my name is sara i'm 16 and i live in new hampshire. its really quite state, not much happens here. well anyways i'm a cutter. i have been since i was 9. i remember exactly how it started, but first i have to give you some background on why i cut. i cut because since i was two years old my step-dad raped and molested me. it wasn't until i was eight years old that i realized what he was doing was wrong. he was also very emotionally and physically abusive. okay so now for when i first started SI. i remember him just finishing his "business" with me and i was told to clean the basement so i was vacuuming and the heater came on and i accidentally pushed up against the heater and it started burning me i knew what was happening i didn't know what i was doing was self mutilation. when i moved from the heater i had third degree burns from my hips to my shoulder and i still didn't tell anyone i only told my sister and she took care of it.
when i was 10 i heard about friction burning. it was when you took an eraser and rubbed it against your skin until you feel satisfied. i did that for about three months but then it stopped doing the "trick" so i found out about cutting and i started doing that the cuts weren't really much at first they were just little cat scratches and that was good because i was a tom boy and i was always coming home with new wounds. but after about a year the cuts became more frequent and a lot deeper. i never told anyone about anything that was going home until one day i had no choice. the night before my step dad called me a bunch of names and for some reason i was feeling daring and i yelled back. {not a good idea} he smashed my face off the counter, started hitting me with a metal bat and then threw me down the stairs. i would have run but it would have only been worse. so the next day i had gym and i had to change and all the stalls were taken up so i had to change out of the stall and my friend saw all the bruises over my body and started asking questions, so i finally broke down and told her and i made her promise not to tell anyone. well that day we had detention and she ended up convincing me to tell my teacher because frankly i was scared shitless to go home. so they called my mom and i told her what was going on and they had me stay at my teacher's house for the rest of the week. and so after that he had to leave the house and then my cutting became worse because now i was being forced to talk about everything that he did to me it was like reliving my nightmare over and over again. so the cuts became deeper and deeper. then we had to move to dover and then to rochester where i live now. and i met this girl who was a cutter too. we instantly clicked. so my mom thought i stopped cutting but i didn't i just started cutting my legs from my knee up to the top of my thigh. they are now covered with dark purple scars. i found that i could cut deeper there and it hurt a lot more but i had no worries of cutting a major vane or anything. well when my legs were all covered in cuts n it hurt too much to even touch i started cutting my wrist which i found to hurt a lot more than the leg. i stopped cutting for about 6 months because i met this awesome guy he moved in with me then broke my heart. that brings me up to rite now i'm still cutting now on my upper arm because i wear sweatshirts all the time anyways so there easier to hide. as of now i've cut everyday this week. i don't think there is a day that goes by that i don't think about cutting. it's the only thing in my life that i have control over. i can't control my emotional or mental pain but i can control the physical pain to a point. but in no way am i saying that cutting is a good way to release your feelings or anything but for those that do it understand.