I want to finally admit what I've done for years.

I want to admit that I'm a survivor of self-harm.
That I had successfully kept it a secret for five years, and continued to hide that I was still doing it, even when I said I had quit, for another year. I want to admit that I self-harmed for six years and am still struggling with urges to this very day.

Self-harm isn't something that's easy for me to admit. I was so ashamed of it every time I would cut myself, and I would hide those feelings from everyone. I even hid it from my best friend (at the time), who I told everything to. It turned out she was hurting herself too, and was hiding it from me. I felt less guilty from keeping it from her, but at the same time, I felt a little betrayed she kept it from me. Hypocritical, I know. Unfortunately, self-harm is something all too common for people in my generation. It's not something that started in my generation, but it definitely became well-known because of us.

"Millions of people in America self-harm". That was the only bit of information I was given when I was younger, and it didn't help the completely alone feeling I had. Because I didn't care if millions of people in America self-harmed, none of them were with me. They weren't cheering me on to get better from the sidelines. They were a magical statistic that meant nothing to me. With tumblr and my other blogs, they're less of a statistic to me. When I was younger, though, I felt like I was the only person who had horrible thoughts about myself, and despite my mom trying to build up my self-esteem when I was younger, it plummeted when I hit middle school and the bullying became more intense.

In the seventh grade, when I was twelve years old, I would come home every day from school crying. My mom would sit with me for about an hour, but she hated sitting with me and hearing me cry, so she would leave eventually. It sounds a lot worse than it was. Anyway, my bullying didn't stop at my doorstep. After school, I would get online, and the bullying would continue there. Many people have said that internet bullying is something that can be prevented with the block button, but I felt differently about it back then. I was worried that if I blocked my bully, like everyone was telling me to, things would get more physical at school. I didn't want to risk it, so I endured it.

I still remember the first time I cut myself. I took a razor to my thigh, and I can still spot the mark to this day, even though no one else can see it. I can still see every bit of harm I did to myself. I remember lying to my parents about what had happened. I remember the feeling of embarrassment when I got caught. I remember telling myself I didn't want to die; my self-harm was me trying to keep myself alive.

When I was in home school, the bullying went away in person, but continued online. With the threat of things getting more physical gone, and the safety of my home now a permanent cocoon, I finally blocked my bully. She was no longer a part of my life. I actually saw her recently at the grocery store. She has a son now. Despite our aging and her new-found parenthood, I still have not forgiven her for what she has done for me, but I'm learning to forget. During the time in home school, my self-harm halted.

A few months before I turned fourteen, I was raped. I hesitate to say the word rape because there was no penetration, but I feel like rape is the right word for it. He was seventeen and I was just a kid. I'm still trying to stop blaming myself for what happened after almost five years. After this happened, the self-harm began again. It became worse when my grandmother died the month after I turned fourteen, along with a new problem.

I had begun to restrict my eating.
I kept this a secret until I was seventeen.

My mom found out I was self-harming for the first time when I was sixteen. At the time, I was only scratching my skin with pins. I was't even drawing blood, so I don't think she saw it as very serious. She told me not to do it again and took my pin away. I didn't tell her I had a whole jar of them.

When I was seventeen, my sister saw three cuts on my right wrist. I was incredibly embarrassed when she told my mom. Even though they had found out before, I kept it as my dirty little secret and now everyone knew what I was doing. I told my mom it wouldn't happen again. I told her I was just trying to see how it felt because I heard of others who had done it and that I would never do it again.

I don't know if she believed me or not.

I wasn't caught after that, but I didn't stop either. The cutting continued and I began to eat under 600 calories a day, losing plenty of weight. I discovered when I was starving, I wasn't cutting. I felt a sense of accomplishment at being able to go so long without cutting, and it caused me to want to starve myself more. No matter how much weight I lost, though, I was never happy with my weight. I wish I never would have started restricting my food intake.

After I graduated high school, I started eating again. I began to speak with people online who were diagnosed with eating disorders and was told that I should start to eat again. It wasn't easy without the support of my family and friends, who still had no idea of what I was doing to myself, but now I can eat normally again in the comfort of my own home, and no longer weigh myself.

When I began to eat again, the cutting returned harder than I ever imagined it would. Usually the cuts would heal within a few days, but I remember the month after I turned eighteen, I cut so deep that the cuts didn't heal for weeks. I still have the scars to prove it. I remember cutting myself and sitting down with a sweater on when I felt something cold and wet on my arm, and was surprised to see that I was actually bleeding all over my sweater. I'm still surprised I managed to get it bandaged without my family noticing.

Recovery from self-harm isn't easy. It's like a drug that you crave because it keeps you calm and helps you cope. That's what it did for me. My self-harm was a way to help me cope through everything I had gone through. The bullying, the rape, the death of my grandma; I had never learned to cope with it properly, turning to self-harm instead. Not eating had been a way for me to cope as well, focusing all my energy on avoiding food and exercising for at least thirty minutes a day. Starving myself was a way of trying to recover from my self-harm, which backfired. I remember stepping on the scale whenever I went to the bathroom just to see how much I could lose. In the end, I ended up weighing more than I did when I stopped eating in the first place.

I don't think the urge to self-harm will ever truly go away. I don't think I'll ever lose this craving I feel to hurt myself, but I try every day of my life. Recovery is not a one-day job; it's forever. I'll always be recovering from self-harm, but the chance to feel my emotions instead of pushing them aside is a treasure I would never give up.

Because when I would hurt myself, I wouldn't feel what I had been feeling when I went to do it. Whether it was sadness or just me being numb, I would push everything away and go to the blade. Now, though, I actually give myself the time when I can.

I try my best.

I only hope to continue.

So, there you have it. That's what I've been hiding for years. Something I wanted to share with everyone. I've been sick of hiding it for so long.