Thank you very much for sharing this! this is very very helpful :)
I do have a few questions:
1.you mentioned having to stop your venous bleeding. was the blood thick or still red? Did your blood keep the same color/consistency during the whole process? And how did you stop that bleeding?? I was planing to use a sterile saline solution to clean the blood and clear the view. What do you think?
2.You said you wanted to just witness your arterial bleeding. But I think I read on Google that you fall unconscious only 15sec after opening an important artery. And die after 90sec. Were you aware of that? If yes, how long did you plan to witness your bleeding and what method would you use to stop the bleeding before falling unconscious?
3. Someone here told me to be careful not to slice a tendon. Did you have that in mind? Could you recodnize a tendon?
4. At some point, you say that your survival instinct won. At what point? At that moment, had you found the artery? And what stopped you? Was it the overall pain itself? Or the anticipated pain of cutting an artery and it's effect on your whole body? BTW, do you think it hurts to cut an artery (I mean, the cutting of the artery itself, not the skin slicing and fat digging prior to finding the artery)
5. In my post, I said that I'd work with a burning hot scalpel. I was planing to heat the scalpel on the stove multiple times and cut through my skin. I already tried that and it seems easier to cut through the skin with a burning blade. Do you think it's a good idea or not? Do you think I should stop using a burning blade?
6. When you cut through the skin, there is a point were you reach fat. Does it hurt to cut and dig through fat? Or it's just the skin that hurts?
Sorry for all these questions. But I'd really appreciate it if you could go more in depth :)
Don't worry about asking questions as I'm hoping that my answers can somehow keep you, or anyone else that might benefit from this, safer.
1. The blood hadn't coagulated yet, though it didn't take much time usually. I may have hit a vein on my thighs at least a couple of times before and after the wrist attempts as they kept bleeding for a while (we're talking hours), but those times I didn't really try to stop the hemorrhaging on my thighs. The blood kept the same color throughout pretty much, and, apart from the coagulation setting in most of the time before I was content with the bleeding, the rate of flow is what tended to increase with depth. To stop the bleeding all you need to do is apply pressure (without peeking!) for a few minute, so around 5-15 depending on the person and severity of the cut. Preferably you should use a non-stick pad so that you don't rip out any dried blood that's helping to stop the bleeding once you remove the pad from the wound, but with smaller cuts that doesn't happen as badly on healthier individuals. As for sterile saline solutions to clean the wounds, I'd say that's a really good call over tap water.
2. I was aware of the dangerous gamble I was attempting, from how much time I had to stop the bleeding to how to tend to it and call for help. I planned and had gauze ready, I sterilized my tools and disinfected the area, I had my phone at hand on the call app so I could dial 911, and I had practised where to apply pressure hard (on the wound itself or more proximally depending on the orientation of the cut at the time) so I can buy myself more time. But, despite this, I should add that failure to actually stop the hemorrhaging from becoming fatal was an outcome I was content with, as I have been suicidal for over a decade now. My plan to witness the bleeding was so that I had long enough to take a pic of the wound and/or surroundings before I called for EMS. Extremely stupid and selfish, I know.
3. While I've never seen one of my tendons, let's just say that I chose a spot where tendons and the major nerves were not obstacles (I researched as much as I could prior to avoid doing permanent damage to myself.) Though in the scenario in which I would have to try to distinguish a blood vessel from a tendon, I would have probably flexed my forearm muscles to see which things moved and which didn't. I was also hoping that I'd be able to see a pulsating vessel once I went deep enough, or feel for the "string" that contained the pulse.
4. I cut through until right before the fascia (the membrane that separates the muscle layer from the layers of the skin) the first time, and I stopped at the subcutaneous layer (the fat layer) on my second time. I'll go a bit further in-depth about some of that in #6 as that would also answer that question. Enough digressing, The reason I stopped the first time was due to how long I'd been cutting for (roughly an hour or more) so I had lost my resolve to keep cutting by then and the fear of dying set in once I knew I was close. My survival instinct kept nagging at me that going further could cause my death, and I could no longer tap into my mental pain at that point to mute the nagging. I also dreaded being locked in the hospital again if I arrived with such a wound, because one pretty much NEEDS professional medical attention for that. As for the second time, I chose a less ideal spot and I stopped at a point less deep than the first for fear of accidently cutting a nerve. Regarding whether cutting an artery would hurt or not, I remember reading somewhere that cutting an artery might hurt. I don't know the validity of that claim, but I kept that thought in mind during.
5. I don't know the depth at which you've cut yourself so far with that burning blade, but I'd implore you to not continue. I don't have much experience with burning, but I don't think burning the deeper layers of skin past the epidermis (the outermost layer; the layer you can see normally) is a good idea. I'm pretty sure (though I'll check in a bit) that burn degrees are dependent on which layers are affected by the burn, so if you burn deeper tissue then you are increasing the probability of infection as well as gambling with doing permanent damage to yourself. Ok, yeah I googled it and I'm more or less right, so continuing that'd be a big no-no. Honestly, the act of self-cutting is bad enough and risky as is, but adding burning on top just seems torturous. I'd recommend against either, but if you choose to continue cutting then at least don't do it with a burning blade.
6. I have noticed that each layer hurts a bit more than the previous one. I sometimes haven't noticed that change in pain when I've been in a REALLY bad place mentally to the point that I was able to "numb" my physical pain with the mental one. That said, once you reach the subcutaneous layer (the ol' fat layer) you don't really feel the cutting. It felt strange the first time as I was really ignorant about all that I've written so far. I even tried to cut into the individual loose connective tisue (or "beans," as some refer to them by), but I couldn't. Since the primary tissue in that layer is adipose tissue, roundish fat tissue, and since they aren't connected that tightly, I was able to pretty much move the blade in between the space in between the tissue without having to cut into it. I did so until I felt the blade stop, and when it did I could feel pain when I applied pressure again. That told me I had reached the deep fascia. I've never dared to go deeper since that would just be asking for permanent damage, from what little I know. Anyway, there is a more or less "guide" on how to care for wounds depending on the depth that I could go over if you wish. I'd add it here, but I think this response is long enough as is, and it's probably already longer than the first lol.
Again, as with the first one, I'm happy to answer any more questions that you may have, so long as these words serve to diminish as much harm as possible. Also since I haven't slept yet, there might be some grammatical or structural errors in here, and/or some tangential ramblings. Apologies if that's the case, but I'm too lazy at the moment to reread and revise.
