*My First Experiences*

I had never heard of self-harm until I met my wife.

I'm not completely in the dark nor am I completely out of it. I'd heard of ‘self-mutilation’, and I suppose I put self-harm into that category. Truth is, the term 'self-harm' meant nothing to me. I figured it was altering oneself destructively like how I understood ‘self-mutilation’, and that's all. The psychological aspects of it all never entered my mind until I’d talked to her for many many days.

We first met in a chat room. I made a practice of not taking anyone in a chat room too seriously. If they tell me stuff, I listen and say “oh yeah?” or “that’s nice”. It’s too hard for me to believe them because it’s too easy to make up stuff and be someone you’re not.

So, when my wife first started telling me that she cut herself my initial reaction was to reply: “Did you do it on purpose?” I was being a smartass thinking, “Of course it wasn’t on purpose, she must have just cut herself accidentally on something while talking to me.”

When she told me she cuts herself on purpose and has for years, my natural reaction was to ask if she was joking. I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to do such a thing to themselves. When she told me that she was serious, I figured, “Well, may as well believe her. If she’s pulling a fast one on me, oh well, no harm done.”

It took some time before I was fully convinced that she was telling me the truth. I never once questioned why she was telling me. I didn’t really care why. I was quite fascinated with this new “thing” called ‘self-harm.’

Before I go any further, I feel I must first clarify that I have an intense phobia for such things as needles. I also have a slight aversion to razor blades but not as much as needles. All that played a strong part in my reactions.

So I drilled her with questions.
I asked her how.
I asked her why.
I asked her where.
Hell, I was the world’s best journalist. I covered all five ‘W’s.
When I had all the basics, I went back to Why, and we spent the night and until around 6am debating Why and Why Not.

Immediately, my reaction was to debate her as to how dangerous such a thing is. My “goals” at the time were to make her see that what she was doing was wrong and get her back to “normality.” If I’d known then what I know now about self-harm, I probably never would have even tried this. But it was late at night and I had nothing much else to do. So we talked.

I made many good points as to why self-harm was bad and that she would be better to stop such actions. She’d make counter points as to why she did it and I’d point out the fallacies in her logic. We went back and forth like this for quite a while. She said she did it as a form of punishment. I asked her if she’d punish her own children in such a way. She talked about validity. I never did understand this argument she used. She felt “valid” when she cut. Repeatedly, she’d kick the words ‘valid’ and ‘validity’ at me. I didn’t know how to reply to this because I didn’t understand what she was saying. She told me how she has cut on several occasions. The one that boggled me was using her own dried out skin from her feet.

Never once was I repulsed or turned off, which was shocking in hindsight considering my phobias. [Oh yeah, I like to have my blood stay inside me too. I get quite “uncomfortable” if it’s outside of my body.] I was more drawn into the conversation with her because I was so fascinated about the whole topic. It was something so absolutely new and foreign to me that I wanted to learn everything I could about it.

I started talking to her late in the night, I assume it was around 10pm or so. We “debated” until past 6am. The winner? Well, of the great ‘To cut or not to cut’ debate, nobody really won it. I didn’t succeed in halting her actions and she didn’t convince me that cutting was a reasonable way to handle things in life. But we were both winners at the same time. I learned about self-harm and met a wonderful person. Though at the time I wasn’t thinking she was wonderful, but more that she was just another Internet person. So she won in teaching me about self-harm and getting to know her. I won in that I kept her from cutting herself for at least one night, and she also met a wonderful person, which would be me. :P

My feelings at the time were more of confusion. I was confused why this girl would hurt herself. I didn’t condemn her or anything. I just fought to understand. Luckily, I was ignorant on the subject that I could get away with some forceful questions and comments. I could hide behind that ignorance by saying that I was asking because I just didn’t know. And I truly didn’t know anything about self-harm.