My Story

Who am I?

Well, I’ll tell you my story, but not my name.

And that's the way it should be. I can help if you can relate to relate to what I went through. I don’t want the attention on me, so no name, but my experience with masochism, and its effects, cutting and depression, will be useful to you in your struggle with these demons.

I knew I was a touch off way back in kindergarten. I would cry over everything and anything way too often to be normal. Every five-year-old kid cries, right? The problem, no one could figure out why. To this day, no one has explained it to me, but I do know that was when my masochism began to express itself.

My mom was so desperate to figure out why I was having such a hard time that I was taken to a child therapist. Did it help? I don’t think so. I still ended up cutting and struggling all through school. All I remember from those sessions was holding a bunch of dolls.

Anyway, by first grade I no longer started crying for no reason. I admit being a crybaby all throughout elementary school, but after kindergarten I was more normal, there usually was a reason and it didn’t happen that regularly.

Soon I became Casper-the-Ghost shy, to the point where I would be afraid to speak to anyone, which wasn’t normal. Plus, I was being relentlessly teased and bullied. This even made me more reluctant to engage with others so I mostly kept to myself.

In addition, from five to ten years old I had bouts of prolonged unexplained sadness. I couldn't enjoy anything. I recall one incident when I went to a carnival, and while I did feel excited walking onto the grounds with rides and the lights and the sounds and all the other kids, there was also this feeling of sadness or emptiness hidden deep inside that robbed me of any joy. Even so, I was too young to understand that what I was experiencing was both abnormal and serious, so I shrugged it off.

Reaching sixth grade I started getting bullied more by the boys. They were relentless. With each incident I was left feeling uncomfortable, annoyed, embarrassed, and angry. This harassment set off my bouts with deep depression. Instead of releasing it, I kept it locked away inside all those years as it festered into a psychological sepsis that eventually began to express itself in self-destructive behavior.

I loathed myself for allowing them to continuously get to me like that. By the time I reached the middle of my seventh grade year, I started to have thoughts to harm myself. However, despite these occasional impulses, I couldn't bring myself to actually do it.

By eighth grade the harassment had simmered down quite a bit, and only a few guys still bothered me. Even so, my self-loathing and depression grew. The thoughts to harm myself came more and more frequently, but I still hadn't acted on them yet.

When ninth grade came, the bullying had finally stopped. Even so, for most of that year I was alone. I only saw my one friend at the end of the day, and most of my other acquaintances were in the grade below me, which meant they were still in middle school. I felt so isolated. The more time I had to think, the more I felt the impulse to hurt myself. Finally, I just couldn't take it anymore. That night, for the first time, I took a blade to my arm. It hurt a lot—but it was a good kind of hurt. I LIKED THE PAIN.

The next day though, upset at what I’d done, I vowed never to do it again. I knew it was bad, and I knew that it was a little crazy to want to harm myself, so I decided to stop, and I did.

For the last few months of school, however, I kept remembering how it made me feel. I fought the good fight and kept pushing those thoughts back, arguing with myself that if I held off until summer, things would get better. Having that goal kept me strong. I further bargained with myself that if things weren’t any better by the end of school, I would let myself try cutting again.

The idea was that once summer came around, I would be so busy and happy that I wouldn't want to hurt myself. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. A week after school ended it became clear that I didn't feel any different. So I did it again—I cut myself, but this time my addiction began and I couldn’t stop.

Although I did have some control over how, when, and where I cut, my mother did start to notice small scars on my arm. Since they were spread out randomly, she didn’t think they were self-inflicted. I remember explaining them away as scratching my eczema and she believed me. Never underestimate the tendency of parents to see what they want to see.

I managed to tell two of my close friends that summer what I’d fallen into. I knew it was wrong, but needed another opinion before deciding what, if anything, to do about it. I was reaching out for help. Instead, what did I get, the slap-in-the-face remark, “What you’re doing is stupid!” That useless advice was followed up by a lecture on how, “Other people have it so much worse than you!” That was about as useful as a ticket to a Michael Jackson concert, so I stopped talking to her about it. My other friend listened, but didn’t have much to say and forgot all about it a week later. About that time I decided that it was best to just keep the cutting to myself.  

