my experience with control (and what it feels like to lose it)

A/N: I put this in the description but in case you skip those like a freak:

MAJOR TW for self-harm, talk of suicide, somewhat detailed/graphic descriptions of self-harm. (Please be safe and remember these are my personal experiences and opinions. Ok. Bye.)

Ok. So. Yes. I am going to talk about it.

I haven’t talked about this with anyone besides my best friend, and a very small group of friends years ago when we were drunk and sharing our traumatic life stories, because bonding! Mom, maybe don’t read this. Okay, anyways, let’s go, I guess.

You may be asking, what the fuck could I possibly be talking about? Surely if I am this reluctant, I must know that I am not being forced to do this. Yes, I know. But I think it has been long enough, and too many years of me skirting around the subject that I want to talk about it now.

So, here: this is my experience with self-harm, why I did it, how it evolved, and what it means for you. News flash: it does not always mean someone is suicidal or intent on hurting themselves. It can be something so much more complex than that. This is purely my experience with this, how it worked/works for me, and what I want others to know. This is not everyone’s experience; this is my own opinions and generalizations I am making based on mine and my friends’ experiences. Do your own research before coming at me.

In order to explain, I suppose I should give a bit of context for this. For almost all of this time period, I have no memory of it. The brain is a funny thing, blocking out traumatic memories so we don’t have to confront them. This happened from 2017-2018, when I was 11 up until right before I turned 12. I don’t remember the exact timeline, but I remember when it ended. I am not going to go into detail of how this started, some things are just for me, and they are going to stay that way.

Somewhere in Winter of 2017, I realized that I could have a place to put all of my emotions and feelings: myself. As an 11-year-old child with a chaotic home, it felt like I had no control over my life and my surroundings. I began relying more heavily on YouTube, and music for my safe space when I felt that loss. I had a friend during that time that was feeling the same way I did. I had never met someone else that also had that kind of ‘darkness’—(so riverdale coded, i know) for lack of a better word—in them, and these feelings that I had, feelings that made me feel so isolated, were being seen and reciprocated in some weird suicide-pact kind of way. Misery loves company and whatever. The details of this don’t matter, and what we talked about/how we related to one another is irrelevant, but the point is, somewhere around that time I realized there was another way I could express these feelings. So, I did. Multiple times. I never told the full truth about it, to really anyone. So now I am.

The trauma I felt and still feel from that time is the exact reason why I am not getting more specific with what happened during that time, and why I am not using certain terms and words, but I am hoping that you can get the subtext within these lines.

In 2018, a few months before my 12th birthday, my friend’s phone was taken. And her mother saw our messages. Every. Single. One. And in turn, my mother also saw those messages. I had always known that my friend got her phone taken on occasion, but I figured that it would be fine, that Iwould be fine.

I was, one hundred percent, not fine.

I knew it was going to happen the second she texted me. I don’t even remember exactly what it said, but if anyone has seen the movie Thirteen, where in the final scene Evie finds Tracy, and hugs her telling her she had to say something and that she loves her, it pretty much felt like that. My friend had basically said that her mom saw all of our texts, and that my mom would probably know soon. I have never felt more cold dread than I have in that moment. There are no words to describe that kind of fear. I desperately looked back at our messages, wondering what the fuck have they seen. The answer was pretty much everything.

What had become some sort of two-person diary of oversharing and trauma-dumping of our deepest, most intensely dark thoughts, had now become a full display of exactly what to do to get put on suicide watch by your parents.

From there, every moment after that was like walking on glass. I knew my parents knew, but I wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move. My mom had a call with my friend’s mom and within the next few days, I was on high-alert, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It happened on a random day, not too long after I had gotten the warning text from my friend. I don’t remember exactly when, I was watching a Harry Potter movie with my dad upstairs, “The Half Blood Prince” if I’m not mistaken, and my mother called us both downstairs to chat. I knew in that moment, that if I went downstairs, everything would change. I had no choice. I was 11. I went downstairs.

