Juliet is 16 years old. She is sitting on her bed, with a razor in her hand.

I can't believe I'm going to do this again. I thought it was over - everything was going so well. My scars are almost white, not that angry pink they were for so long. I thought I was feeling OK now.

But then it just rises up again, this terrible anger. And then - nothing. Like I'm so angry, I go numb. Kind of like when something is so freezing cold, it burns your skin.

My therapist - now there's a waste of money on graduate school - he says that I am depressed and suicidal. I just nod my head and say, OK, Doug, you are right, I am. I mean, if that's the easiest explanation, let's save everyone's time, right?
Discussion Board on Self-Injury

But he doesn't know me at all, even though all the papers on his wall say that he is more than qualified to understand me. Hah! I'm not trying to kill myself. I don't think it's come to that. I mean, sure, I've thought about it, when I run the razors over my arms. I think: just a little harder, just a little deeper, and my mom will have to break out her little black number and that black hat with a veil (I assume she has one of those. Don't all women?)

But that's just it: It's up to me. My life is in my own hands. Isn't that what they always tell us in these speeches? It's your life, you are responsible for it, blah, blah, so no drugs, no smoking, blah, blah, no drinking and driving, blah, blah, if you want to stay alive. So it's my razor, my arm, my choice. I choose to stay alive.

I just like the cutting. It's like a release. When I see that bright red blood bubbling up, it's like sewage, bringing out all the **** that's been flowing inside me. All the bad thoughts, all the negative emotions, all the anger and pain.

At first it hurt, which wasn't that bad. The pain actually felt kind of good. It matched my mood, challenged me. Even made my other pain feel less intense.

Now it doesn't even hurt anymore - that numbness, it's taken me over. I'm just so focused on the cutting, so totally in another world when I do it - it's like I'm dreaming. Floating.

Doug the shrink says that the adrenaline my body produces when I cut has a narcotic effect. Good for him. Glad he learned something in school. I don't know if that's it, but I don't really give a **** why it is; I just know I feel better.

You know, I wish I could be like those kids with the crazy or stupid parents that just didn't give a flying ****, but I'm just not like that. It bothers me that my father is such a loser and lets my mom speak to him like he is a child. And it really really bugs the hell out of me that my mother is such a bi***.

I mean, she just runs everything like a producer. You go here. You fit into my life here. You...you don't fit in at all. Tough break, honey. All right, people, let's take lunch. I need to buy some shoes.

She doesn't even notice the scars on my arm. I can wear sleeveless in the house - it's only to school that I need to wear long sleeves. Taylor, my six-year-old cutie pie brother, he noticed once. But not her.

I mean, she is so selfish and controlling and shallow. She is smart, really smart, but she uses it to manipulate people so that she doesn't have to do any work. Like raise her children. She drops out three of them, and then just leaves the oldest - me - to deal with herself and the other two while she is off doing God knows what.

And meanwhile, I don't know if I'm doing such a good job, being a surrogate mother / sister, and a daughter to my poor pathetic dad, and an 'A' student so I can get into Columbia, and a friend to the people at school. There's so much I want to do, so many things I have to be, and I'm failing at all of them. Just failing life.

So I freak out inside. But I can't do anything about it, because everyone relies on me to be sane. How would Taylor feel if he saw me ripping up the house? So I bury all the ****. Bury it deep. But after a while, it just builds up. Builds up and makes me go cold.

And that's when I think that maybe I'm no longer able to feel anything. God, wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't that be.... Horrifying?

So I need to get rid of it. Need to let the bad **** out so I can feel again. Seeing the blood proves it - I'm still alive. Still human. Still able to feel.