When You’re A Cutter

By Danielle Sheppard

When you’re a cutter, the entire world looks different to you. Things that once seemed beautiful now seem as if their existence is only to mock you, reflecting what you cannot attain and thus quickening your downfall. Fallen angels, snowflakes, vampires, blood; things that once seemed melancholy and gruesome now become your idols; your identifiers. You strive to be more like them—to look scarier, to act angrier, and feel sadder than your true soul is. In an attempt to make yourself known to the world, you lash out, exaggerating everything you actually feel so that, perhaps, someone will notice you. This one hope, this desire to be seen, drives you forward. You do not admit it to yourself, but let it fester and grow inside of you, an unconscious force too powerful to be stopped.

When you’re a cutter, you feel that no one else has ever felt the pain which daily courses through your veins. No one can understand this, you argue to yourself. Whatever be the cause of your depression, you feel certain that you are alone in your crisis. You do what you do because it is the only escape from this thought. Your frustration with you surroundings has peaked, and you feel trapped. Because no one else can feel this, you reason, no one else can help me. Alone and surrounded, you fall.

When you’re a cutter, you do not think what you are doing is wrong. You absentmindedly slice the skin to feel the burn of the blade, the seep of the blood. The pain is in your veins, you say, and the only way to extract the poison is to let the blood flow. Every time you take steel to wrist, you feel that this is your sickness. Everyone has a sickness, you say—they’ll have to understand it and let it be thus. You do not believe that anyone should take away your right to console yourself. You believe that no one can understand, therefore no one has the right to counsel.

When you’re a cutter, you believe that Paxil is just a sugar pill. Happy pills do nothing unless you want them to. After your mother found out, she took you to the psychologist, a probing individual who pretends to know how you feel, but as a cutter you believe that no one ever could. They try to solve your problems—they even talk to your family, but they are as helpful as the Paxil is. The only way that you can feel better is if you have the will to do so.

When you’re a cutter, you don’t have the will to do so. You feel as if this is your lot in life and always will be. Although you hate the pain, you make no move to put an end to it but to cut, You know that this is a temporary medicine applied to an everlasting wound, but you do not feel it is in your power to improve it further. You deny the medicine, you deny the psychologist, and you deny your family. You want to feel as if nothing and nobody can help you, although you refuse to admit this to yourself. You lay in the darkness and think of nothing but your misery and how hopeless it is. You slice and slice, and still this thought prevails.

When you’re a cutter, you do not realize how much you are hurting the people around you. You hear their pleas and reasons to stop but you are not listening because you know they don’t understand. You lie to their faces and they know it and you know they know it. You believe they don’t have a right to tell you that you are wrong. What you refuse to see is that you are breaking their hearts. You are blinded by your desire to be recognized. Why stop now, you think, when they pay so much attention to me? You see your scars as a way to communicate with them, but you do not see that you are driving them into the same pain that torments you so.

When you’re a cutter, you are excluded from all truths. The things inside of you patrol your core, keeping out all influence that could give you the will to stop. All influence with any bit of truth in it. The pain you feel constantly gnawing at your heart is not truth—it is an exaggeration of all the troubles in your life. The relief that comes with the wounds you incur is not truth—it is a momentary focus on a physical pain that does nothing but damage you more. That the butterfly exists only to ridicule you is not the truth—it is a feeling that stems from the anger that propels you forth. That you alone have felt this pain is not truth—every person who has ever cut or even felt the desire to do so has felt this pain and understands. That what you are doing is right is not truth—it is a sickness, but not one that can be accommodated. That no one notices or cares about you is not truth—it is the way that you conduct yourself. The only truth is that you are killing the very souls that would protect you from Hell itself, and it is the one concept which you cannot seem to grasp.

When you’re a cutter, you have a choice: to see the truth or continue blindly down your path of pain. The road of ignorance is narrow and steep, filled with unexplained evils and lurking death. The road of truth is bright and broad, lit with the beacons of glory and courage. You are not destined to this everlasting pain. You do not have to mistreat yourself to be taken seriously. The life that you so desperately wish to have can be achieved if you open your eyes and ears to what truly lies around you. Your imaginary world of darkness shall come to an end, and with its demise shall fall your pain.