I cannot describe the feeling other than a prisoner walking towards the gallows. The lead feeling in my bones weighed me down, and I have never been more terrified than in that moment. While I don’t remember almost all of that conversation, I remember the most random bits and pieces. What our living room looked like. What shirt I was wearing, which, at the time, I thought was the single most ironic and cruel joke the world had ever pulled on me. It said, “Good Vibes Only”. Jesus Christ. My dad was sitting in a chair, and my mother was sitting next to me on our futon. She told me what my friend’s mom had found, and she told me she saw the texts. There was absolutely nothing I could do to get out of it. She just kept asking me ‘why’. Why would I do something like this? I didn’t have an answer, because I truly didn’t know. I was 11. I was a child. Looking back, my parents handled it as best as they could, but at the time it felt like a complete ambush. Any and all control I could’ve had in the situation and the conversation was completely stripped. I had no power there. The only thing I could do was downplay it, so I could retreat and reconvene alone. I had no time to process a single thing that was happening. It was the single, most traumatic moment of my entire life, and I have never cried harder than in that moment. I was also simultaneously outed, because right. My friend’s mom couldn’t have given me at least one thing to say myself. I felt like I was being blamed. My parents felt like they were horrible parents, which of course was never about them. I hate when people make your self-harm about them. As weird as it sounds, I think part of it was about it being the one thing that was solely mine. I could control it. I could control how many times I did it, where I did it, and so on. It was never about me wanting to die, as much as I may have joked about it. At that point in my life, it was a matter of a punishment and control for what I was feeling. For what I couldn’t yet understand about myself.

At some point during a pause in the one-sided conversation, (I was sobbing and refused to say more than absolutely necessary to answer the questions and then let it go) I went to the bathroom. It was the first moment I let myself breathe. Okay, game plan, I thought. I never told them the full truth or extent about it, because I knew it would only cause more panic, and as much as I love my parents, I knew they would not deal with that information in a way that was helpful to me. Some things I needed to keep control of. They never knew how often I actually did it, or what I actually used. I don’t even remember what I ended up telling them, or what they asked me. I can barely remember anything from that time. I vowed to never do it again, and I didn’t. For a long time, at least. I was too terrified to do it again, too terrified to deal with another conversation like that, that I completely stopped altogether. I went to a therapist, who was terrible by the way, but that’s irrelevant. The only thing I really wanted was for everyone to stop tiptoeing around me like I was glass. The thing I was most upset about, was that my mother thought that the media I was consuming was part of the problem. There were songs, games, and people I loved, that, because of what had happened, were completely destroyed in my eyes. That was one of my biggest disappointments.

I want to tell the truth about some of those things I didn’t mention. I was so panicked at what my parents had found out, at the complete and utter lack of control and no time for me to process, that I lied about anything I possibly could. Withholding the truth became my only weapon, the only thing still left of the small semblance of control that I could hold onto. The truth is, I was doing it often, multiple times a week, only at night. First it was only my nails, I never actually wanted to bleed, that was way too scary for me, and I didn’t want to deal with the cleanup. Then I moved on to slightly sharper things, which will remain unnamed. I never actually used a knife, contrary to the popular belief of my parents. I had tried it once and hated it. It didn’t do what I wanted, and I kept it in my room until I could find a time to put it back. I was so grateful I never got the chance to, because it gave me the perfect cover. If I told the truth further, I was afraid they’d take away anything sharp from my room, and then I’d have nothing to use, not even in that kind of sense, just like, genuine household objects that I used for their intended purpose. Anyways, too many details and that is all you will get out of me on that subject. Moving on.

A few years passed, and it was 2020. I hadn’t thought much about what happened in 2018, (I had, but I pushed it down so far until it wasn’t as painful) and everyone was slowly but surely starting to look at me less like a flight risk, and more like a person again. I still couldn’t be fully myself yet, hiding a lot of the jokes I normally would tell and subduing what I was actually thinking for the sake of the people around me. I think that is a major thing that people don’t mention, that is, just how much of yourself has to change for the assurance of others. As a baseline for anyone who knows me, I have incredibly dark humor. Call me Edgar Allen Poe if you want, but I think dark humor is the best way to work through your emotions. Anyways, point is, I had to completely shut that part of myself out. If I mentioned it, or someone else did, I shut down. They shut down. Almost involuntarily. I could only joke and talk about it with my friends. They understood in a different way that your own parents cannot. Family is too close to the situation to laugh at your pain. By 2020, we were shut in my home, my parents were not in a good place, and I was back in that isolation. That was the next time I did it (sorry, mom and dad). It wasn’t nearly as often; I still had the lingering fear from 2018, and I truly just wanted to have something to myself that I could control. I know, to any normal person, this makes no sense, but it did to me, so chill with the judgement unless you’ve been through it. 2020 passes in a blur, that’s a pandoras box that I am not touching with a 10-foot pole, but after one smashed glass door and a lot of walks, my parents were in a good place again, and I moved on with my life, and moved on from that.

