!!Warning!!
You are about to make a choice that could ruin your life.
Before you make that first cut, remember, you will enjoy this. You will find the blood and pain addictive.
You’ll start off with a scratch, a single mark, and you’ll tell yourself that’s it. But it fascinates you,
and you remember the release. So you do it again. And again. Even though you think you can make a few tiny cuts that aren’t
deep and will heal easily, they will get deeper. They will scar. They may take months to heal. And years before the scars
fade. Just wait for one cut to turn into ten, and ten to a hundred. If you think you can limit it to one area, think again…
It will spread when you run out of skin. You hide them like a disease, living in a constant state of shame. You will find
yourself lying to people you love, using any excuse you can think of to hide your habit for one more day. You will jerk back
when people touch you as though their hands were dipped in poison. You will be terrified they’ll feel something under
your shirt, or because it just hurts too much to be touched,
Be prepared to get so out of control you fear your next cut, because you don’t know how bad it
will be. You convince yourself you’re still in control, but deep down, you know the truth. You know you’re losing
it, and hate yourself because of it. Be prepared for your entire life to revolve around cutting… cutting and covering
it up. You live for your next cut, longing for the release, the blood, the pain… If you even feel the pain anymore.
You feel nothing, you are nothing. Just wait until the first time you go ‘too deep’ and you freak out because
the blood won’t stop. You’re shaking all over, and you can’t drag your eyes away. You are gaping, and it
terrifies you, but you can’t tell anyone. You sit there alone, begging it will be ok, swearing you’ll never let
it go this far again. But you will, and further.
Don’t worry, you will learn how to take care of yourself, so you can go deeper and deeper, but
still avoid the ER. And the better you get at treating yourself, the deeper they get. Afterwards you feel guilty and ashamed.
You cut again the next night to escape the guilt. But it haunts you, and you are stuck on a vicious never-ending carousel,
it’s music only the sound of your cries.
You will start looking at everyone in a different way… Scanning their bodies for any signs of
cuts, it becomes automatic. You just hope you might meet someone like you, so you don’t feel so terribly alone. You
don’t even think about it, as your eyes search their wrists, arms… hoping, just hoping. But they are not like
you. You will see their clean arms and feel terribly ashamed and alone.
You will start doing a lot of things alone, normal things, like your laundry, emptying the garbage.
You can’t risk someone seeing the bloodstains on your clothes and sheets, or seeing the old bandages and bloody tissues.
Be prepared to buy a whole new wardrobe… long sleeved shirts, even in summer, bracelets, wristbands… the list
goes on. You’ll buy medical supplies, new blades, all the time terrified someone will ask why you need all these things.
Say goodbye to things you used to take for granted, like wearing shorts, sleeveless tops, swimming
costumes. A normal day at the beach or swimming pool will be a far off memory for you. An impossibility.
You won’t be able to make it through a day without cutting… Next thing you know you’re
in a public bathroom somewhere hacking at your arms. You’ll keep a blade with you all the time for emergencies. If you’re
desperate enough, anything can be a tool… Scissors, a car key, a needle, a pen. Even a paperclip. Doesn’t matter
what is, if you need to cut bad enough, you will find something.
You will become an expert on your body as you carefully destroy it. You will dream about it, you will
have nightmares of being exposed. You will get so paranoid you think people are talking about it, or you, all the time. It
will haunt you day and night and take over your life. You will wish you never made that first cut, because while you absolutely
hate cutting, and want to stop, at the same time you love it, and cannot live without it.
You have been warned…