Liz's Story

My depression has to have started around July 2000. The most influential relationship of my life had ended a few months before, and because of its' ending I lost my best friend, my whole group of friends, and the first I guy I ever loved, the one I'd lost my virginity (and my heart) to. Though I found new friends, and strengthened my ties with others, it never was quite what it had been. I lost any positive image I'd had of myself... I used to stand in front of the mirror, with such hatred, that I'd slap myself full in the face.

Then I was walking home from school one day, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out my house key. Don't ask me why, because I don't know, but I dragged the sharp edge down the side of my face. I suddenly felt like I could breathe. I got inside, pulled up my sleeve and started scratching my arm with the key. It helped. It was almost pretty. My little secret...

I went back to school the next day and nobody knew. Not long after I found myself a relationship. He didn't like what I was doing, but he didn't stop me. Everything was fine, and a month later I was spending my lunch time break with some people in the year below, I don't know why, but I became butt of the jokes that day. It didn't take long for it to get past the point I could cope with it, and I walked out of school, went home, and broke the blade out of a disposable razor. Line after line went down my arm, the blood dripped into the sink full of water below, and I smiled. I was proud.

The next day was a Saturday. My boyfriend dumped me for another girl. But...a week later I found another guy, absolutely gorgeous. I met him on the Saturday, saw him again on the Monday night. That night he sent me a text and asked if this meant we were going out. I said I needed to tell him something first. So I phoned him the next morning, and told him what I was doing to myself. The response I got was unexpected but romantic in a twisted way: "Oh, I do that - I've cut your name into my arm already".

Co-dependency blossomed... when one did it; the other felt they had to as well. We tried to give up together, but found we needed it as much as we needed each other. A month down the line he left me for another girl (deja vu?). I spiralled... downwards... soon there were cuts on my arm, both legs and my stomach. I'd used a needle stolen from the school science dept to bleed both my wrists and one of the veins in my ankle. I was a mess - and I'd stopped being proud of it. I hid myself away from the world, pretended to be someone I wasn't. There was even a night when I sat on my bedroom floor contemplating 61 paracetemol, and trying to clean the blood from the carpet.

This was now early in 2001, around March sort of time. My family started noticing how shy I'd become about my body, and eventually discovered what I had been doing to myself. They made me promise to stop, and I did, until around July, when I ended a month-long relationship and cut 8 lines into my leg as some form of penance. That was over a year ago, and I've still got the scars. I call it my "eight little lines of pain". My family discovered that... again. And I didn't do anything else to myself for a very long time.

Going away to University I was in a wonderful relationship, and if I did it at all, it was light enough so he'd never know. It ended by my doing on (fairly, and eventually) pleasant terms around Christmas time. I had one relapse in the first term back, mostly due to drunken antics. But I slipped back into the fold just after the Easter holiday, I slashed my legs to pieces a few days after I got back. As I write this I've got 6 very small, but very deep cuts just coming to the end of the healing process on my legs. Only one person knows about these. I'm head over heels in love with him, but he wants to wait before making the decision about whether to go out with me or not. If I wasn't at home, I'd be etching the pain I feel from that somewhere into my body, but as I'm here, I carry it round like a dead-weight.

I know this was supposed to be about depression, and not self-injury, but the two aren't separate to me. I guess in a very real way I still "suffer" from them both.

I'm not over my depression, not by a long shot, but it's good to know that I'm supported and loved. And I will support anyone out there who wants to talk to someone who might understand. If anyone wants to get in touch with me, they're welcome. I'm Liz, you can email me on sighsandcries@bittersweet.co.uk, and if you ask, you can have my Yahoo or MSN messenger handles.

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