Sometimes I cut myself. It's something I've done since I was about seven years old. I would use various instruments; sewing needles, sharpened paper clips, fingernail clippers, scissors, knives, whatever I could get my little hands on and use them to open up various parts of my body; most often my feet but anything was game. For about six months I even cut my gums, this led to the death of a tooth and required a root cannel. But this wasn't the self injury that comes to most people's minds. It wasn't an angst ridden cry for attention as the stereotypes would say. In fact I was always quite happy while doing it. I just loved my body and wanted to explore it. Out of extreme curiosity I would cut myself open to see how I worked. As time went on I began to even love the ascetics of it; watching the blood come to the surface was just beautiful.
At A Glance Author Uberkitty Contact [email protected] IAM Uberkitty When N/A It was something I, for the most part, had great control over as well. Even though it went on nearly every day for years I only had two "accidents" the first being the death of the tooth and the second being the near amputation of my left thumb. I had (unintentionally) cut off a rather sizeable piece of it with kitchen shears, not enough to sew back on but too much to stitch the open wound together. I vividly remember watching the piece of my thumb drop to the table and thinking that a split second before it had been a part of my body and now it had been transformed into something alien. It was an incredibly powerful feeling. For months I was completely in love with the new shape of my thumb but within a year it looked normal again. I cried when it finished healing. Though rather accidental I still consider it the most wonderful of my early modifications.
Yes modifications. Though superficially I know it appears to be the same as self injury I was in no way mutilating myself. Yes the cuts were always random. Yes I did them with terribly inappropriate instruments under conditions nowhere close to sterile. Yes I had little idea how to help them heal properly. But this was an incredibly positive experience to me. Not once did I ever regret it and to this day I still look back on it fondly.
As the years went by I did this less and less until I had almost completely stopped around the age of 13. I'm sure why I stopped, but then again I'm not sure why I ever began. I then "officially" became interested in body modification and started going to professionals for my modifications.
Then something happened. At 17 I fell into a very deep depression. I would go days without sleep or food. One day I picked up a knife and ran it across the underside of my arm. Even as I did it I hated it. I was disappointed with myself for slipping so low pain was the only way I could seek solace and was through physical pain and for the first time in my life I felt that I had desecrated my body. I no longer looked at my self made wounds with wonder and love as I did so many times before but looked on them with shame. I worried endlessly that they would scar or that someone would see them. I babied them in hope they would disappear sooner only to cut myself again days later. I wanted to stop. I sought help from a psychiatrist for the depression and found ways to avoid self injury. I set up a system with my friends so that I ever felt like cutting I would go stay with them until the episode was over. I would channel my energy into other destructive things such as crushing al uminum cans or tearing up cardboard boxes. I gradually weaned myself from the habit.
Now I no longer mutilate myself, yes I sometimes still feel the urge to but now I can easily overcome it. I do however still modify myself. I have sterile one time use needles and scalpels on hand for when I want to engage in a little blood play. It is, once again, a very positive thing for me that I go into smiling instead of crying. The only thing that has changed from when I did it as a child is that I now know how to go about it in a much safer way.
I have a very difficult time explaining this to outsiders. They don't seem to understand how I can push a needle through my skin in a positive way when just two years ago I was in locked in a dark room alone slicing my arms to bits. Am afraid that too many people cannot understand there is in fact a difference between modification and mutilation but I'll still try to make them see.