I started when I was twelve. I used to heat the heads of large nails until they were red hot and held them to my skin. At the time, I was doing that to see if I was tough enough to stand the pain. My older brother had become violent the previous year, banging on walls and making threats. Every night, he would quietly sneak to my bedroom and slowly open the door. He would just stand there, staring at me through the crack, sometimes for an hour. School wasn't going well, I was the kid that was teased and taunted. Those things probably played into it, though at the time I didn't connect the two.

I won't go into all of the problems, the the SI continued into middle age, getting worse over time. It was always when I could no longer handle stressful situations and felt trapped. At its worst, I went on a four day spree of slashing my lower legs. I would just roll up my pant leg, hold a sharp knife about three feet over my leg, look away and let my arm fall. Not just skin, but subcutaneous fat at muscle were cut. I could see the ends of vessels. I did that once every day for four days. Lost a ton of blood and still have divets in my calves.

I'm still unnerved by the degree of violence I was able to submit myself to. No hesitation marks, just one hard slash. For a while, I worried about whether or not I was losing my mind and might hurt someone else. I don't have that in me though and have since stopped worrying about it. The way I stopped was by making a solem promise to a close friend that I would never do it again. I won't cross that line and betray the trust. It was my friend who found me in the bathroom sitting on the closed toilet and watching the blood pour out of my leg and run out the bottom of the door into the hall carpet. I knew if I made that promise to my friend (long story there doesn't fit in here).I would never betray it.

Sam2