In 2021, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and OCD, which, fucking finally dude. Took long enough. It was one of the most difficult things to bring up with my mother. She never really understood why I needed an official diagnosis. It took convincing, but it happened, and I understood myself better after that. I then got older and was then diagnosed again with generalized anxiety, and am currently working on a depression diagnosis, as you all know. It helped me contextualize and understand from a different perspective why my brain works the way that it does. After those diagnoses, I was able to self-regulate better, now having an actual label to put on all of these emotions. But enough about that, it’s not why we are here today, I may be deflecting a bit, so I don’t have to hear the worry from my mother when I tell her this next part.

In 2024, when I started my first semester at university, I did it again. And since then, I haven’t really, stopped.

The thing is, it’s not a regular occurrence. Like, at all. I can go months without doing anything, and 99% of the time, I can find something else to distract me. But like with any addiction, it becomes a safe thing you can rely on. I had a therapist that I would talk to about it, an actual good therapist, and she helped me immensely through what I was feeling. She helped me realize that it’s not shameful that I relapse with something like this, and that made me feel less guilty about it. It did not, and I repeat: did. Not. Mean that I felt like I had an excuse to keep doing it. What it did mean, was that if I did do it again, I no longer fell into the trap of making it continuous, because I had logical explanations for why I did it, and could adjust accordingly. To answer the question everyone and their mother asks: why? I think I finally have that answer.

I mentioned it before, but it feels like someone is pulling on a rubber band. It gets tighter and tighter and more tense until the only solution is to snap it or let it go. That is what my body feels like. When my emotions feel out of control and I no longer feel like a person, I need something to tether me back to reality. It’s not a matter of me wanting to hurt myself for the sake of punishment anymore, it is now a grounding thing. Is it healthy? Absolutely not. But sometimes, there are moments where the entire world feels out of my control, and what is something I can control? Pain. A singular feeling, singular focus that pulls all of my attention away from my head and towards that one feeling. Pain has been that one thing that can quickly snap me back to reality when it feels like all control has slipped from my grasp. When my roommate found out what happened in 2024, I don’t think I have ever seen her so upset. I thought back to my parents, and told her I was sorry, and that I wouldn’t do it again. She knew that I was lying, but I felt guilty. I was brought back to that same feeling in 2018. I found better coping mechanisms after that. I would have her squeeze my hands as hard as she could, or I would squeeze hers. I never told her how grateful I was and am for that. I knew that it was uncomfortable for her, painful for her, but she never complained. Sometimes I would have her hug me super tight or sit with me while I spiraled. It helped more than she could ever know. There’s always the hair tie trick of course, which I don’t necessarily like, though I fidget a lot with my hands, so twisting a hair tie on my wrist is a better alternative I would say. The ice trick is fine too, but again, it gets very wet and annoying after a bit. The different things didn’t always work, nothing ever can work 100% of the time, but they helped.

There are a few words that I still hate to hear, words that feel too intense and triggering to think about. When someone describes self-harm as ‘cutting’, while that may be the literal technical term, it makes me want to never talk about my experiences again. The term feels too accusatory, too much like a big terrifying word used to scare off any actual discussions around it. There are others, but some things I like to keep for myself.

Flash forward to now. It has been a month since! Life is overwhelming, and I know that this is something that will probably scare a lot of people to hear. I get that hearing that something hasn’t stopped raises concern and fear, but this shit is not linear, and getting mad or scared because someone has a relapse does not make them want to stop more. The only reason I stopped during those times was because the guilt was way too strong that it didn’t feel worth it. That does not mean it is okay to make someone feel guilty about it, because it only makes the guilt and then the relapse even worse. I don’t do it now for other reasons now. I do it for myself, not other people. And when it does happen, I have to train myself not to let the guilt consume me, and forgive myself instead, allowing my mind to give itself a break and go back to the drawing board to re-evaluate my coping mechanisms. For once, I think I actually have a positive message for you. For the first time since 2018, I have finally felt like I can open up and tell the full truth on the situation. I used to think about this time when I was younger, when there would finally be a time that I would feel comfortable enough to fully be myself again. Well, it’s here. I still don’t joke to the full extent around my parents, I never will, purely because some things are just for your friends. But, I am the most authentically me that I have been in a long, long time. For the first time since 2018, I have gone back to the music, and games that I used to love but was too afraid to interact with in fear that the people around me would panic. Undertale, I love you, and the soundtrack is fucking fire as hell. I am beyond grateful that I have gotten to this place where I can re-learn how to enjoy the things that brought me childhood whimsy. Trauma isn’t linear, and there are still so many things about that time that I don’t think I will ever be ready to talk about with anyone, but I have come so far. Joking about things that were traumatic can be cathartic, and, in my opinion, extremely healthy. And look, I make jokes about suicide a lot. Not because I am trying to downplay a serious issue or make fun of it, but because it is a great way that I have learned to talk about difficult things in a way that doesn’t feel scary or like I’m being interrogated. And I almost never mean what I am saying. It’s a way to make life feel easier. Isn’t that the entire point?

