Cutting

I deliberately cut my left forearm. I began doing this roughly nine years ago. I began with a razor blade but started using a box cutter approximately two years ago. Recently I am using a kitchen knife.

I consider my cutting to be psychotic behavior. My diagnosis is bipolar with psychotic features. Personally I do not consider my bipolar and psychosis connected. Now that I have my bipolar under control I nevertheless have psychotic events in my life. Like hallucination. Like cutting. This post explores why and how I cut in my life from age 50 to my present age of 59 from a viewpoint of psychosis alone.

I was delusional when I started. At that time I believed I was the Greek demigod Icarus. My cuts represented the places where Icarus' wings were ripped from him. I cut both arms then. My cuts were symbolic and very ritualized. I played dreamy goth music. I laid out all of the paraphernalia: the razor blade and the first aid materials I knew would be needed after the cut. I cannot now remember my experiences during cutting. It was so closely related to my delusion that the accompanying feelings are lost to me. I remember a sense of excitement. I remember, however, that I did not feel rebellious or possessive about my cutting.

Icarus was everything to me (and still colors my life) I discovered a bulletin board called Icarus. The members preached bipolar existence without the need for drugs. I was amazed and immediately became part of the dialogue between the members. I also found a beautiful picture of Icarus on the web from which I developed a background for my computers. I still use it today. My common password for sites of questionable security defer to my delusion at that time. My wings ripped from Icarus made me a Falling Man. I was Falling Man. My motto was “It is not the fall that kills you. It is the sudden stop at the end. Keep falling and you live.” I still believe this. I continue falling. I continue cutting.

I started working with a therapist and psychiatrist. They diagnosed my psychiatric disorders. I did not believe them. They began testing different drug therapies. The remedies were on the whole ineffective. This reinforced my belief that no drugs could work for me. I thought that I should, as the Icarus message board preached, not take any drugs. The therapist and my psychiatrist insisted that my bipolar and psychosis were unrelated. I still believe this today. I probably resented my diagnoses. I continued cutting.

The winter days were black and lonely during the holidays in 2005. My isolation was cruel. My companionship was solely with other bulletin users in the social network of Icarus. But this was little used during the holidays. My fifteen-year marriage to a young and beautiful Swedish woman ended abruptly and painfully earlier in the summer (She left me hatefully on my fiftieth birthday) I was alone with nothing but the social network I had on the web. This experience twisted me and I believe that my delusions worsened at this time. Bipolar is inherited. But psychosis is the result of events in an individual’s life. So thought Icarus a.k.a Falling Man. This was a contributing factor to my cutting. The cutting was intense.

My psychosis cannot be explained solely by my delusion of Icarus. With analysis I have traced events in my life. I believe my relationship with my father and mother might have contributed to my psychosis. I am dubious about this but nevertheless continue to explore this possibility.

My father was distant. He almost never engaged himself with his children. I do not believe he loved my brother and me. I can remember humiliating and horrifying events with my father. He beat my brother and me for reasons we never understood. Aloof and distant, safely locked from the world around him, a world that included his children, he stayed in his study with the door closed. My brother and I were admonished by my our mother to be quiet, do not disturb your father. He never hugged my brother or me. My mother often reiterated that your father loves you, you know. My mother occasionally said that my father had never wanted children. I believe his relationship, loving my mother, lasted ten years until he acquiesced to my mother's no doubt insistence to have children. It changed the course of their relationship.

I had a more complex relationship with my mother. Bipolar herself, she aimed the full force of her manic love at me. She often remarked on the similarities I had with my father when he was young. (I wonder if he felt threatened by me) She attached a stigma to psychiatric treatment. I knew then that I needed psychiatric care. I was always trying to find help without her knowledge. These efforts failed. But her love for me was twisted. Who do you love? That girl or me? Why did you do that ? Don't you love me? She was always a part of my life. And I obediently listened to her and loved her. I accepted her value system totally. At the age of forty seven I finally threw my mother out of my life in a drunken rage. This is when I also had my falling out with my brother.

