Before you self harm in any way, you should probably know what you’re getting into.

Before you make that cut, please keep in mind that you will find the pain release and blood strangely addictive.

You may think to yourself that you’ll be able to control it, that you won’t let it get out of hand.
You may think that you can just stick to a few small, shallow cuts here and there that won’t be deep and that will heal quickly and easily.

But you’re wrong.
You can’t control it, it’s impossible to control. It controls you. It’s an addiction.
The cuts will get deeper, they’ll scar. They’ll take weeks to months to heal and years for the scars to actually begin to fade.

You’ll find that soon, you depend on it. You can’t go more than a few days without cutting. You’ll go crazy as your skin itches and burns, your hands shake, your head pounds, your vision goes blurry as you try to keep your mind off of it, try to hold back from giving in. But you will.

If you think you can limit the cuts to just one area of your body, you better think again. It’ll spread slowly but steadily, like a deadly virus. It’ll spread as you run out of skin, from your wrists to arms, past your elbows, up your shoulders down to your stomach, across your hips and waist and soon will cover your every inch of your legs right down to your ankles.

I hope you’re prepared to withdraw from others and live in a constant state of shame and guilt. Even if you have been the most honest person to ever live, you will lie to your friends, family members, everyone around you who you care about.

You’ll find yourself jerking back from the touch of someone, as if their fingers and hands have been bathed in a toxic, burning poison. You’ll be terrified that they will feel a scar or cut from beneath the fabric of your shirt or because it just plain hurts so much to simply be touched.

Be prepared to become your own worst enemy. You’ll fear yourself, your head, the urges that taunt you every minute of every day. You’ll come to fear the next time you cut because you don’t know how bad it’ll be.

Wait for the 10 cuts to turn into 20 then 50 then 100. You’ll be covered in scars and cuts.

Your entire life will begin to revolve around your addiction. You’ll constantly be thinking about cutting, covering up your cuts, how you’ll hide your blades, scissors, bobby pins and the other objects you use to destroy your body.

And then..the first time that you cut “too deep.” The bleeding won’t stop and you’re gasping, shaking, panicking, fear takes over you. You pray and hope that the bleeding will stop. Your purpose wasn’t to die, you won’t ever go that deep again. Right? Wrong. You’ll go there again, and deeper.

But don’t worry. You’ll learn how to take care of your cuts so you don’t have to take a trip to the hospital every night. The better you get at treating your wounds, the worse they become.

You’ll lie to yourself and try to justify it when you go to the pharmacy and drug store, finding yourself spending 20, 30, 40 dollars on dressings, gauze, alcohol wipes and sterile strips.

You’ll tap your foot impatiently, hoping that no one stares and asks you why you’re buying all of these things. But at the same time..you hope someone asks, so you know they care.

Be prepared to spend even more money on an entire new wardrobe. Long sleeved shirts, hoodies, long pants, boots, bracelets, wristbands. The list goes on forever.

You’ll keep scanning other people’s bodies for signs of self harm, hoping that there is someone else out there who feels the same way you do. Hoping, praying that they will be like you. But that will never happen. You’ll see clean, uncut, unmarred arms and feel even more alone and ashamed than before.

You’ll do a lot of things alone, be prepared to kiss your social life goodbye. You’ll always be doing your laundry, always in private so no one sees the blood stained towels and clothes. You’ll be spending hours scrubbing blood from the bathroom floor, and wiping dried blood off of your keyboard.

You won’t be able to make it a day without cutting. You’ll carry an emergency kit in your wallet or purse. A key, safety pin, a needle, a paperclip, even a pencil. Everything around you will become a weapon. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it gives you that feeling that sends you reeling.

Next thing you know, you’re in the bathroom stall at your school or work, picking open the scab of an old cut with a needle.

Say goodbye to all of the things you took for granted. Shorts, sandals, tank tops, swimming in the summer, going to the beach. All of these things will be a far off memory.

I hope you like itching and scratching non stop. You will itch and itch and itch. It’ll be so much that it’ll look like you have some sort of flesh eating disease.

You will become an expert on your body as you carefully destroy it, taking it apart piece by piece.

You will dream of cutting, dreaming of getting caught. It will haunt you day and night, in your dreams and when you are awake. Cutting will take over your life. It now has it’s hold over you, it controls you.

You’ll hate yourself, hate yourself for making that first cut that threw you into this vicious, neverending cycle.

You’ll wish you never made that first cut.
You’ll wish you had read something like this, or that someone had told you what would happen.

But as much as you hate your addiction and self harm, you love it and can’t live without it. You’d rather die than go just a few weeks without cutting.

Now, I’ll tell you what the title pertains to.
How to self harm.
Here is where I tell you how to successfully hurt yourself.

So put down what you’re about to use
Because you are so much better than this.
And believe me, you don’t want to get involved with the monster of Self Harm.