when i was about ten or eleven, i discovered a very addictive 'guilty pleasure' and immediately began induldging myself every chance i got. i don't recall doing it only when i felt bad (sad, angry, anxious, depressed) like i often do now. back then, i did it just because it felt good. it was my own little secret that nobody else knew about but me. and that made me feel really special.
the first time i did it was on my ankle, using a safety pin. (i got the idea from my older sister, who would give herself homemade tattoos.) i would carve out intricate, planned-out designs that would appear to anyone else to be normal scrapes on a healthy, active ten-year-old. i used knives sometimes, but found that safety pins were easier to hide, and i could even scrape more intensely with sharp pins. i could slow down the pain, and make it last longer with pins. i would sometimes put alcohol or ink or something abrasive into my open wounds after i broke the skin to see how much pain i could take. i liked it. the stinging, the burning, the sharpness...and then i could carry the pain around with me the next day or even a few days later as my clothes rubbed against the healing rawness.
i quickly migrated to other regions of my body that i could carve without anyone noticing: my hips, my arms and hands, my face. for a long time, i cut mostly my ankles and hips, because i could keep them hidden. but the more visible cuts were easy to explain, as long as i kept the 'damage' to a minimum. for example, a single scrape on my face or hand at that age didn't even warrant an explanation. it could be played off as a playtime accident or some unremarkable excuse.
II: junior high.
cut and dry.
useful links.
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