors in them. I could glue them into the binding of books. I could hide them inside a stuffed animal. (All of which I did. I knew I needed to go into the hospital. I also knew that people inside of me we going to committ suicide if I went. It was going to be a battle between who could either die first, or manage to tell someone where all the hidden sharps were). But my insurance company decided not to cover the inpatient because I wasn't "sick enough."

I don't know how I survived.

Cutting has decreased since I've been out of college. I feel more in control of my life. I am also more aware of what is going on inside of me (like being diagnosed with MPD/DID and getting to know the alters inside). But I still stumble. I still get hungry for the sight of my own blood. I still feel the rush or adrenaline when I see a sharp that looks like one I used to use. I still have a sick attraction to knives and razors.

Every day I try to chose not to cut today. I don't keep track, because that just seems to make me fail. One day at a time... I've made contracts with myself and the others in my system. When anyone feels like they need to cut, they have to write about what is going on, or talk to someone about it, for atleast 30 minutes. If they still feel like they have to cut, then they can. It has helped tremendously. Communication and understanding from those special people in our lives who listen to us and don't hate us because of the cutting has been our saving grace.

I confided in my mother about the cutting. Sometimes she sees the scars, like when we go clothes shopping together. Sometimes I see her flinch when she sees them. It hurts, to know that I've hurt her. It also hurts to realize that I've done this to cope with what others have done to me. My anger that the abuse and the abusers were still messing up my life and my body helped me end my reliance on self-injury.

Sometimes talking didn't work. Sometimes all my words seemed to vanish. I would get so frustrated then. I couldn't talk, I wouldn't write. All I could do was grab a razor. Sometimes. though, just holding the razor was enough. Knowing it was there, in the room or in my hand, helped me cope a few minutes at a time while I reminded myself that I could survive without cutting.

There is hope and safety and control for us in this world *WITHOUT* cutting.