What age did you start cutting?

[Dweii]

I started when I was 13 and used it as an effective emotional painkiller for years.

Edited August 27, 2005 by Helena

[sad_lonely_tear]

i started cutting at the age of ten... here it is ten yrs down the road and i still do at least once a day. i've become obsessed with it and can't figure out how to control the urge to stop.

[sad_lonely_tear]

i've started making lotz of friends here so it is starting to help. i'm just taking it day by day and hoping eventually it'll get easier

[indiscriminate]

(although I do miss it so.... that's bad, right? But I deal.)

I started when I was 15 and quit two months before my 18th birthday.  I've slipped three times since (I'm 20 now), but I miss it all the time.

It would be so much easier than actually dealing with the issues at hand.  There are plenty of nice things I could say about it but most of them are morbid and triggering, so they belong somewhere that's not here.

[Ocracoker16]

I started cutting when I was 15.  It used to be my only coping skill.  I have gone for months without cutting.  I started back in May when I was sexually assaulted.  I have been using it to deal with going back to school.  I had an awful first day today.  I wanted to do it and planned on doing it at home.  I managed to calm myself and I didn't do it.  That is one day free of SI.

Katie

[Tomboy]

I managed to calm myself and I didn't do it.

[paco]

Good job. you gotta start somewhere.

[cornixregina]

21 after bf died suddenly (now nearly 23)

[Atropis42]

Senior year of high school.  17.  Last time was last....april I think. (I'm 19 now)

[Baka^Ni]

7, I used to press knives into my breast bone in order to try and remove the hurt. Didn't understand it at the time, just 'felt' right. I think it's unfair that you're born without all the knowledge to deal with all the stuff that can go on =).

[Bombinadam1403]

I started when I was either 13 or 15. I don't remember exactly. I started by just taking my fingernails up and down my arms. It's progressed from there though. I stopped and was free for almost a year and then this summer I started again. I've been free though for over 3 months now.

[Hellcat13]

28

after I got my kitten and since he was scratching me (not deliberate) I thought I could cut and "get away with it".

[Jennie]

I started when I was late 15 or early 16.  I cut for about a year off and on and then for about 5-6 months I became very addicted to it.  It became my entire life.  It was all I cared about and all I seemed to do anymore.  I then managed to get a grip on things and slow down and then eventually stop.  I was stopped for about 1 and  1/2 years.  Recently I have started cutting again.. about 3 months now.  Its not overly serious... like about twice every 3 days but I'm trying to keep it in check so I don't get out of control again because that was really horriable.

I'm 19 now and hoping to stop cutting for good soon.

[critical_reflection]

I started at 18, after my first suicide attempt.

Because I slashed my wrists and the pain went away, so I thought: why not?

I've stopped this year.  8 months and counting.

Edited November 10, 2005 by critical_reflection

[Beth]

I started at age 20.  A demon inside my head told me to do it.  When I was 25, I started burning myself.  I don't do it often, but it comes in bursts, especially during horrible, severe depressions.  I've started hurting myself again recently because the man I was going to marry broke up with me and because of college.

There are four ways I've dealt with this pain/despair/hopelessness in the past: drugs, alcohol, self-injury, and promiscuity.  Right now, it's alcohol and occasionally hurting myself.  I feel like these two are better than the other options, but it's really hard to hide the wounds from people.

I'm wishing all of you strength and happiness, because none of us deserve to hurt like this.

[LikeMinded]

Although I started SI when I was about 10, I didn't start actually cutting regularly per se until this month (I'm 22).  Strange that I'd just found out about this "new, fun" thing that assorted MIs were doing called "cutting".  I guess I'd just been living under one hell of a huge rock my whole life.

Now that I've been attacked by MS and my hypomania has crashed into Depressionland, I don't have the energy to do my other main form of SI (heavy, regular, and exhausting exercise), so I recently went back to cutting, even though it's not something I'd do on a regular basis anyways.

               

I was recently terminated from employment (well, I didn't mind being fired, given that...) my boss had some serious, likely unfounded issues with me.  Each issue she brought up during the verbal termination explanation felt like someone was reaching through my ribs, grabbing one organ at a time, ripping it out, and eating it accented with gravy and cheese curds, sort of a macabre hybrid of haggis and poutine.  I'm certainly not the perfect lab technician, but seriously... I mean seriously... As I cut myself Thursday night, for the first time in over a year, I imagined the words that seared through my eardrums like a diabolical set of black fingernails coursing down the chalkboard of my soul and everything that kept me alive (keep in mind my now ex-boss is a diagnosed BPI with psychotic features):

Point 1) "Your actions do not meet the standards of this university.  I thought you'd gotten your degree from a well-respected school, but apparently they don't teach you well there."

Reaction 1 that night) Blade courses down left arm, blood runs out

Point 2) "You've cost us nearly a thousand dollars in repairs, after our thermal cyclers failed soon after you got here.  I know you don't think you did anything to cause this, but it had to be you who caused them to break down.  They were fine until you showed up"

Reaction 2) Blade courses down left arm, blood runs out

Point 3) "I don't believe you've actually worked at all these high-caliber places listed on your resume.  Either you just wrote a bunch of falsified bullsh*t on here, or you spent three summers in internships and didn't learn one bit.  I'm also alarmed about the references you'd given me, since they didn't say anything bad about you... how'd you get them to do that, a bribe?"

Reaction 3) Blade courses down left arm, a little too deep, a little too much blood comes out.  Runs to get paper towels as it's becoming a huge mess.

Point 4) "I'd have better luck training a high schooler to do these things in lab than I've had with you!"

Reaction 4) Yep, another cut.

Point 5) "The termination evaluation I have to do gives me three options, A, B, and C depending on your quality of work.  I've created a new category for you... F."

Reaction 5 that night) More alcohol is consumed than the entire Czech Republic drinks in the span of a year.

Edited November 13, 2005 by herrfous

[crazychic]

I was around 16...

I haven't done it for a while...I try to think of all the scars that will mark up my body. It sometimes works.

[reba6465]

I started hitting myself at about 9 or 10 then moved on to cutting in the early teens.  I cut until I was 28 and then I just never wanted to do it again.  I'm 40 now.  i didn't know others did it until after I had stopped.

[blackbird]

I have cut myself off and on since the age of 12 (seems to be a popular age around here for starting cutting!). Usually in the autumn time for some bizarre reason. Just last night I was taken to the emergency room for 9 stitches.

[TruthSeeker]

I've been a compulsive skin picker since the age of 8 (maybe younger), to the point of bleeding, but I started cutting when I was 15.  It seems that a lot of people either start in preteen year of 12, or later on in mid-teens of 15-16.  For those of you who started at such a young age of 8 or 9, what prompted you to do it?  Having those thoughts at so young an age is baffling to me.