People Always Ask:

I could always stop cutting; that’s the plain and inelegant truth. No matter how compelling the urge, the act itself is always a choice. I have no power over the urge, but the act itself is always a choice. I have no power over the flood tide of emotions that drives me to that brink, but I occasionally have the power to decide whether or not to step over. Stopping, however, is not at all the same thing as ending the desire. I still ache with a fierce, organic need for cutting’s seductive, minimalist simplicity. I expect that I will always be the kind of person who is too much aware of the boundlessness of chaos; it’s like having an unfortunate sixth sense, alive to the teeming, invisible undercurrents of anarchy streaming past us as every moment. I don’t say it makes me stronger, or more interesting, or gives me character; it’s just a part of my fabric of self.