Do You Self Harm?

[confused]

I am a cutter, really an addictive cutter. It is truly hard to fight off the thoughts when they come up. After eight years of cutting on a regular basis I have not cut in 14 months. The thing is it doesn't get easier, the thoughts are there, the desire is there and somehow you have to find one thing to hold on to so you dont do it.
I never thought I had a problem until I tried to stop, I went through many physical withdrawal symptoms, just like a drug abuser or alcoholic. That is when I realized that even though I would get high off of it I was unable to stop on my own. I would go back to it in a minute if I didn't think it would make people around me uspet. I don't want that drama!

[hopeless]

I have never cut myself, but the urge to hurt myself is there. since i am so rational and mind driven, i can't see myself doing anything drastic because it would go like this: i need relief, i need to feel SOMETHING, so i do something about it. cutting? no, that will hurt too much and bleed and me messy. Besides, i know enough about the disorder to understand that it will not help me in the long run. so i will not. as much as i want to, i will not do it. so what i do is pulling my hair, scratching myself until the skin welts, pinching and hitting myself with my fists. the urge has increased greatly over the past 3 yrs. and i have added the wish to simply hit my head against the wall, in the true meaning of the word.

why? to make it stop, just make it stop. the thoughts in my head, the anger, the worry, the anxiety, the fear, just stop for good.

Birgit

[A.J. Mahari]

I am a cutter, really an addictive cutter. It is truly hard to fight off the thoughts when they come up. After eight years of cutting on a regular basis I have not cut in 14 months. The thing is it doesn't get easier, the thoughts are there, the desire is there and somehow you have to find one thing to hold on to so you dont do it.
I never thought I had a problem until I tried to stop, I went through many physical withdrawal symptoms, just like a drug abuser or alcoholic. That is when I realized that even though I would get high off of it I was unable to stop on my own. I would go back to it in a minute if I didn't think it would make people around me uspet. I don't want that drama!

I hope you have been able to maintain your time not cutting. The reason the desire is still strong for you as you describe is likely because you may not yet have addressed the reasons behind the cutting. Stopping is important so that that work can be done in therapy. Cutting as with all self-harm is about substituting something for the actual feeling and dealing with (and resolving) one's pain. That's likely one of the most addictive qualities about it. It tends to work albeit not in a healthy way in terms of either being able to feel or shutting down distressful feelings or releasing feelings but through the body in a way that is psychologically safer.

I used to cut when I had BPD. I haven't cut or had any urges to do so in over 18 years now. It can be done. But you have to want to do stop and it sounds like right now that you haven't stopped for you but due to the feelings of others.

[A.J. Mahari]

I have never cut myself, but the urge to hurt myself is there. since i am so rational and mind driven, i can't see myself doing anything drastic because it would go like this: i need relief, i need to feel SOMETHING, so i do something about it. cutting? no, that will hurt too much and bleed and me messy. Besides, i know enough about the disorder to understand that it will not help me in the long run. so i will not. as much as i want to, i will not do it. so what i do is pulling my hair, scratching myself until the skin welts, pinching and hitting myself with my fists. the urge has increased greatly over the past 3 yrs. and i have added the wish to simply hit my head against the wall, in the true meaning of the word.

why? to make it stop, just make it stop. the thoughts in my head, the anger, the worry, the anxiety, the fear, just stop for good.
 Brigit

Hi there

I used to employ the hitting myself with my fists, along with cutting years ago when I had BPD. Pulling your hair is a less invasive way of harming which is, along with other forms of self-harm, essentially dysfunctional and unhealthy ways of trying to cope with overwhelming dysregulated feelings (or being numb in the cases of some with BPD).

You know, I so understand why you want to make all of those thoughts, anger and worry etc stop. I know you and everyone with BPD wants and needs them to stop for good. The truth is there is a way to stop them for good in therapy, in fact many ways. But, before you get there, it is important to first learn how to cope with the distress of  feeling discomfort, anxiety, fear, anger, etc in ways that you then learn, step by step, to cope with in healthier ways. The more coping skills you can learn the less work is actually left to stop self-harming behaviour because it can be replaced with learned coping tools designed to tolerate distress and eventually to help you to help yourself soothe your own pain and distress.

[hopeless]

Hi A.J.
thanks for the encouragement. i have been thinking about therapy but like i said, it is not doable for me at this point in time. the military insurance has no providers, at least that's what i have been told. and i cannot afford the copayments, just lost my job today. so i went from the urge to hurt myself to the urge to just lay down and die. my greatest wish would be not to wake up anymore. the only thing that keeps me from taking action is my responsibility and the knowledge that i am needed.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for your support.