My sophomore year was much better. I was able to see my friends more and I didn’t feel so alone at school. Plus, I actually got on the honor roll! Unfortunately, it was also the year when I started facing regular roller-coaster mood swings.

Now, I wouldn’t say I was ever really happy, but there were moments when I felt...better. Better than I usually did anyway. There were also times when I felt absolutely awful, to the point where I was so numb and depressed that I wished I could off myself. Even so, my cutting fluctuated during that time. Sometimes I would do it once every few days; during other periods once every few weeks. It was a chaotic do-I-belong-in-a-loony-bin year.

During my junior year, the mood swings stabilized. I still slumped into stretches feeling numb and depressed, but it wasn't so bad that I felt I couldn't take it without cutting. For some reason though, my self-harm gradually went way down to where I was only harming myself every few months.

I still cut on those increasingly rare occasions when the walls were closing in or when I just wanted to feel the euphoria that follows cutting—the potent, narcotic-like rush. Yes, I was still addicted. That year, though, something incredible happened.

My sixteenth birthday arrived and during that party, for once in my life, I was completely happy! Perhaps it was because I managed to be living in the moment, or because I was celebrating with all my friends and family. By some miracle I didn't feel any sadness, self-hatred, and I wasn’t numb—the psychological demons that were usually always lurking in some dark corner of my typically troubled mind. I FELT ABSOLUTE JOY! The euphoria went away of course once the party was over, but I held on to that ecstasy in my memory.

At the beginning of my senior year I started to cut regularly once again. A new source of stress surfaced that made me bat-shit nervous. It was the year that I was going to graduate, and for some reason I didn't feel ready to leave high school and face a more adult life. So to quell that tension, I would cut my leg from every other day to every few days. Then something happened in November that either helped me, or really screwed me over.

To this day I still don't know which. Perhaps it was both? Basically, when I was getting changed in the girls’ dressing room I was careless and someone saw the cuts on my legs. They informed the counselor, and I was whisked to the nurse's office where they asked to check my legs. I declined of course, but I tried to make it seem like I wasn’t hiding anything serious. I simply acted like I was uncomfortable with that request. (Which I was...because honestly, why would I ever want to pull my pants down in front of teachers?!) Unfortunately, they had my mother’s cell phone and they called her about my cutting.

My mom confronted me about it and I lied, just like always. But the nurse told her that someone HAD to check my legs to make sure. So my mother did and I was forced to come clean.

The aftermath was a nightmare of Elm-Street-Freddy’s-back proportions. Once a week for a month or so, she would check my body to make sure I wasn’t cutting. I was forced to stop, like cold turkey, for her sake—not that I hated her for it. That didn't stop me from self-harming however. I transitioned to cutting much less than before and in hard-to-detect ways, which I still do to this day.

Of course I was ordered to counseling. We weren't able to afford an actual therapist, so I just went to the school psychologist. The problem was that she only saw me about five times over the rest of the year. It wasn't her fault since she did have a busy schedule, but the only thing she managed to help me with was preparing for college. Not that I really gave her much insight to my cutting issue. I am not as open in real life as I am online about this and found it much easier to share on social media platforms like Wattpad and chat rooms.

As of the day I’m writing this, my story has come full circle. I am a 2014 high school graduate. I do not cut nearly as much as I have in the past. On the other hand, my insistent self-loathing, depressive and masochistic thoughts never leave me.

No, I still haven't fixed all my issues, but I know I’ve been blessed with a certain understanding and many useful insights that I want to share in order to help others overcome their psychological, emotional, and self-harm struggles. I also want those who don't self-harm to really understand what its like. If you can relate to my experience, perhaps you can learn from my mistakes.

So, I hope my story gave you a good look into The Mind of a Masochist.

Always remember, you’re not alone… 

Outline

·       EARLY GRADES

 

Crying for No Reason

Overly Shy

Bullying made me Depressed

Self-Loathing Led to Self-Harm Thoughts

·       NINETH GRADE 

Cut for the First Time

I Liked the Pain

If Felt Wrong

No Support from Friends

Decided to Cut in Secret

·       HIGH SCHOOL

Scars Noticed - Forced into Therapy

Parents Checked Regularly

Less Cutting, but Better Hidden