cut safety

some things we've picked up for cutting safely. cw for body mechanics and blood. if we are wrong, please correct us, if possible. this page being incorrect could have dangerous consequences for many people!

• do perpendicular cuts. cutting parallel to veins makes cutting significantly more dangerous, due to much larger wound area.
• don't cut deep! you want to cut as shallow as possible to reduce possibility of irreparable damage. the top of thighs are a safer cutting location than a inner forearm, for example, because it is more difficult to cut deep on the front section of a thigh. thigh cuts are also easier to conceal in most scenarios, which is important for some people's safety!
• only ever use ultra sharp blades. these have numerous safety characteristics!
  • they don't require force to wound, meaning there is little chance of accidentally cutting too deep due to heavy force. you just need to graze it!
  • sharp blades are usually well honed. this means they're consistently sharp, meaning they will always cut how you expect
  • in addition to this, they are quite precise generally!
• do small and few cuts. Bleeding proper happens surprisingly late from when you are cut, and so ensuring you only make small and few cuts at a time will mean you don't cut too much. We struggle with wanting more cuts all at once and more responses, but, cut responses are so delayed that this usually means we have large cuts all over the place, all at once, and this is too much for us to handle. Unless you can control addictive feelings and have a very good idea of how cuts manifest, only cut in very small bursts.

we use striaght edge razor blades due to their sharpness and consistent cuts, and high availability. these can be found in pencil sharpeners, hobby knives and utility knives, and safety razors. Modern, compartment based safety razors (not the exposed blade safety razors) are not recommended, since we've never had safety razor compartments that are easy and clear to open up, and are usually serving an important and active purpose in our lives already! Pencil sharpeners, as a comparison, are something we use very little, and they usually hide the razor blade behind regular screwheads, instead of a proprietary question mark.

we use the blades in the knives, since they can easily have their blade replaced and their handle is quite useful! Being easily replaceable is important, since razor blades trade low corrosion with high sharpness. Basically, these blades use a extremely sharp metal that is very weak and highly corrosive, and corrosion causes rust and dulls the blade, which is dangerous for cutting. Rust has a brownish and reddish appearance, cannot be washed off, and forms in coral-like patterns.

Ensuring you clean your razor blade, having it be dry at all other times, and leaving it in a low moisture and well ventilated environment with high airflow can significantly increase the longevity of a razor blade's usefulness. like, by a lot.

blood dealing with

cutting creates blood. Blood is messy. It is good to keep tissues on hand, maybe a towel. If you're bored, try drawing something on the tissue with your blood!

when we were younger, cutting would get us in trouble with our parents. They would find out by happening upon where we disposed of our tissues. If it is likely there will be people who hurt you for cutting, it is important, for your safety, to try and hide it as much as possible. Assuming that is net positive!

worth noting that many people are supportive of people who've cut, it is just that they respond negatively by default, because of conditioning. it is okay to be uncomfortable sharing with these people. we also think it may be healthy to engage with them to try and make it more mutually comfortable!

none of our ideas here have actually been tested since it's not an issue we have anymore, and we were very unsuccessful when they were issues. in fact, the First Great Elysia Cutting Hiatus (there are several hehe) was caused by this issue.

Wasrebins with a lid are useful if you manage your own rubbish. Wastebaskets that don't have lids can have their contents rapidly spotted! If you have a rubbish container in the room you stay in, you likely will be the only person who uses it for significant lengths of time, so it would be safe to dispose of tissue with it, so long as it is concealed by a lid.

If you have access to water surplus locally, and that manifests in such a way that you can flush a western style toliet, you can immediately remove bloodied tissue from your home by flushing it. be aware that tissues are not easily torn apart by water unless they are specifically designed for toliet use (most are not!), which causes clogging, and would mean the bloodied tissue is get stuck in the toilet most likely. there may be safety issues using toliet tissues rather than tissues specifically designed for a variety of sensitive body parts, but we don't know these!