Birgit (more hopeless than ever cause hope is for fools)

[A.J. Mahari]

Hi A.J.
thanks for the encouragement. i have been thinking about therapy but like i said, it is not doable for me at this point in time. the military insurance has no providers, at least that's what i have been told. and i cannot afford the copayments, just lost my job today. so i went from the urge to hurt myself to the urge to just lay down and die. my greatest wish would be not to wake up anymore. the only thing that keeps me from taking action is my responsibility and the knowledge that i am needed.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for your support.

Birgit (more hopeless than ever cause hope is for fools)

Sorry to hear about you losing your job. The fact that you are needed is actually a hopeful reality, even though, it seems that might not be how you see it. Sometimes hope can make fools of us, sure, but many times hope energizes us and brings to us possibilities that we wouldn't otherwise find. I hear you. I get that you feel hopeless. Just think about the possibility though, that they way everything is and/or seems right now for you does not have to remain as bleak. Change is always present. Change is all around us. You never know what might bring some positive change your way.

Hang in there.

[hopeless]

A.J.
how i wish to be able to look at life this way! my hopes have always -and i mean always- been crushed and the downfall was more hurtful than just not having hope at all. i am needed by my daughter because i dont want the burden of knowing that her mother was unfit for life on her shoulders. and i have pets that i cannot leave. thats it. people keep telling me that i will survive. i know that. surviving  is not enough for me. i want to live. i have survived for so many yrs now and i am tired of it. i believe only what i see and dont have the energy or the courage anymore to wait for something that might never happen, i spent most of my life like that and all these wasted yrs are haunting me now. these days i can picture hurting myself just like looking at me from a remote point of view but even that is not an option anymore, too much effort, no relief to be expected. life disgusts me, all of it.

Thanks,

Birgit

[A.J. Mahari]

A.J.
how i wish to be able to look at life this way! my hopes have always -and i mean always- been crushed and the downfall was more hurtful than just not having hope at all. i am needed by my daughter because i dont want the burden of knowing that her mother was unfit for life on her shoulders. and i have pets that i cannot leave. thats it. people keep telling me that i will survive. i know that. surviving  is not enough for me. i want to live. i have survived for so many yrs now and i am tired of it. i believe only what i see and dont have the energy or the courage anymore to wait for something that might never happen, i spent most of my life like that and all these wasted yrs are haunting me now. these days i can picture hurting myself just like looking at me from a remote point of view but even that is not an option anymore, too much effort, no relief to be expected. life disgusts me, all of it.

Thanks,

Birgit

Hi Birgit,

You really can look at life any way that you choose to. The paradox of life is that just because we choose something doesn't mean it works out the way we want it to when we want it to because we want it to. The fact that something doesn't work out as one wants when one wants and so forth, need not be the dashing of all hope. There is a gray in between the black and the white. The challenge is to find it and learn to hold it - learn to be able to think it and have faith in it even when it - in this case hope - doesn't seem to be coming to fruition yet.

You say you don't have the energy or courage anymore to wait for something that might not happen. In my experience, hope is a verb. In other words we have to actively engage hope and then we have to make new choices that support our finding ways to experience that hope. Hope doesn't just come to us. Hope isn't something that can be waited upon. We have to create hope and then create the most that we can of what it is that we have hope for and about.

You seem in a negative place. It can seem as if it is all black, painful, and hopeless. The challenge at hand for you is to find a way to have even moments of hope from within the darkness and pain of feeling disgusted by life.

[sunnysideup]

I do plenty of things that could be considered self-harm. I am a cutter, I started about 12 years ago, which come to think of it has been half of my life  . I was diagnosed with bulimia when I was 16, but started throwing up around the same time that I started cutting. I have also been called an alcoholic by everyone I know, though I don't believe it is an issue. I have also had my fair share of promiscuous moments. I never realized just how many ways I was hurting myself...........

[leelu]

I skin pick, but have cut down dramatically. I also binge/starve, but that's improved as well, now that I can identify hunger as hunger and not anger, and am more aware of my habit of using food to fulfill emotional needs instead of physical needs.

I'm almost at that point in between; just not quite sure what to do with those moments when I feel neutral and ok and just pick out of habit, as that is what I've always done, even though I'm not hurting all the time now.

Sometimes I play with a piece of rubber from a bike bell, curl up in a yoga position, take rescue remedy, tap, put oils on or hold a teddy, but not consistently- those self-defeating behaviours are still present, just not all-consuming.