One of the biggest misconceptions I had (have) about cutting was that all I had to was quit. I mean, yeah it sucked while I was actively cutting multiple times a week, but I knew why I was doing it: I hated myself, I was filled with anger and resentment, I wanted a physical manifestation of the emotional pain I had dealt with for the past three years. At the time, I knew that cutting wasn’t the best way to deal with my emotions; I know that harming one’s self is not healthy. But it was the only way I could see to cope with everyday life. I couldn’t lay in bed sobbing all day, so instead I cut. It was the way I survived.

Since I knew I was using cutting as a coping mechanism, I didn’t really want to quit at the time. I knew it was unhealthy, but I also realized it was keeping me sane. I wouldn’t be cutting forever, I knew, it was just a way to get through the last months of college. I figured I would quit one day.

But when I was thinking about quitting, I never really thought of it as a process. I figured I would be cutting one day, and then stop cutting whenever I got “better”. I never really looked at cutting as an addiction, and I never thought I would have to deal with the urges to cut after I quit (and I’m assuming for the rest of my life). Dr. Steven Levenkron, author of Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation, likens cutting to OCD, in that it’s a compulsive act meant to relieve unbearable pain, and to eating disorders, in that it’s a method of seizing control. The thing is, people don’t really grow out of OCD, or eating disorders, or any addiction really. The addiction is always there, waiting for you to fall, waiting for temptation to overwhelm you, waiting at the end of a bad day.

I didn’t realize that I would miss cutting. Nor did I realize that cutting would always be the first solution my brain would turn to when I needed a problem solved. It’s surprising the way our addictions simultaneously smother us and appear to help us.