What cuts like a knife? Well how about a knife, or in this case an X-Acto knife. I have never cut myself, well not until yesterday.

Not really sure why I did it, it wasn’t my recent breakup with Gina, though I’m sure that was part of it, just a bunch of things building up. I have been struggling with a lot of thoughts/feelings/desires that I really don’t know how to deal with and I’m more than a bit disturbed by some of them. It was that and so many other things I can’t really seem to put into words.
I know my parents, especially my mom, will freak out when she finds out, I think that is partly why I did it, not to hurt her, but to win her disapproval, to make her angry with me, to make me ugly in her eyes.

So back to what happened, I put a new blade in an X-Acto knife that we keep around the house, for “normal “ things, took it and went into the bathroom, not wanting to make a mess that I would have to clean up or try to hide, I got in the shower. I picked a spot on my lower left arm that seemed like a place where I wouldn’t cut into any veins or tendons or anything like that. Much like a pen drawing on my arm I drew a line cutting through the skin but not as deeply as I had expected, somehow I thought it would cut through me easily sense it is so sharp. Not satisfied with this result I went to the beginning of the line and slowly stabbed it most of the blade into my arm, then slowly cut down the rest of my previous attempt. So I stood there with a gash about ½ inches or so deep and about two inches long, blood coming out in a steady flow. I was fascinated by how beautiful it was as it dripped off my fingertip down onto the shower floor, mixing with the water and swirling down the drain.

I stayed in the shower until the water began to get cold, the bleeding had slowed but I had several times put the cut directly into the warm stream of water coming from the shower to increase the amount of blood that was oozing out.

After that it was time to do some damage control, I was sort of surprised at how calm I was as I did my best job of first aid bandaging up my arm. I used three “butterfly” closures to keep the cut closed, then a wide bandage pulled tight to help keep it from coming open again. I know I will have a scar but I would rather it be as small as possible. I know there is nothing I could do about the length of it, but I was hoping to minimize the width of it.

I’m embarrassed and ashamed about what I did, I feel I have let so many people down, including everyone here, and I’m so very afraid to face my mother’s reaction to what I have done.

This is the first time, I hope the last time. I know (and knew then) that cutting myself won’t make my other problems any better, if anything it’s going to make them worse. But at least for a bit I have something else to worry about, I guess that is why cutting can become addictive, it overshadows your other issues if only for a bit.

I have been in and out of therapy for years though I haven’t been seeing anyone recently, guess this is a good time to start looking for a new therapist.