Three (3) years. Thirty-six (36) months. One hundred fifty-six (156) weeks. One thousand ninety-five (1,095) days. Twenty-six thousand two hundred ninety-eight (26,289) hours. One million five hundred seventy-six thousand eight hundred (1,576,800) minutes. Ninety-four million six hundred eight thousand (94,608,000) seconds. This is how long it has been since I have self-harmed. Three years out of the nearly 42 years I have been alive isn’t much. Add the past three years to the first seven years of my life that I didn’t self-harm, and you will notice that I have self-harmed far longer than I haven’t. Basically, 32 years of my life was spent obsessing over and being consumed by cutting.

Self-harm is not a cry for attention—at least not the way we attach it to borderline personality disorder. Self-harm can be a cry for attention, but we should wonder why someone would hurt themselves just to get attention. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at the height of my depression and multiple suicide attempts, but I wasn’t self-harming for attention. Well, in some ways, I was. I needed help, and I didn’t know how to communicate that. But it wasn’t all for attention. It was also a coping skill. It was a way of managing emotional pain, anxiety, and anger. It was an outward, but often also hidden, expression of what was going on within my inner world.

The scars on my arm speak of depression and despair, which should have already been visible to others—if they were paying attention. I have other scars, though, on my legs and stomach. Those scars whisper about how alone, damaged, and afraid I once felt. Those scars hold a deeper level of shame as they tell a much more secretive story of the sexual trauma I couldn’t speak about for years.

I mentioned above that only a few short years ago, self-harm consumed me. There were days I would cut myself, ten minutes later give into another urge, and ten minutes after that, repeat the process. There was no such thing as delay or even abstention. Nothing seemed to work long enough or well enough to dislodge the obsessive thought, compulsive action, or restless sensations. And the emotional turmoil; oh, the turmoil. Even on days I didn’t necessarily need to harm myself, I would do it anyway. Maybe a wound was starting to heal; I couldn’t tolerate that thought. Or, perhaps I couldn’t feel the physical stinging reminder of how awful I believed I was.

Wrestling night and day with thoughts of self-harm was both exhausting and the only thing that seemed to work. Yet, I also recognized that it wasn’t working. If it had been working, I wouldn’t have the same inconsolable feeling minutes after bandaging myself. So, I ran headlong into doing things differently. First, I checked myself into a facility where I would receive more comprehensive and intensive trauma therapy than what my therapist could offer outpatient. Second, I committed to whatever that process looked like. Third, I accepted that it was going to hurt. Last, I thought about a phrase I heard in several different types of “anonymous” meetings I was required to attend: “I’ll take another 24.” Each time the impulse to self-harm struck, I would reach out for help, remind myself that I just had to make it one more day (or one more minute), and I would do my best to practice whatever coping strategy was in my toolbox. Those strategies often felt inadequate, but I fought to do things differently.

The same healed or healing scars that once beckoned me to cut again now, in their faded state, symbolize the fading need to self-harm. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when the urge nearly drops me to my knees, but I have too many days behind me (and in front of me) to give up what I have worked so hard for. I have started over on day one many times before, but the days I continue to add this time are much more meaningful than they used to be. It isn’t just about another day without cutting; it is about another day of choosing my life, healing, and growth. It is another day of trusting the process.

It has not been easy. In fact, it seemed impossible much of the time, especially in the beginning. But here I am, living one day at a time, finally coming to terms with who I am, what I’ve been through, and what could be. Thirty years of self-harm is a long time, but three years of health is a lot longer, at least in the sense that it has been much more meaningful.