“For either way you choose you cannot win” is a quote from The Phantom of the Opera, where the main character, Christine, is faced with the choice between spending her life with a man, a monster she does not love, or having said man kill her lover. Both options will cause her infinite pain. But one of them is the right one. Because one of them will safe someone’s life.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it does not matter, whether or not we cut. We are at war. With ourselves. If we harm ourselves, we will hate ourselves, for doing so. And if we don’t, we will feel like we are not doing what we “want” to be doing.

This seems to be bad news. Because, we can fight and we will still be in pain. Or we don’t fight and we are in pain. Same result, isn’t it? I say it’s not. I even say this is good news. No matter our choice, we will be in pain. So why not do the right thing? Why drown in self-loathing when it does not help? We may not feel like our actions make any difference. We may not see any benefit in fighting, but the world will be a better place if we fight. 


“But the world does not care for me.” This is true, and I am not going to lie to you, it is devastating at times. But the fact that the world does not care, does not mean that we do not have an impact on the world. On the people around us. This is why I want to get better: Because I may be feeling the pain. But when I look into my 2-year old niece’s eyes and see her smile, when she sees a cat, I understand that I may not feel the difference, but my niece will. My friends will. My family will. And they are worth fighting for. I may feel like I am not worth it. I may even know that no one will appreciate my fighting. But I know that there are people who I want to be fighting for. One day I will leave this world behind (and I pray it may not be because of my Self-Harm) and I will pass it on to my children and the children of the people I care about. And my legacy shall not be how I drowned in an abyss of pain that I did not fight.

My life is not just about me. And that is why I want to keep fighting. Even though I feel in the pain no matter what I do.