Community: Real Life

How others influenced my self-harm

Gordon* is a 27 year-old photographer who used to self-harm. Here he shares his reasons for cutting himself and how it led to deeper psychological issues.

Worried man. Posed by actor.

I started self-harming when I was 15 or 16. I had started to drink and experiment with drugs and I wanted to feel and experience new things. At the time I saw it as a kind of game, for my own entertainment and to gain attention. A lot of my friends cut themselves regularly. I think they were trying to be like Richey from the Manic Street Preachers. It was 'cool' to be blue when I was that age, which I guess it always is. I was in a group of young people who were a bit 'arty' and different. We were always doing things to try and express ourselves in some new way, which could be very dangerous.

Scars

I thought I was different from my friends who self-harmed regularly though. They were doing it in what seemed like a far too controlled fashion. For them it was a habitual thing. For me it was a ritualistic dramatic event, which was often very violent. Although at the time it didn't seem to hurt, when I showered the deeper cuts across my gut burned, and I still have scars from the worst injuries. Thankfully none of these are in places where people are able to see them.

I didn't seek any help at that age because I didn't think at the time there were underlying reasons for cutting myself.  I had certain friends who would encourage it and because they all did it, and because I wanted to fit in I went along with it. I had been bullied from age 11-13 when I hung around with a group of boys who were very different to me, and used me as the brunt of their jokes. I therefore wanted to remove myself completely from any association with the type of friends I had had until that point. I wanted to be a new person, a stronger and freer person.

"I wish that I had been able to see the damage that self-harm was doing at the time, and I wish I felt that I could talk about it."

Realisation

Cutting myself, on reflection, was not the best way to do that. After I'd done it I always felt dreadfully ashamed and guilty. I worried that I was a dangerous person, and feared the Mr Hyde in myself. I know it upset my younger sister which I regret, and I'm sure my mother would not like to know that I treated myself with such little respect.

I don't know that my own self harm was an illness but the thought that I was an angry and violent person scared me and combined with shame and regret over other things, it meant I subsequently became depressed. For this I did have to get professional help and although sessions with a psychiatrist really did help, it has taken a long time to completely break free from and some days I worry I will become that way again.

I wish that I had been able to see the damage that self-harm was doing at the time, and I wish I felt that I could talk about it. I still don't like to talk about it as I am very embarrassed by my actions now that I am a bit older. I think it would have been very helpful if I could have learnt about other's experiences at the time, and hadn't felt that I had to scar myself to fit in.

* Not his real name. Picture posed by actor.

Updated: 12/04/2010


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