What's weird is this was five years ago, but I can still remember. I've been with a different T for 4 years now. But I remember that I did tell him, and he asked why, and said that some kids he worked with told him that they cut because it "feels good." That one didn't fit for me, but I really didn't know why I cut back then. I'm still working on trying to understand my feelings. I do dissociate from them. Nothing seems real. A lot of the time, cutting has been a way to prove that my feelings were real, because they always got discounted.

And also to get help. One trait that a lot of us probably have is that we don't really show emotional distress. Body language stays calm even when we are screaming and jumping up and down and boiling over on the inside. Reacting wasn't allowed. Showing feelings wasn't allowed. So we don't get taken seriously when we say we need help. It always seems like someone else needs help more. Physical problems get taken seriously but emotional ones don't. No blood, no foul, right? So we learn that we have to be bleeding to be helped. That was part of it for me too.