CARNDUFF - Cutting is a form of self-harm that people use as a way to cope.
They take something sharp (glass, knife, rocks) and score or cut into their skin. It often starts as a teenager but can continue into adulthood.
“When you don’t know how to handle something emotionally you take it out on your body. For me I felt I needed to be punished and I didn’t know how else to let it out,” said southeast Saskatchewan’s Shameeka MacDonald.
For MacDonald it started as a way to cope when she was 16, all it took was for her to see a scar on someone’s arm and even though she didn’t know if it had been self-harm it gave her the idea. At first, it would happen every couple of weeks, cutting her hip so that no one would see, but then it became a nightly ritual moving to her right arm.
No one found out until a year later when she accidentally cut too deep and was admitted to the hospital, receiving six stitches.
“My parents yelled at me to stop, demanding to know why I was doing it, but didn’t really want to know why. They just wanted to control the behaviour.”
That’s why MacDonald says one of the best things family and friends can do is to listen.
“People really talking to me is what helped me the most, because cutting isn’t the real issue it is only a symptom. I want people to know that self-harm is not always about getting attention.”
It wasn’t even about truly wanting to harm herself or end her life, during this time MacDonald wasn’t suicidal at all, it was just a way for her to handle the pain and overwhelming emotions.
After that first time in the hospital, and knowing how deep she could go, she would always end up trying to cut to the depth of that first deep cut, which landed her in the hospital seven more times.
“It got to the point that I didn’t care if people saw. After knowing how deep I could go the shallow ones were not good enough. Now I knew my limits.”
She would push the boundaries purposefully cutting deep again about every two weeks.
“The nurses knew me well and as soon as they saw me would know I needed stitches again, it was kind of embarrassing.”
It became her pattern from 17-19 years of age. Eventually, MacDonald turned to burning herself.
“Cutting wasn’t enough anymore to feel that release of endorphins.”
But something changed when she was 19. The staff at the hospital broke confidentiality disclosing her medical information to her younger sister which then spread to the rest of her family.
“At that point, something switched in my head. The hospital was my safe place and I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. I didn’t have the strength to fight anymore.”
This is when MacDonald made her first and only suicide attempt.
“Any form of self-injury, drugs or cutting, you will finally get to a point where you just don’t care anymore.”
After her suicide attempt, she ended up in the psychiatric ward in Weyburn.
“It was kind of scary and intense. Ever since my suicide attempt, I have lost a lot of people but God has helped me through everything.”
She stopped all self-harm on May 15, 2019, and since then has only had one relapse.
“I remember thinking the first time I quit that it was about making other people happy. I told myself to make it five years and then I’d start cutting again. And even though I didn’t make it five years, when I relapsed and cut again it wasn’t satisfying. I realized that for myself I didn’t want to keep doing this.”
She confessed that it will probably always be something that she struggles with, but now that she has dealt with the underlining pain it will never control her like it used to.
Now working in a psychiatric ward is something that MacDonald wants to do.
“Sometimes nurses have the training but don’t understand because it is not something they have struggled with. I want to help people who are going through similar situations because I have been there and I understand what it is like.”
