Authors Note: i really hope this didn't romanticize self harm. i tried to make sure it didn't, but if you notice anything that's, like, totally wrong put it in the comments and i'll try to fix it. i should also add TRIGGER WARNING i personally don't think it's anything too bad, like no one tries to kill themselves or anything, but louis does self-harm and has typical depressive thoughts so take that into consideration please.
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Years ago he had went to a psych ward after his mom had found out that he had been non-discretely cutting himself on his wrist. He was only a sophomore in high school, and he didn't have many friends. Between his four sisters he didn't get much attention at home either. So he had originally started cutting himself for attention, people at school were suddenly concerned about him, and Louis was honestly thriving.
When his mom found out she blew the situation way out of proportions. Louis wasn't even cutting with blades or anything. Louis mostly tried to hurt himself with wall pins or anything sharp really. His wounds barely bled, they were just red, horizontal lines on his wrist and nothing more. When his mom took Louis to the hospital they asked him a series of questions like "do you see or hear things that aren't there?" (He doesn't) and "have you had any suicidal thoughts?"
Louis wasn't sure how to answer that question, the hesitation is probably what sent him to the teen psych ward. The thing is, if he had gone home from the hospital that night he couldn't say that he wouldn't have not killed himself. Louis spent three days in the children's hospital waiting for a spot in the psych ward to open up. For those three days he only spoke to the psychiatrist who came in every morning to ask that same 7 questions.
He spent two weeks in the psych ward and he has stopped cutting for nine years.
Nine years.
That's a long time. He never thought that he would start again. For those nine years Louis has never been happier, he's got four of the best friends and band mates he could ask for; a perfect, healthy family; and the best fans in the world. But for some reason Louis started cutting again.
Something must have changed because this time he isn't doing it for attention. He isn't cutting on his wrist where everyone could see. At first he cut on his thighs, but he was always scared of his boxers ridding up when he wasn't wearing pants. That's also something that he didn't have last time, the paranoia that at any moment one of his band mates could see what he's doing to himself. So he started cutting on his hips, where there is always underwear to cover it.
Another thing that's different is that he has actually started using a blade. After an anxiety attack and a major depressive episode in the bathroom, Louis had angrily broken his razor; getting the tiny blades out of the razor was no easy task but he had done it and had started cutting without actually processing what he was doing. They weren't deep and he only did it five times on his left thigh before he stopped. He cleaned himself up, hid the razors, and went to bed. That was that.
He didn't think about how the cutting made him feel until the next day. He had to admit that doing it did make him feel better, the actual cuts didn't hurt too bad (it only burned a bit when he was in the shower). Something about it was depressingly therapeutic; it's like, just for a second, everything stopped and the only thing that mattered was what he was doing to himself.
So Louis just kept doing it, those nine years were flushed down the drain. And it's not like Louis looked any different or acted any different, he was still his outgoing happy self, he just cut himself up a bit.
