Cutting and Crying

1996-1998


CRITICAL EVENTS AND INTERACTIONS: Two days before Michelle was to be admitted to Island View, she became overly anxious and began cutting on herself. This form of mutilation continued after her admission to Island View. She has since contracted with her primary therapist and milieu staff to approach them prior to cutting. This has been somewhat successful at this point, as she has approached staff on several occasions rather than engaging in any type of self-mutilation.

-Steven D. Lancaster, L.C.S.W., Primary Therapist, Monthly Resident Review, 2/17/98

It was in eighth grade when I discovered the power that self-mutilation gave me. The razor gave me “control” of my feelings – a control I felt I had otherwise lost. Watching blood run down my skin was like letting tears fall from my eyes; I could feel.

I don’t think I can remember a time when there wasn’t a fire of anger burning somewhere in my conscious. I remember it most strong as a child; sometimes the anger was so intense I thought that claws would explode out my fingertips. I dealt with all types of emotion through anger – rather than feel sad, lonely, scared, or hungry, I would feel angry. When adolescence began this anger separated me from my parents, our conversations were rather loud confrontations. By eighth grade my angry outbursts and attacks had caused numerous suspensions and meetings at school, bringing me dangerously close to expulsion. It was towards the end of eighth grade that I discovered how cutting could contain my anger.

I stormed out of math class after Mr. Louis and I had gotten into an argument. Simply put, I was a trouble maker who wanted to piss the teachers of and create chaos. It wasn’t as though he had personally offended me or anything like that – it was just a game and in the end I was rarely having fun. Usually I ended up having to face my anger alone. I stomped into the girl’s bathroom and punched the stall wall. I am not exactly sure what made me do it or why, but before I knew it I was ripping at my skin as deep as I could with my fingernails. What would possess me to claw at my own flesh like an animal I can’t exactly say, but I can say that I felt less tense. I pulled down the sleeves of my sweater and went back to class without any further disruption.

That day I had found an addiction that I thought would keep me away from the authoritative trouble and just make me feel better. I would keep a razor with me at all times just in case I needed it; in case I needed it to feel relief. Most nights, not much dissimilar from some people’s nightly prayer, I would cut myself. I felt relief I couldn’t get from drugs and reliance I couldn’t get from guys.

I was completely loaded with speed and was tweaking hard that night. I began to feel a frightening sensation of both physical and mental disconnection from my body when I decided to pull out my razor. Blood oozed from the cuts I had carved upon my pale legs and all of the sudden I was inclined to “preserve” this feeling of freedom. I pulled a coloring book out from under a pile of books that I would sometimes color in when I was on speed and allowed my blood to drip onto the innocent pages of the coloring book. Once I felt enough blood was on the page to satisfy preservation, I closed the coloring book and put it away. This became part of my nightly routine, every night adding to the book a page of red and brown blood.

I can’t remember what made me do it, but with summer only weeks away I sat nervously in a chair outside of Mrs. Krumboltz’s office. I had grown scared of my addiction with cutting after realizing how hard it was for me not to do it. I did, afterall, know that cutting was wrong – it wasn’t a justifiable social activity. And cutting was a secret that I kept – if my friends saw such slashes on my arms on legs I would get weird looks and dumb faces. What is wrong with me? I figured I would take a step in my life and ask someone for help. Mrs. Krumboltz was my school counselor; she had basically kept me from getting kicked out of school. All of the bad kids loved her because she was who would always talk to us and listen. I really trusted her, and so I decided that I needed to tell her my secret.

But as I sat across the tiny office from Mrs. Krumboltz I couldn’t find the words to ask for help – they were not words I knew well. She asked me what I wanted to talk with her about and I stared back at her with blank eyes. Help! I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt to show her the ragged gashes. I impatiently awaited an answer. I thought Mrs. Krumoltz held the answer to everything; I expected she could fix me and make me all better.

“What types of drugs having you been doing lately Michelle?” Mrs. Krumboltz asked knowing that my group of friends and I drank often and smoked.

“Oh, you know, just a little bit of pot here and there.” I told her through lying eyes.

“You sure?” She asked me warmly. How I wanted to tell her, tell her everything that I did, and just give all my problems to her to deal with. I felt pregnant, about to give birth to a dead baby. How I wanted to crawl into her mothering arms and have her tell me that she would fix everything. But I knew that all of this could only be in my dreams. I nodded to her, and she knew I was lying.

“Well, Michelle, what do you want me to do?” I then realized that she couldn’t help me; I kept her at too much of a deceptive distant for her to help me mend my wounds. I drearily picked up my bag and dragged my feet away from Mrs. Krumboltz’ office. I guess I’ll just stop on my own – not too bad. I tried to talk myself into believing I could change on my own.

When I got home from school that day I threw out all of my razors and the coloring book filled with blood, convinced that I would never do it again. Three days later after a huge fight with my parents over a phone call from Mrs. Krumboltz about our meeting, I cut again. I didn’t return to doing it everyday, I just did it when I felt it was really needed. Snapshots of my injuries sent my mother into tears and my dad into confusion. They would try to check my arms and legs to protect their little baby from hurting herself, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want them to see my cuts, but if they did, what could they do?

I wasn’t able to stop cutting until I was able to start crying. I had to allow my body to release itself naturally instead of my forced control. Working with Steve and Kim, they helped me through my mutilation addiction. It was hard not to attack myself when I was sad and angry. Sometimes feelings would build-up so much inside of me that I thought I would explode, and it was hard to know that I could easily release the build-up. The more honest I became about my feelings, closing in on the deceptive distance that had kept Mrs. Krumboltz from helping me, the less I desired self-harm. As I look at the numerous scars that fill my arms and legs I realize that I will never escape my feelings.