A Borderline describes cutting
Here’s an exerpt from a borderline describing the need to cut:
I’m going to make a feeble attempt to explain this need to self injure. Have you ever had a bad itch, like poison ivy, that you just have to keep itching. I have. I recently had one ankle itch so bad that I took the heel of my shoe and itched it as we drove along in the car. I itched it so hard I scraped all the skin off. The wound was so bad it was scabed over for weeks. But it didn’t hurt when I did it; it did help relieve the itch. Well, borderline emotional pain is like that. When we experience rejection, or abandonment, or change, it hurts inside so bad that we have to do something to soothe that pain. We can’t itch it, we can’t rub it or massage it away, so we self injure to help take our minds off it.