When it comes to self-harm, and the stigma around it, I think the most important thing I have to say about it is that it differs for every single person. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to the topic. Back in 2017-2018, I remember watching videos about people who also self-harmed that wanted to tell their parents, and they gave advice on how to do it, so it didn’t send them into a panic, and instead invited questions. The full truth of it was I was not ready to talk about it yet. The decision was no longer mine to make, and I had no control over how it was done. I will never and have never once blamed my parents for doing what they did and handling it the way they did. They were working with what they had, and I appreciate the fact that they were concerned enough to try and understand instead of being angry at me. But it will never change the fact that I never had the choice to talk about it on my own terms. It will never change the fact that it still was something I wish would’ve gone differently. That, along with this thing that had become my private thing, I was also outed without my consent. Parts of myself I was not yet ready to tell others was ripped from my grasp and put on an ugly display, not yet dressed in thought-out words and careful planning.

Part of me was grateful that it was over with, and I wouldn’t have to do it myself, but the other part, the bigger part, felt betrayed. I was betrayed by the parental worry and gentle words that I was not yet ready to hear. Not yet ready to confront. Again, I was 11. I was a child. I was not mentally or emotionally prepared to have any sort of conversation about this. Because the truth is, right before they found out, and I had done it for the final time, I was already planning on stopping. I was too paranoid about the potential of them finding out, and I was already thinking of other ways and coping mechanisms I could find instead. I didn’t get far enough to figure them out on my own. I never got the chance to fix it myself. That, is my only regret. And not making my friend delete her text messages. I learned that lesson pretty fucking quick. I pose the question to you all: what would you rather I had done? I think that all things considered, there are a lot worse coping skills I could have picked up. I could’ve become an alcoholic, or an addict. I could become addicted to cigarettes, (mom I’m sorry for what you’re about to hear) which yes, I tried them a couple times, what can I say, I have a lot of friends who smoke and I’m a curious person. I wanted to try once, we listen, and we don’t judge, let me live okay I was a teenager, and I wanted to be a teenager. Not even going to lie, it was fucking great, okay? Look, I loved it, and if it wasn’t the world’s most frowned upon thing, especially by my own family, who knows. But obviously with the parents I have, I wouldn’t put it past my dad to genuinely kick me out of my house if I started making that a regular thing, so don’t worry, I did not take up smoking, please don’t lecture me about lung cancer and all that shit, I am not doing that. It does pose the question though, would it be worse to have me actively self-harm, or smoke on occasion? Both are terrible, but I’d argue that temporary damage to your body is better than damage to your internal body. But hey, I’ll gladly take what’s offered next time instead of declining if that’s in the preference. Every habit has negative side effects, and judging someone for what they do with their own life has never made sense to me. Anyways off-topic, smoking is bad kids and all that shit, back to the main point.

All of this to say, because yes, I do actually have a point to make. Self-harm is an extremely complex and nuanced topic that, while it should always be approached with care and caution, it should also always be listened to. While it is apparent and obvious that there will always be fear and worry when it comes to topics like this, for me at least, when it comes to talking about it, it will always be harder for us than it is for you. I am at a place in my life where, while there is still so much going on in my head that I can’t explain, and there are still moments where I relapse, I am doing good. I have great coping mechanisms, and I know my body and my own threshold. I will never in a million years condone self-harm. In any way. I need to make that crystal fucking clear. I know that this shit has made it sound like a completely normal thing to do, but it’s not. Get help when you need it, and do not suffer alone with this. There are so many better and safer coping skills that you can find, but it is okay to be struggling. The most important thing is finding the logic in the situation, finding a support system, whether that is listening to music as a distraction, running, or talking to a friend. Recovery isn’t linear, it doesn’t go away, and it isn’t something to be afraid of. Where the fear comes from is external, it’s other people’s worry. Someone else’s fear and worry don’t have to dull your sparkle, the way someone processes their emotions is up to them, but my biggest wish is to simply be given space to figure out this shit on my own. I have my support; I don’t need the concern. It does nothing for me but cause me to spiral into guilt. Therapy has worked wonders, and I love my therapist so much. That girl takes no shit and will clock me whenever necessary. Trust is the most important thing you can have with things like this, and I understand that it is hard to gain that back when you find out about something as serious as this. But a sense of normalcy and allowing me to joke and talk freely about what I am feeling and thinking without fear of hearing gasps from the old people in the back of the room? Now that is the greatest, most peaceful form of trust and freedom that I will ever feel.