"Why do you cut?" It's the first question on anyone's mind when they see that someone's been hurting themselves. Sometimes, it is asked in love. Sometimes, it's accompanied by a hurtful look or a word like "freak". It seems like the latter is the preferred by most of society today. Self-harm is made out to seem like some sort of fashion statement instead of the mental disorder that it is. It's hard not to get defensive about that question, because too often, people don't care about the answer. They just use the question as an alternative to the name-calling, jokes, and eye-rolling that they hold back. But for those of you who really care, here is my story.

At age ten I was suicidal. Instead of therapy, when my school counselor found out she suggested that my parents shipped me off to the nuthouse. Okay, in reality, my parents drove me to this building called a crisis unit that was only about 30 minutes away from our house where my parents visited me every day. But it felt like a nuthouse. It was cold and filled with suicidal or otherwise strange teenagers. We all lined up every morning and every night to take our mind-numbing medication that the doctors gave us. We had a strict daily schedule including an hour of group therapy and an hour outside in a small cage that barely had enough room for all of us. I still remember the intense claustrophobia. During those group therapy sessions, where we all revealed exactly how damaged we were, nearly everyone there had cut themselves and they all had different stories. I was there for a week and when I got out, it took a few more weeks before I ran out of the drugs the doctors had given my parents. Then it took a couple of days for the medication to wear off and the clouds to clear from my head. But once they did, I remembered the day when everyone had told about their scars. There had to be something therapeutic about it if so many teenagers were doing it, right? So, I took a knife- not a butter knife, but not nearly sharp enough to easily slice through flesh- and I dug it into my skin as deeply as I could. At first, I was upset because it didn’t do anything, but slowly a bright pink line formed in the area that I had slid the knife across. It was just raised, pink skin. It didn’t bleed like in the stories that the teens at the crisis unit had told. It made me smile a little on the inside. Not because the shallow cuts had made me feel any different, but because I was doing it wrong. That gave me hope that when I did it it right all my pain would vanish. So I thought hard about how the others had said they self-harmed. One girl used a butcher knife. But where was I going to get one of those? One guy had said he had punched through a couple of windows. I doubted that would go unnoticed by my parents. Then, I remembered that one girl had said she took apart shavers and used the razors. So I found a video online about how to take them apart. As I had suspected, the feeling was much different than before. The second I saw the first bead of blood, I got goose bumps, I felt my face flush and I got a little bit of an adrenaline rush because I knew if someone walked in at that moment and caught me, I would be back in the nuthouse permanently because there was no way to explain rationally what I was doing. Over the years, I started using cutting for many different things: to take away my numbness when I couldn't feel anything, as a punishment for eating, and sometimes just because it was a habit. Then in 8th grade, when I was starting to realize how destructive and unhelpful my habits were, and I was trying to break the habit, I played "the eraser game" with some friends. The eraser game, if you haven’t heard, is a game in which you rub an eraser back and forth across your friends hand while playing a word game. By the time you get through the word game and brush the eraser shavings off your hand, the flesh is raw and stinging. It’s better than cutting. Not only did it have the same positive effects of cutting, but the aggressive rubbing also took care of some of the anger that I had felt. Ever since then, I have struggled with self-harm- recovery and relapse- and my llife hasn’t been the same since. I haven’t worn a swimsuit in 2 years. When my younger cousins sit on my lap, all I can think of is how many wounds they are opening up with each movement and hoping that I can get to a bathroom to clean it up before I get blood all over my pants. I can’t raise my hand in class because my sleeve might come down too far and reveal my secrets. And finally, I live in the constant fear of cutting too deep and being put back in a nuthouse for good.

“Why do you cut?” Next time you ask that question, don’t say it looking down your nose. Say it in private, with love, and be prepared to listen. Because it’s not for attention. It’s not a fashion statement, and it’s not a joke.