Although distressing, I do not believe that the dysfunctional relationship I had with my parents contribute to my cutting. I have analyzed it thoroughly.

The onset of my psychosis began a year before my divorce. That is when I stopped drinking. Heavy drinking had always been a part of my life. I was self-medicating my mental disorders with alcohol. I did not know this at the time. I understood this later in my life. Without medication and without diagnoses my mental disorders burst into my life and those around me. I think it was that time, when I was forty nine, that my wife began preparations to divorce me.

I do not believe stress is a contributing factor to my cutting. Some time latter I lost my job but remained insured for my health with the long-term insurance I still had from my former employer. When this ended I desperately applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and ultimately became qualified. I applied for Medicare because my long-term insurance was running out. My memory of these events is scattered. I remember that it took two agonizing years to qualify for Medicare. I believe this happened after I was on SSDI. The stress of these times may have contributed to my cutting. I do not think so. I cut no less or more then.

My therapist at the time, he who diagnosed my disorder, was frustrated at finding a way to bring me back to earth. He got me to accept that I was delusional. He encouraged me to see a psychiatrist who prescribed medication for me. The medication and its side-effects were haphazard insofar as they controlled my symptoms. I remember feeling other-worldly and fuzzy-minded. I stubbornly believed in the tenets of the Icarus bulletin board. I resented the drugs. I became cold and cynical. But I was no longer Icarus.

I still cut. But not as Falling Man. My cuts became more of a rebellion when I lost my delusion. I was enraged when I cut. I slashed my arm without mercy for the first cut. I drew the razor blade angrily through the first cut to make a deeper cut. I began blood worship then. I cut to see the blood and revel in it. The milieu surrounding the cutting was still ritualized. The delusion was gone but the behavior remained. Today I am no longer angry. I do not feel rebellious today.

Without any insurance but Medicare, and my reduced income on SSDI, I could no longer pay out-of-pocket for therapy and psychiatric care. My therapist did not accept Medicare. Neither did my psychiatrist. My therapist referred me to psychologist who took Medicare. I still see her after four years. I stumbled upon a psychiatrist who had a rate I could afford.

I developed a new delusion. The drug therapies were not very effective. I kept cutting again albeit for a different reason. I rationalized my cutting as something resembling self-flagellation like that practiced by certain orders of monks. Their rituals erase all experiences of the world and life as they direct one's attention solely to God. I continued hallucinating and considered those events as special signs. I became a mystic. I wanted to get closer to God and to death. So close as to see the “white light” but not actually die. I cut to attain this. I had no memory at that time of my psychiatric sessions. I do not remember my emotions from that time. I was deluded.

I was clearly upon a journey of self-discovery. I quoted every text and philosophical argument to justify my behavior. Cutting, that is. I hated needing medicine and would often forgo taking it. This did not help with my recovery. I also drank heavily and that reduced the efficacy of my drugs.

My psychologist dispelled that delusion. I now accept that I am mentally ill. I do not forgo my medication. I do not drink. I have no delusions. I work to bring order into my life. I am working to establish human contact. I am developing friendships. I am working to end my isolation. I still cut.

Various events trigger my cutting. I know that the sight of razor blades or a box cutter trigger my blood lust. All delusions and ritual have been stripped away now. I simply cut.

A strange behavior occurs. Triggered or not I unexpectedly begin to enter the cutting mind set. I can hear myself desperately pleading: Do not do this. Listen to Ilene (my psychologist). Do not hurt the people you love. These voices disappear as I enter the “Cutting Trance.” The world becomes very far away. I am out of space and time. I am perfectly in the Now. The succession of events that occur in a trance are only isolated moments in time. I am removed from the passage of time. I can vaguely describe the events that occur in my trance afterward. I cannot describe the emotions I experience within the trance.

