Planning where and when she would next cut herself, which outfits would cover the wounds and which lies she would tell to excuse the cuts consumed Mina Farzad’s mind for six years.

She was young, only 13, when she first ran razor blades from the family box cutter across her arms and ankles.

“It really came out of nowhere,” she said. “I wasn’t in this horrible place and nothing new or awful had happened in my life.”

She used it as a way to cope with pressure and stress.

“I wanted people to think that I could handle everything,” Farzad said. “ ... I thought I could take control of my life and stuff, but I really couldn’t.”

Now 20, the international security studies and public administration junior is one of thousands participating in “To Write Love on Her Arms” day. The purpose of today’s events is to reach out to individuals struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide, letting them know they aren’t alone.

For Farzad, whenever something went wrong, cutting was her first response.

“I just shut out any other option ... I was planning it and it was strategic,” she said.

It was three years before anyone noticed the cuts.

While shopping, her mother got a glimpse of the cuts behind the dressing room door.

Her mother didn’t know how to react. She wasn’t aware of cutting.

“[Her reaction] came out as anger but I knew she was just scared,” Farzad said. “I knew she wasn’t actually angry at me.”

Farzad said her mother removed every sharp object from the house and sent her to multiple therapists and psychologists. The 16-year-old never felt comfortable with any of them.

“In the realm of psychology, cutting was never looked at as an independent problem,” she said. “It was always looked at as a symptom of something else, so I felt like the whole time I was there ... they were looking for a diagnosis.”

Eventually, Farzad was diagnosed with clinical depression and spent seven months taking Zoloft, an antidepressant.

“It was awful. I was like a total zombie. I didn’t have feelings, I didn’t care and I was indifferent to everything,” she said.

The diagnosis didn’t make sense to Farzad. She was involved with extracurricular activities, appointed to many leadership positions and making good grades.

Unhappy with the medicine, she talked with her mother, who also battles clinical depression, and they agreed to discontinue her use of Zoloft.

“[My mother] understood what it’s like to feel like you can’t control anything that’s around you,” she said.

At 16, her frequency of cutting slowed, but was replaced by another destructive habit: smoking.

“I was smoking all the time and not cutting,” she said. “Yes, smoking technically is worse for you ... but I saw it as a socially acceptable way of cutting. Everybody was smoking so they never asked me why I smoked.”

She quit smoking a little more than a year ago and had to deal with everything she had been pushing away since age 13.

She started by setting things right in her personal life and at home.

She told her father, who lives in a different state, about the six years of cutting and addressed some family tensions with him.

“[I realized] I could handle whatever was coming my way and if I really sat down and tried to deal with it; I wouldn’t have to resort to anything else. I wouldn’t have to smoke, I wouldn’t have to cut,” Farzad said.

Now, there are isolated moments when Farzad is tempted to cut, but she tries to turn to her mother and close friends for support.

“I’ve never relapsed in the sense that all of a sudden for two weeks, I’m doing it all the time,” Farzad said. “But on isolated incidents, maybe once or twice a year, that has happened.”

Since she quit cutting, she has encountered a variety of people in recovery. Girls, guys, cheerleaders, band kids and athletes, among others, use cutting as a way to deal with problems, she said.

“There’s not a face to it, you can’t associate it with anything,” she said. “Everyone has that one thing they can’t deal with.”

Farzad said there aren’t necessarily warning signs of cutters, but encourages people to be there for friends when they are going through busy, stressful times.

Self-harm like Farzad’s is recognized as an issue for college students and individuals dealing with injury should seek counseling, Deann Gattis, a licensed psychologist at Goddard Health Center, said in an e-mail.

Looking at her past, Farzad said, “I didn’t really know how to cope with things the way I do now, when I’m 20.”

After six years of injury, Farzad considers herself a stronger person with self-confidence.

“I don’t think people that meet me now would ever assume that was something I went through,” she said. “In the end, it really made me a stronger person.”