I have cut myself for about four years, stopping and relapsing sporadically. It started with small barely-bleeding safety pin scratches, then razors, then pocket-knives, then x‑acto knives …
I tried to be careful, but I have ended up with some scars on my arms and legs. The legs don’t matter too much since I usually wear long pants or opaque tights w/skirts, but the arms are a problem. I live in sunny socal right now, and it’s too hot for long sleeves all the time … plus I miss swimming. I am at school, but when I go home for the summer I’m not sure what I will do.
I have thought up a few possible ‘solutions:’
1) Tell the folks. Stop caring if anyone sees silly old scars. Tell them I cut and they can deal with it.
2) Cover the faint, but unexplainable scars with a new scar w/a reasonable explanation — I drink tea a lot so I figure I could just burn myself with boiling water, say it was an accident, and basically replace these obviously self-inflicted cuts with something I can explain away.
3) Keep applying mederma and hoping for the best.
4) Wear long sleeves whenever I am in contact with my parents and hope I can hide.
Stopping is not something I want to do, though I have not cut for about two months now (while trying to heal the existing cuts). In any case, stopping would not get rid of these scars.
So I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I can’t decide if I want to stop either. I exercise and stretch to a point of major pain (which has made me quite flexible humorously enough) and I tell myself “This hurts. This will be your new cutting. Do this instead,” but it really doesn’t work …
I am a lonely person, but I think that if I keep living this way I will never be able to have a healthy relationship because I am making myself very unattractive, physically and otherwise, to healthy people …