I will not cut with someone in the room. The presence of another person suppresses my need to cut. If I am interrupted I will stop. I am not sure how I would react to a telephone call during the trance. My guess is that I would simply ignore it or wonder at it. I do not think I would answer the telephone. It would be useful to call someone as the trance began. Unfortunately I can not control the onset of the trance. I simply find myself in it and cut off from reality.

I have an organized cutting experience now. I shave my arm hair from around the place where the cut will be made so that the bandages will stick to it. I turn on music that I want to hear (not necessarily goth or moody) I lay out the materials I will need. First aid essentials. Paper towels to absorb the blood that comes from the cut. Lit candle to sterilize the blade. Pieces of tape hanging from the edge of the table so that it will be easier to bind the wound. Gauze at hand. I wipe down the area where the cut will occur with rubbing alcohol. Then I clamp the blade in a vise-grip pliers. I run the blade through the flame. I carefully make the first cut. I wipe away the blood from this cut so that I can see exactly where it is. I draw the cutting blade in the cut again so that I make the cut deeper. By this time the blood begins to flow freely. I watch this in fascination. I slowly rotate my arm to make the blood drip in a circle around my arm. I tip my arm downward to run the blood between my thumb and forefinger. The excess blood is absorbed by the paper towels below the cut.

I do not remember how long the trance transpires. I have no sense of time during the cut. I simply exit the trance. I address the medical problem at hand. I place a pile of gauze on the cut and clamp my other hand on the wound to suppress the bleeding. (I have had only one experience when I needed to go to the emergency room) Once the bleeding is reduced I wrap the wound with clean gauze and the pieces of tape I have prepared. I wrap the wider tape firmly across the cut to keep pressure on it. When these measures are complete I wrap my arm where my bandages are located with an elastic athletic arm cuff.

Living after the cut is difficult. I feel a deep sense of remorse. I regret the sorrow this will engender in the people I care about. I do not tell them about the cut if I can because they know I cut. I keep the cut hidden by wearing long sleeve shirts. Strangers might accidentally see it. They might ask me how did you hurt arm? I dissemble. I did something stupid. I would rather not say more about it. This works. Showering is a hassle. The wound must be bandaged for at least four or five days. I wrap my arm with stretch kitchen plastic. I try to avoid direct contact between water and my arm. This works a little bit. Only the athletic cuff on my arm gets a little damp. The area around my wound stays dry.

The bandage must be changed every two days. I remove the athletic cuff. I carefully peel off the gauze. If the cut is not bleeding profusely I clean the area around the cut with rubbing alcohol. If the wound is still bleeding heavily I simply replace the bandage and put the athletic cuff back on it. If the bleeding is little or stopped I add antibacterial salve to the gauze. Then I place the gauze on the wound and tape it into place. I wrap the wide tape over the cut less tighter than before. I forego the athletic cuff.

Eventually I no longer need a bandage on the cut. I am now able to clean the area around the cut completely. There is usually an infection in and around the cut. I apply antibacterial salve to the infected areas around it. If this does not solve the problem after about a week I see my general practitioner doctor to get stronger salve or, in bad cases, oral antibiotics.

I cannot envision a time when I will not cut. I still admire the scars on my arm. They are a private source of pride for me. I keep my “cutting drawer” furnished with first aid materials. I plan for the next cut. Where should it be? Right now I am thinking of cutting between existing scars. I am running out of cutting real estate. What special care must I take? I must not cut too near to my underarm. I might hit a large vein and bleed out.

Maybe cutting is an intoxicant. I certainly feel very high when in the trance. I do not understand the emotions I experience when in the trance. I desire to return to the trance over and over again. My fond memories of it are similar to the symptoms of an addicted drug user. This is the best explanation I can come up with. The problem with it is the unexpected onset of the trance. If cutting is a drug can I control my intake of it? No.

This is the story of my cutting.