I scarred myself for life

The first time I cut myself, I was 16 years old and at an awkward, unattractive stage, physically and mentally. My parents reacted to my moodiness and acts of rebellion by imposing Victorian limitations on my freedom; explosive arguments occurred almost daily. I thought a girlfriend would compensate for what I felt was a lack of love at home but the object of my teenage passion was not remotely interested, and who could blame her?

My emotions came to a head one day after school. Sitting in my room, I reached for a pen lid and dragged the point as hard as I could over the back of my hand. The frustration and violence I felt within me had suddenly found a target. The immediacy of the pain focused my thoughts and brought instant calm and euphoria. Watching the release of blood, I imagined it was my inner pain and anxiety flowing out.

The cutting became a habit and I began to do it at least once a week. When my parents saw the scars, they threatened to send me to a psychiatrist; people at school who noticed the marks were disparaging and insulting, dismissing me as a freak or a drama queen. As a "cry for help", it wasn't exactly effective.

On one occasion I went too far and cut my hand so badly that the skin split open like a lipless mouth and only a thin layer of tissue remained over the tendons and bones. After that I moved my self-mutilation to places where prying eyes could not see, on my upper arms and chest.

After I left home, life became easier and my need to hurt myself less frequent. In Sheffield, at university, my new independence and my first serious girlfriend boosted my self-respect: she made it clear she found my scabby wounds unattractive.

After a year, though, we split up and before long I was slipping towards self-mutilation again. But cutting myself only added to my loneliness, leading to awkward conversations whenever I removed my shirt in front of someone for the first time. Most people who saw my injuries reacted with scorn or disgust. They saw cutting myself as a sign of weakness, juvenile attention-seeking. I, on the other hand, viewed it as a logical means of dealing with the emotional chaos within me, allowing me to function on a day-to-day basis.

It never occurred to me to stop or find other ways of dealing with my problems. I come from a very English background where talking about one's feelings is not done; seeking help was unthinkable. To me, that would have been weakness.

Life started to get out of control after I graduated and moved to London. I found myself in a low-level banking job, with no possibility of promotion. At night I'd return to my bedsit and drink myself to sleep. I was tired, broke and lonely.

One day I woke up hungover and covered in blood from several deep wounds in my right arm. They ran parallel to each other and glistened horribly in the morning light, exposing layers of skin, fat and flesh. I bandaged myself up and spent the rest of the day in the pub, too scared to go back to my bedsit for fear of what I might do to myself. Suicide was never an option; what I was scared of was that I was going mad.

That was the turning point. I stopped drinking as much and began to look for a way out of London. Two months later I had a job teaching English in Brazil. I'd stopped self-harming but the scars on my arm were livid, so I went to the doctor to see if anything could be done about them. When I rolled up my sleeve, I was surprised to see him recoil in horror. Was this the result of a "weird sex game", he asked? I explained. "Get a tattoo," he said. Perhaps he didn't like self-inflicted wounds taking up valuable surgery time.

Within weeks of my arrival in Brazil, I met a girl. She raised her eyebrows at my scars but, as there were no fresh marks, didn't labour the point as to why they were there.

We returned from Brazil three years ago, got married and had a baby. My scars are still obvious and always will be. I have considered getting a tattoo to conceal them but worry it may draw more attention to the broken skin. I also feel it would be a lie, covering up what is part of me.

What worries me most is not that I will self-harm again but what I will say to my son when he asks how I came by the strange horizontal lines that run down my arm.

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