Shirley Manson Opens Up About History With Cutting and Self-Harm

Shirley Manson opened up about her history of self-harm and cutting in an op-ed for The New York Times, published Tuesday.

“I didn’t know I was a cutter until the first time I chose to cut. I didn’t even know it was a ‘thing,” the Garbage lead singer began. “I had never heard the phrase ‘self-harm’ back then, in the mid-80s in Scotland. There were no support groups for people like me or any progressive, sympathetic op-ed pieces about the practice of cutting in my local newspaper. It was something I came to naturally, privately, covertly. I didn’t tell a soul about it.”

Manson explained that she was a teenager when she first cut herself. Having dropped out of high school, she had no plans for her future. “I was having sex with multiple partners, experimenting with drugs and drinking copious, alarming amounts of alcohol,” she wrote. “I would often fall foul of crushing depression, struggling to get out of my bed before 4 in the afternoon.”

She detailed a romantic relationship with a man with “some serious, unresolved anger issues toward women.” Even when she learned he was cheating on her, she stayed with him.

“The first time I cut myself, I was sitting on the edge of a bed inside my boyfriend’s flat,” she explained. “It was late. He and I had been arguing for some time, our voices gradually becoming more and more raised. I was concerned that we might wake his flat-mates, and in a moment of utter exasperation, I reached across for my little silver penknife, pulled it from the lace of my shoe and ran the tiny blade across the skin of one ankle.”

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Manson wrote that the cuts did not hurt, so she did it again. “I looked dispassionately at the three thin red lines I had made and watched as tiny little bubbles of my blood oozed to the surface. My boyfriend snorted in disdain and called me some nasty, misogynistic names before turning his back and immediately falling asleep,” she said. “I felt somewhat elated, as I imagine a scientist might while working on an experiment that suddenly, after much persistence, has yielded favorable results.”

“In that room at that moment, I felt untouchable and powerful. I was a woman in charge,” she wrote. “More than that, I felt a warm surge of comfort and relief. Relief from the rage. A relief from the powerlessness. Something had happened that didn’t feel right, and here were lines of my blood to bear witness to it and speak of it on my behalf.”

The singer wrote that cutting herself led to a sense of empowerment. “I suddenly felt I was part of something much bigger than this stupid situation I had found myself in. To my mind, my life had just immediately become more grand and expansive. I was salved,” she said. “I had an enemy. I had a knife. And the future was ours.”

“The problem of course with any practice of self-harm is that once you choose to indulge in it, you get better, more efficient, at it. I started to hurt myself more regularly. The cuts got deeper. I hid the scars under my stockings and never breathed a word about it to anyone,” she wrote.

Once her toxic relationship came to an end and she found a more suitable partner, her cutting habits stopped. She wrote that the urge to cut came back while touring in Europe to promote Garbage’s second album. “I was under immense physical and mental pressure. I was a media ‘it’ girl, and as a result I was lucky enough to be invited to grace the covers of newspapers and fashion magazines all over the world,” she wrote. “Perversely, the downside of attracting so much attention was that I began to develop a self-consciousness about myself, the intensity of which I hadn’t experienced since I was a young woman in the throes of puberty.”

Manson said that she was constantly comparing herself to other people. “The mental anguish I was inflicting on myself was extreme and drove me half out of my mind. In hysterical, extreme moments, I thought if I could just get my hands upon a tiny little knife it would bring some relief and I would be able to handle the stress,” she wrote.

The singer concluded by sharing that she has resisted the urges to harm herself. “Today I try to remain vigilant against these old thought patterns. I vow to hold my ground. I choose to speak up. I attempt to be kind, not only to myself but also to other people. I surround myself with those who treat me well. I strive to be creative and determine to do things that make me happy,” she wrote. “I believe it is not what we look like that is important, but who we are. It is how we choose to move through this bewildering world of ours that truly matters.”

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