:trig: :trig: :trig:
I've been about here for over a year now, but I've not done this. I thought it might help me put things in perspective a bit, so here goes.
I first consciously harmed myself at the age of fourteen. I can't remember exactly why, but I remember the event itself in perfect detail. Looking back, I realise that I'd engaged in self-destructive behaviours from a much younger age, I simply hadn't realised there was a name for what I was doing at the time. My childhood was... interesting, but mostly happy, at home anyway. My parents were of no fixed address (PC way of saying homeless) when I was conceived. They'd known eachother a week and my dad was a drug user. They pulled themselves together a lot I guess. They stayed together, are still together now in fact. They've both had mental health problems, nature/nurture I guess. They cope, they function. They're great people, even if they're more like friends than parents to me these days.
I was a quiet, shy and introspective child. I went to a rough school in a rough area. I was a chubby kid with frizzy hair and glasses, I liked to read. I was extremely shy which I occasionally attempted to cover up with outlandish behaviour. I got bullied pretty badly. I can't bring myself to repeat some of the things that were done by kids at school, even after all these years. It's too humiliating.
But yeah, the first time I harmed myself, the first time I knew exactly what I was doing and set out to hurt myself, I was 14. It happened every so often after that, every few weeks, every time I had an emotion I couldn't deal with in a normal way. It was fairly small-scale, not the kind to leave permanent scarring. It was hidden fairly easily. It escalated.
By my 16th birthday it was happening at least once a week, and the first permanent scarring began to appear. My mum found out. She didn't react well, I got the standard "you're only looking for attention" response. She had her own problems dealing with it, but didn't exactly make it easy. She insisted I see a psychiatrist, then insisted on coming to my appointments with me, then insisted to the phsychiatrist till she was blue in the face that there was nothing wrong with me, I was just a silly teenager. I can place all of the scars I got around that time. I have a clear flashbulb memory of about twenty different events all leading to permanent scarring, some of them I can attribute a time and date to. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and given prozac. It only made me feel sick.
I sat my GCSEs and the following september began my A-Levels. I went to the small sixth-form college attached to my secondary school. I expected to make a new start, but I couldn't. I didn't have many friends, and the bullying that I'd expected to stop now that we'd all grown up a bit continued. I dropped out after a month or so. I'm not entirely sure what I did with the next few months, but a lot of time was spent in bed, a lot of time feeling numb, a lot of time wishing I could just cease to exist. I had a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, and shortly after I turned 18 I was prescribed a different anti-depressant. I had no luck here either. I felt nothing at all. I couldn't eat, sleep or function. I'd sit in the same place for hours staring at a wall. The couple of years between 16 and 18 are a blur. Grey and black.
Inexplicably, things picked up a little, I worked a few hours a week in a supermarket, a few hours in a bar. I started to develop a little bit of confidence. I decided that I did, in fact, want A-Levels, and I wanted a degree. After what I felt was a massive failure in dropping out not even a term in on my first attempt, I felt as though I had a lot to prove. I enrolled in a college the next town over, where I could be reasonably certain I'd not run into anyone I'd gone to school with. I began to feel better. I took five A-Levels, one completely self-studied (like I said, I felt as though I had a lot to prove).
After my AS exams I began to experience anxiety, which I'd not really had in a big way before. It manifested itself at first as hypochondria. I spent about three months absolutely convinced I had a brain tumour, but too terrified to go and ask a doctor. When eventually I did, I was told that the 'symptoms' I'd been having were probably a result of stress and possibly needing to see an optician. A new pair of glasses later, and I was over the brain tumour thing. Then I became convinced I had bone cancer, lung, bowel, ovarian, liver, cervical, skin cancer, one after the other. Then MS, heart problems, a collapsed lung. Of course, I have had none of these. I had (and certainly still have) irrational thoughts and feelings, things I can't explain, obsessions, things my mind throws at me that I can't deal with. I was diagnosed with OCD and GAD. I was offered more therapy, but I was too busy to keep the appointments, and eventually I just dropped out of the MH system, I coped on my own, using self harm, which had become by that point something I no longer even wanted to stop doing, my mechanism for dealing with whatever life threw at me. I got stitched a fair few times, but eventually became proficient enough at taking care of myself that I stopped going to A and E and just dealt with bigger scars from things that should have been stitched.
I applied to university. I attended interviews. Completely against my expectations I was accepted. I did my A2 exams. A couple of months later I started my degree. Things got better again. I love my course, I love the city where I live, I love the university, I love being a student. My mental health in my first year was pretty good. It deteriorated again over that summer and start of my second year. I had regular panic attacks, I once again became obsessed with the thought that I was facing imminent death. I saw a therapist for a while, I saw a learning support tutor, towards the end of that year I became very low again. I was prescribed Sertraline, which again, just made me feel worse.
I'm in my final year now, looking towards the future. I've just come out of a relationship that started wonderfully and ended terribly, and I realise my self-esteem has taken quite a few knocks. It's going to be ok though. I believe that because I have to. I'm determined to be happy and enjoy my life. Self harm has been the thread running through all of this. It's always been there. The reasons for it have changed, so has the way I feel about it, but it's a constant, and probably always will be. I can accept that. I'm scarred for life. I can accept that too. I still feel very young, despite this story beginning over nine years ago, I still feel like that girl. I wonder if I'll ever feel different?