You know a lot of people think that people who hurt themselves are emo and hate life...well to set those people straight, why don't you walk in they're shoes? do you know why that person or people hurt themselves? did you know there is an underlying condition called depression. You know that problem where a person feels useless, worthless, like a piece of shit, no one loves them, every one hates them and the list goes on?

Well when a person deals with that everyday for years and they don't know how to handle it or anything, they resort to cutting or burning, drugs and or alcohol..whats sad is that a lot of people mainly those close to them don't know that the self-mutilation of the very person they care about is doing that to themselves. A lot of people think that the self-mutilators only care about themselves...they don't...remember those reasons that I mentioned above? about people not liking them?

That shows that they care about others...about what others think...it hurts them that much that they end up scaring themselves up. A lot of times there is no one to blame but in some times there are..there are bullies, there are heartless idiots who do not care about anyone but themselves. No I'm not an activist for those who hurt themselves, I'm not OK with them hurting themselves but I do know where they come from...the internal pain, the lostness, the external pain, your mind going a thousand miles per hour trying so hard to figure out, why do these people hate me so? why am i doing this? why am i hurting those around me who love me so? why do i feel this is helping? do i feel this is positive? is this negative? why does this hurt? WHY DOES THIS HURT???!

It hurts because of the pain that you are feeling internally, not just the external pain of the gashes in your arms, forearms, thighs, calves, pelvic region, face, shoulders, chest, ribs..and maybe even your face..I've been there and let me tell you it took me years to stop. took me about 2-3 yrs to finally stop that deadly addiction that was infact slowly killing me, my family, my close friends, and even destroyed some of my relationships with significant others.

My external scars are very apparent...but the most damaging scars are my internal ones. no i wasn't selfish, i was lost, confused, angered, very, very depressed, and heart broken. when i hear someone say "if i don't do this right I'm gonna slit my wrist" my automatic response is "why? it won't solve anything but add more pain also to slit your wrist over something that is possibly pathetic like that is pretty stupid." no I'm not saying oh if your depressed that's appropriate and more acceptable. It's not. in any means of self-mutilation is not right and it can come in many forms. not just the cutting, and burning.

But there's also the drinking, and drug use. They too destroy your body and you too get even more depressed from that. I'm not just saying that depression is the main cause of these forms of mutilation but it's the main cause. Not only did I use to cut and burn myself but I turned to drugs and alcohol. I would get high, then drunk then I would start slicing away, then smoke a cigarette to highten the high of the drugs and the alcohol. I would sit back and look at the gashes in my arms, I would "feel satisfied" then I would bawl my eyes out.

I knew I should've have done what I did but it was addicting to the fact that I thought it was helping, it was my way out. but it wasn't the slightest. after many trips to the ER, two admissions to the mental hospital, 2 psychological visits and 2 therapy visits to the Clearfield Jefferson County Mental Health facility a week. I wear my scars like a badge of honor, my life scars, my battle scars of life, my trials and tribulations. Yeah I'm embarassed of them to a point because I know what I did to get those and the pain that came with them.

Look it's hard...very hard to go through that and come out on top, not a lot of ex-self-mutilators can say that. I'm proud to say that I am a survivor of this. Yeah it took for me to almost die from it. I got 13 stitches, bleeding to death on the ER table, my mom wasn't allowed to come in to see me, to be by my side, the blood bank on standby, I passed out into unconciousness about 5 min. after I put that deep death granting gash. Mom said I walked in the ER, signed myself into the mental hospital and walked out of the ER to the mental hospital by myself...I don't remember it. When I woke up and came to I was in a room all by myself, with padding around my bed attached to the bars with a bandage on my arm. I didn't know what happened till I finally put the pieces together about 2hrs after I woke up. I still get stares, questions and comments not made to my face about my arms.

Yeah it still hurts, but I also know that when ppl do that they have no clue what I went through. So when you see a person with scars on their arms that look like self intentional wounds, you think about what that person is possibly going through. Do not ever judge that person or any person. Your slightest actions verbally or not, can hurt that person even more and for all you know you just might set them off and they go home get into a bath tub, put on the sweltering hot water and slice their wrists wide open. "Go down the road, not across the street" is what the self mutilators say. "Go down the road" means slice length wise down your arm. "not across the street" means don't slice the wrist width wise. so when you hear someone say "don't worry i go down the road, not across the street" you should take precautions and say something to that persons closest friend or family member and report it..

You might be that persons advocate and their life saver.

Don't ever make assumptions.