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Originally written at 3:28 AM 5/23/2010

How true of Paris Hilton's character in Repo! The Genetic Opera and sadly enough, myself. After visiting this site a few times through 3rd party links, I decided to join, for the sake of having an anonymous method of setting my self-injury thoughts straight. No "real-life" friends to pressure me (unintentionally, of course) into creating happy, fake blog posts or over-dramatic, "please help me" posts.

Maybe then I can really sort out what the hell is going on in my head.

A history may be a good idea.

I'm a 16 year old high schooler, caught in the grips of self-injury.

I first experienced SI when I was 12, not really understanding the implications of it, nor liking the pain of it. I didn't do it again until I was about 14 and my best friend had started SI-ing herself on her arms as a method of stress relief and self-punishment. It became a tit-for-tat sort of relationship for a while, until a friend and I turned her into the school psychologist. I didn't tell her until after she had gone through counseling that I was still dealing with SI, and she threatened numerous times to go the same psychologist. For my own good, so to speak.

So I stopped. Or at least I think I did.

My self-injury took a nosedive in sophomore year of high school when, the month before school started,my mother committed suicide. That, compounded with the fact that one of my close friend Alice* attempted suicide numerous times and was in and out of mental health facilities for the first half of the year left me confused, hurt, lost and unsure of anything.

I became so focused on trying to keep Alice* alive and healthy, I forgot about myself. I started cutting, (badly, sometimes up to 30 times in one evening) developing stress migraines, sleeping 12 hours out of the day, and letting my life slip out from underneath me.

Then Alice was sent across the country to a long-term treatment facility.

The migraines began to become less frequent and eventually went away. Around that time, I started a relationship with a close friend (who had no idea about my SI).

Without the distraction of devoting every breathing moment to trying to help Alice, I was at a loss about how to begin to deal with my mother's suicide. I became angry, defensive, and depressed. I struggled  daily, finally begging one of my friends to go with my to the high school counselor to ask for help.

My dad set me up with a therapist, and on the second visit, admitted my SI behavior.

After receiving a few upsetting letters and a nasty fight over my then boyfriend, I cut off contact with Alice. I hope she is doing well, but I can't handle her problems along with my own. Even from across the country, she managed to make me upset to the point of hurting myself. What's that saying? Misery loves company, but misery breeds contempt? Something along those lines. Either way, there's definitely enough contempt to go around right now...

A few times, I convinced myself and the therapist that I had gotten over my SI, when in reality, I'm still doing it.

I've actually begun lying to her now. I feel horrible about it, because I had such a desire to be "better" when I first talked to her, and I know she's only there to help me, but I've become so accustomed to using SI to deal with negative and overwhelming situations and emotions that I have no real desire to give it up anymore. I know I should, I know it's a hard habit to break, but god, knowing I don't have to talk or try to verbalize pure emotion and just let the blade do the talking is quite a bit easier. Much easier than attempting to connect behavior to events in my head and such.

As of right now, I'm sitting in front of a computer screen, the side of my left wrist a perfect example of why I joined this site. I'm hoping that maybe, by conversing with others on the subject I can gain more insight and maybe overcome this beast. At least I hope I can. An internet inspirations book perhaps. I don't know at the moment, but we'll see. :) (I feel twisted for using that smilie face in this paragraph...)

I'm not sure what else to add, other than I would love to hear from other people and chat and the likes. I'm very friendly despite my really depressing first post. I'm not like this all the time I swear!

~C'est la vie, c'est la mort~
 

Amber Sweet

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent