Things no one tells you about Self-Harm: Trigger Warning

Everyone mentions the same things when they talk about self-harm. This is what I wish someone told me about self-harm before I fell into its tight gripping claws.

1) It's not only the cuts/bruises/burns/scratches that you have to hide. You have to hide the bloodied tissues, the used band-aids, the band-aid wrapper, and the thing you used to harm.

2) When you shower the dried blood drips out of your band-aid and down your body creating little dark red, almost brown, colored streams. It scares you at first because you think it's opened again.

3) It becomes an addiction. It becomes the only thing that helps.

4) It eventually doesn't help anymore but you keep doing it in the hope it will.

5) Your body will scar and at first, you will like it but eventually, you get sick looking at them.

6) On a bad day, you run out of space.

7) Your band-aids will soak through your jeans or top after a shower and make an obvious square or rectangle patch.

8) They start to smell bad if not looked after.

9) You constantly think about them.

10) Your sleep will hurt and every move you make will too when they are fresh. You act as you like it. You don't.

11) People will never take it seriously enough.

12) They itch like mad whilst they heal.

13) You eventually get frustrated if it has no effect.

14) You don't cry when you do it. You feel nothing. Not. A. Thing.

15) It's so so so hard to escape it.

16) It isn't beautiful. It isn't a fairy tale. It won't help you find love. It is a monster that ruins lives.

Please think of all these things before you hurt yourself. You don't want to. I sound like a hypocrite because I do but trust me, you don't want to fall down the dark hole that I and many other people are already in. Put down your fist, blade, lighter, cut your nail short, and get help.