whether cutting, drinking, or getting high, self harm is a way of taking pain and channelling it into a manageable form. the problem starts when the pain is a daily part of life. you lose sight of your own standards and what's acceptable once you start getting drunk or slitting your wrists just to make it through another long night of misery.

but you see, here's the thing: it starts getting worse. at first, it was manageable, at first you could keep it a secret that not even the ones closest to you could know, but then slowly, it becomes noticeable. you change. you're not the person you were before, you're different.

you don't have the same life in your eyes anymore. you hide the scars. you make excuses as to why you're tired. you say you were just being weird when you were really spouting drunken nonsense. of course it's embarrassing, of course it's something you can't just talk about and get over. how dare you turn to substance abuse to get away from your problem? there's just no shame anymore. there's nothing anymore, really. you're a shell of who you once were.  how dare you tear into your skin just to ******* feel something? how dare you bleed on the bathroom floor and stain all the white towels with your impure blood? how dare you tear about your family and your friends. why is it so ******* easy for you? why can't you just ******* stop?

everyone always says "it's for attention", but I'm not tearing into my flesh to hear that someone might actually care, I'm not standing in front of the dim refrigerator light with a half empty bottle of ***** in hopes that someone will stop me. i'm doing this because I need to.

if someone found out, it wouldn't be an act of caring. my friends and family would see me as some sort of tourniquet, but the ****** kind. the kind behind held together by really cheap duct tape. they'll also say I'm making it up in my head, but how can I be making it up when the blood runs out of my wrist like water flows down the Nile?

they tell you doing these things won't fix your problems; you know that. deep down you know you CAN'T fix your problems. you're not brave enough to face them. you're not ready to change. after all, you have this under control, right? it's not like its an addiction. you can only imagine what everyone thinks of you when they find out about what you're doing to yourself. their silence says everything.

when the end of your fight against addiction is near, you can feel it. you can feel yourself getting worse. you can feel your body get heavier, your bones start cracking underneath all of the pressure. one day, it eventually gets too bad. you drink a little too much. you fall down. you hit your head. no one is there to hear your sobs or cries for help. or maybe it ends a different way, maybe it's a sliced vein but you're surrounded by your family. they can't do anything. they can't stitch up your slashes. you die in a hospital bed with tears coming from your eyes because of the grave mistake you made that you can't change. isn't this what you wanted? you didn't want anyone to help. besides, couldn't you control it anyway?

afterall, it wasn't an addiction, right?