I Always Referred To What I Was Doing As "self Surgery"

   I can't say that I remember exactly when but I began drawing sharp butcher knives across my hands and arms when I was about 16. It was an on again - off again affair for the last 20 years.

   Unfortunately, I am "on again"... I know my triggers are loneliness and anxiety... I was disabled at a job a few years ago and my husband has been out of work off and on these last 3 years...

   When we were in San Diego a year or so ago, I started taking my husbands medieval swords and kitchen knives and always cut myself always in places that I could easily hide, considering that my husband was developing a drug problem

   This time it was just a little dry patch of skin and an ingrown hair on my scalp at the back of my head so I began trying to grasp it between my fingernail(to no avail), so out came the tweezers and I was off----  it's so easy for the mind to allow my fingers to begin feeling and searching for any little blemish on my scalp and out came all the implements and ointments and away I went... this period of "self  surgery" has been a very long stretch for me... I just hope I can find the strength to stop...