I am SO FUCKING SICK of two things. The first being people who think that everyone who self-injures is a whiney little angsty teen doing it for attention. The second is the whiney little angsty teens who cut themselves for attention. See how that’s a vicious circle right there? People doing the whole “I’m ever so tortured because I have to suffer the stress and pain of…well, a competely normal life actually…and I need to scratch my arms with safety pins and show everyone so they all worry about me and I look all deep and troubled and then, and ONLY then, can I begin to accept that life is…just…pain”. Pass me the bucket, I’m going to puke. In fact, screw the bucket. I’m going to find someone who believes that their perfectly normal life is all pain and suffering that no-one else will ever understand and puke on THEM!

Seriously kids, don’t do it – you are only trivialising the experiences of people who genuinely suffer from a mental disorder and that’s NOT NICE. So, that’s the attention-seeking little fakers dealt with. Or at least dealt with as much as I can be bothered…if I rant any more about that I think I might start pulling my hair out, and I don’t want to do that cause I just had a hair cut and my hair looks fabulous.

So, on to setting the record straight for those uneducated people who think that everyone who cuts is one of the afore-ranted-about emo-er than thou little wannabes.

People only cut themselves for attention.
In fact, very few of the people I know and have known who cut because they genuinely suffered from a mental disorder did it for attention. I take that back. NONE of them did. They hid their cuts and hid their scars and made excuses and refused to talk about it…because if they admitted to it, they might be forced to stop, which means letting go of their only coping mechanism, however fucked up and damaging it might be.

If you don’t cover your scars, then you’re proud of them.
I’m going to speak from personal experience on this one. I used to care, but to be honest, I’m old enough and ugly enough not to give a fuck what people think any more. Seriously. I’ve been through enough and come out the other end stronger and if it’s a hot day, I will damn well roll my sleeves up and people can stare all they want at my arms. If people ask where the scars came from I tell them the truth (which usually makes them regret asking). I am NOT proud of my scars. There are a lot of things I’ve done that I’m not proud of, but I’m wise enough to move beyond the regret and just…move on and get on with life NOW. Accepting the fuck ups of the past and embracing the person that I am today, because of these fuck-ups. So I accept the scars, the ones that are visible and the ones that aren’t and I don’t let them run my life and choose my clothes for me. This isn’t pride. This is acceptance.

Only goth and emo kids cut themselves.
Oh so not true. Really. Genuine self-injury knows no barriers. It doesn’t discriminate on the basis of style, age, gender, appearance. Why should it? Depression doesn’t. Abuse doesn’t. Violence doesn’t. Pain and suffering and sadness and frustration and helplessness apply across the board. So does self-injury.

People should just be happy and not cut.
If it was that easy, everyone would smile all the time, the Samaritans wouldn’t exist, therapists would go out of business and no-one would have self-inflicted scars. If it was that easy, people would just, well, be happy and not cut. The fact that people are actually depressed and CAN’T stop cutting just goes to show how ridiculous the ‘just don’t do it’ approach is. Stopping cutting is very difficult because cutting is a coping mechanism, often the only one available and it is NOT easy to stop.

People who cut are just scared to kill themselves.
NO! Most people who cut have no intention of killing themselves by doing it. No-one in the world is stupid enough to think that they might die from a small cut on their arm or leg (well, blood poisoning and flesh-eating superbugs excepted). Cutting is a coping mechanism. A self-destrutive one yes, but not an ULTIMATELY destructive one. There is a big difference between self-injury and self-termination!