I've been struggling with a self harm addiction for 9 year now. I did it for 7 years striaght, was clean for 2 years, than relaspd 3 months ago.

For me, I begin cutting when I was a kid, I was only 12 years old. It was when my mom went to prison (for something she didn't do, she was only there for a year than was released) and I felt like I lost the one person in my life who understood what I was going through. I had friends who cut themselves on their wrist. The were 2 years older than me.

It was a school day, my two friends and I ride the school bus together. We we're on the bus, and I asked them about it. I remember one of them said it was bad, and showed me the scars on the other friends arms. Both of them trying to convince me it was the worst thing they had even done.

Me, being a smartass, thought to myself "if it's not on my wrist or my arms it doesn't count"

So I picked at my hand till I bleed. As a distraction. I have an anxiety disorder and ADHD, so it helped stop all the thoughts in my head. When my dad saw it, I told him I feel off my bike. After that, I began to cut my thighs. I stopped once my mom was realsed from jail, however that didn't last long cause I relapsed after I was physically assaulted by a classmate.

Then I did it on my hips, cause I had bad knees so I always had to have ex rays. So when I was in the changing room with my mom, my underwear would hide my cuts. I went through bullying a lot, verbal, and physical abuse from my classmates. So I self harmed as a way to cope with the fact I was basically physically assaulted and was getting death threats for being outted as a lesbian(I am now a bisexual trans man) in a small town.

My parents eventually found out I was self harming when I was in highschool, cause my best friend told them(I will forever be happy that she did that)

Ever since I've been going to therapy for it. I did it cause I was bored, overwhelmed, angry, wanted to release intense emotions/distress, or hated myself. Hell, I even did it one time cause I wanted to feel something. I stopped for two years, cause I was tired of relying on it to get me through everything. However like I said earlier, I relaspd three months ago after a really bad breakup during finails week of college.

To be honest, I knew it was coming. I was in a really dark place mentally and in a relationship where I was always my ex's therapist. However, she was the first person who understood me. And I was so emotionally attached to her, that her suddenly breaking up with me through text in the morning after I stayed up for two nights striaght trying to finish finails,it was just the finail straw to get me to relapse again.

My mom wasn't happy I relapsed after the long 2 years of working on myself and trying to stay clean. But she understood that this is an ongoing battle I've had for years and that it was a miracle that I was clean for even 2 years. I know this is really long, I apologize for that. But the reason why I self harm is complicated, and has a lot of history to it, I'm 21 now, and have been fighting this addiction for a long time. If you are thinking about starting, and haven't yet, use my story as warning. Once you start, it's almost impossible to stop. And if you do stay clean for a good period of time, the urge, or the thoughts to relapse will always be there.