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                   I have always been prone to depression, and late last year I had a nervous breakdown...
                   It's not something I'm ashamed of, or try to hide... it just happened. But while I was just starting to
                   recover from that, I hit a rough patch in my personal life... I was under a lot of stress, and very
                   unstable, and I started to get urges to hurt myself. Not to kill myself - that was an entirely
                   seperate issue... I was in pain, and I needed to express it. When I had a fight with my
                   boyfriend one day, I found myself picking up a kitchen knife and slicing the top of my thumb...
                   and I found myself seriously regretting the fact that the knife wasn't sharp enough to do any
                   real damage. In fact, I was seized with the urgent desire to GET myself a sharp knife
                   immediately... so when I got the opportunity, I bought a little pocket cutter, and it wasn't long
                   before I was placed under stress again, and I used it.

                   And then I realised that what I was starting to do was NOT a good idea, and vowed never to
                   do it again... largely because a friend who had already been down that road had a serious
                   talk with me and warned me that it was a very dangerous path to tread. She told me that
                   there is no such thing as 'minor' self-injury... once you start, the cuts tend to get deeper and
                   longer, until you are doing real damage to yourself and needing stitches... I took heed of her
                   warnings and made a concerted effort NOT to resort to SI when I was upset.

                   My resolution lasted a whole month. Then I had a very bad emotional crash, which lasted a
                   good two weeks. While I was in the very bad place, my resolution wavered and I gave myself
                   four or five short but very deep cuts on my forearm. I told myself that they were 'scratches'
                   but I was lying to myself badly... and a few days after that, I got drunk and decided I didn't
                   want to live anymore. I got the sharpest kitchen knife we had [which was pretty sharp] and
                   sat down at the puter to write goodbye notes. Once they were done, I was going to cut my
                   wrists. But while my DESIRE was there to do it, another part of my mind blocked me. I could
                   NOT bring myself to press down with the knife however much I tried... sobbing hysterically, I
                   ended up using the knife on my arm instead. I did a LOT of damage and made a big mess,
                   but it was nothing fatal or permanent...

                   And then afterwards I had to clean up the mess and go on. But my resolution was totally
                   gone, and I started a pattern of turning to the knife whenever I got too depressed or upset,
                   doing increasing amounts of damage increasingly frequently... after the first time, I went for a
                   whole month before I did it again. Then it was two weeks, then one, and then I settled down
                   to a pattern where I was SIing almost every day for a week or two until I made myself stop...
                   then I'd go another week until I got upset enough that I started again. And so on.

                   I did NOT want anyone to see what I was doing... I was terrified that they'd do something to
                   stop me, like locking me up in the psych ward as a raving loony. But I couldn't stop myself. I
                   almost got caught quite a number of times by members of my family, but I was able to fob
                   them off. A scratch on the back of my hand was where I'd caught it on a thorn... or I'd slipped
                   doing the cooking... or I'd had a little accident with the stanley knife at work. And each
                   excuse was believed.