CUT

Cut

I got a new book called cut. My mom said it sounded to dark but let me get it anyways. It was about a girl who self-harmed through cutting with her mothers crafting exacto knife. She was sent to a self-help center to try to get better. The book is about how she deals with things in her life, and what she does at 'Sea Pines' Or as her roommate calls it Sick Minds. After reading it for a second time (just for fun) I started to think. Obviously you all know I had a problem with this earlier in the year and a bit of last year. She was silent and drew back into her self. She wouldn't let anyone understand her. I began to think, as she revealed why she had started cutting, why I started. The first time I was on the phone with a guy I went out with. He made me very sad, and at the time i didn't have nay medication so I was depressed. I took a sharp kitchen knife with a green handle and cut my palm. I continued, now on my left arm, to do this until my mom started to notice. My friends noticed and they started telling the counselors. After thinking over my own experience I remembered something else. A couple of the other people I hung out with cut themselves also. They liked to think of us as 'cutters' but I preferred not to think of it. After a while, when I got really down or felt alone, I would threaten to kill my self to my friends. The days that I did this, the next day I would always have a new cut. Soon enough they realized these threats were empty and they began to ignore them and think I was nuts. In this time I had started taking depression pills, and soon after I was seeing a counselor named Joy. I saw Joy for about half a year I think, until she left the office and my parents felt I was well enough to take me out.

My life at school was so dramatic and though I had friends, I think most of them were bad influences. If you didn't have a boyfriend, you weren't cool enough. If you didn't cut and tell, you had problems. basically, for that year, my happiness depended on whether I had a boyfriend and the most friends. It was very material, and stupid. All through out this time, my parents were worried about me and trying ot help me, and I had other friends who would still stand behind me when I was single, and try to help me instead of hurt me when I began to cut again. A highlight in these girls, was Kambrea, still is. When I got dumped which i did alot, she would sit and tell m e I was better than the guy and that I was so young, and he was so immature, what was the point. She listen to my problems and help me as much as possible. Also, my parent were there. They were confused, and probably a bit scared of what I was doing, maybe even a little disgusted, but worried most of all. Many times, I know my mom has lost lots of sleep worrrying over what was going on,

After that year, they decided that Home-school would be the best route to put me in. I would be away from the influences that helped cause this, away from the drama. They often watched me over the weekends and saw I was much happier away from school, away from the drama. At the same time, they would be a little closer to me, if not mentally, then physically, and they could make sure I wasn't going to breakdown and cut again. I still have scars on my arms. My cousin keeps telling me to rub vitamin E oil on it and they will go away, but I don't think I want them to. I think I want them to stay, lightly, but there, so that when I look closely, I can remember, Ican see the stupid thing that I did and never do it again. I can see the light D carved into my skin, and think about how stupid it was, to get so upset over something so pointless. I want them there to remind me, no dark and heavy so that I can't wear short sleeves, but there to remind me of my seventh grade year, and the stupid choices I made. The year I wish I could take back, but at the same time, I'm glad it happened, because though it wasn't easy, and by far it didn't make me grow up and see the world as it really is, Through it I gained a little bit more of a testimony, I gained a little bit maturity, and most of all, I can finally see, that I can't control the world, and i can't live like the world, but I CAN be me, I can control me. I can't control it if someone loses interest and dumps me, but I can control my reaction. I can't control whether or not someone asks me out again before I turn sixteen, but I can control me.

Bad memories, with a good ending in a way. That's what the light marks on my arm will always be to me. I can't take back that year, I can't undo those mistakes, but I can try never to make them again, and I can finally see how bad what I did to myself was, and how hard it was for my family to stand by and watch while I pushed them away, how hard it was for kambrea to grab my arm and suddenly let go when she felt a new cut, how hard it was for her not to yell at me ans scream and cry until I stopped, I finally see that I hurt someone else, not just me. That what I was doing was hurting someone else, in a way I refused to see.