i really woke up on the wrong side of the bed today and so im trying to calm myself down and all of that so i figured i would write a little bit ... but im trying to organize my thoughts about the cutting and all of that..i know it will take me a few rewrites before im able to write it in an objective manner...but self harm is where my thoughts are at ..so ill just write ...
When I started cutting myself I was in high school. Before that I was called a picker by my family. I was always being yelled at or hurt because of constantly picking at bug bites, scabs, or anything that i could get to and just pick at. Looking back I realize it was more an a anxiety driven behavior, but because of how it was handled it escalated. i learned to hide what i was doing to prevent being in trouble, to prevent being hurt even more. it reached a point where i wanted to prove i could hurt myself more than anyone else, i had found a way to say i was hurting without having to speak. I had found a way to give my inner pain and struggles a way to be seen. the problem was that with the cutting, the need to hide it was almost more important than the actual act. I had strict rules for where to cut, and in the beginning told myself i would not cut in visible places. I promised myself that i would stay in control, I was careful, i knew what i was doing and i could manage. I told myself repeatedly that it was okay, that as long as i was not hurting anyone else no one cared what i was doing to myself. I was positive I could hide it for as long as i needed, and in all honesty I knew that it would be the cause of my death. Cutting and suicide are often confused with each other. I don't cut because i want to die, I cut to prevent myself from dying. Cutting for me is the step before suicide, because i know that if i cut I will be able to release whatever it is that i am feeling at the time. I understand the dangers involved in cutting, and i can understand others fear my behaviors because i could accidentally cut the wrong place and die.
My promise of keeping it under control turned into more than ten years of self harm and even now that I am older and am in charge of my own life I still fight the urges to harm myself. For me there is a lot of shame involved with the cutting, I work very hard to keep the scars hidden and i do not talk about how i got the scars. i was very afraid that i would be judged, called crazy, and misunderstood. It has been very hard for me to admit that I am a cutter. I don't do it for attention and go out of my way to hide it. My cats became my excuse, i was accidents, i worm long sleeves and jackets all the time to keep my arms hidden. I felt like everyone knew what i was doing and that i was being judged because of it.
In all of the years I have been cutting, well in all of the years I have hurt myself because with self harm there is more than just cutting. some people burn, or hit themselves. Using drugs, overeating, overspending, and almost any addictive behavior can be classified as self harm because it is hurting you in some way. it is either a internal or external hurt, but it is a hurt all the same. It has taken me a long time to even begin to accept that I am harming myself. I believed that I was safe as long as I never hurt anyone else. I wanted to tell someone that I was hurting but I didn't have the words. I did not know how to ask for help, or attention. I knew that if I showed the scars then I would get attention but it was not the attention I really wanted. Growing up I was not taught that it was okay to speak and ask for help. I knew how to hide and how to pretend that I was fine. I learned to ignore the pain and take care of the cuts when they were 'bad ones'. I did not often go to the hospital for care of the scars and as a result i will always have many of the scars from the cutting.
Within the past couple years I entered into the professional mental health world in a way that allowed me to talk and offer support to others who are struggling with different mental illnesses. It has been in this setting that i have found the most understanding and support. I know there are uncertainties with having a person who is struggling with mental illness going out and working with a client who is struggling with their own mental illness. I was given the chance and the support to do it and have enjoyed my work.
It has been in this that I have learned that cutting and other forms of self harm are not healthy. I am hurting myself, and that is not okay. I have scarred my body and there is still a lot of shame because the scars will never fade away. the scars are now a part of me, a part of my life, a part of my story. I am learning that in order for me to be accepted by others, i have to accept myself. I am learning that the self harm is a symptom of other mental illnesses. I have been in and out of therapy, I have tried medication, I have talked and shared a little bit with others that i could trust about my struggles with self harm. it is hard to explain the urges, the need, the desire to hurt because sometimes the pain inside of me is to much to deal with. I am slowly learning that I need to talk about it because if I keep it hidden then I am still going to believe that it is okay. It has taken a while to understand the importance of having supportive friends due to having a non supportive family. I am understanding that it is important for me to talk about the urges and how i am feeling. I am still learning how to verbalize what I am feeling and how to ask for help without hurting myself.
my self harm behaviors have decreased a lot in the past 2 years. It still happens but i understand better now that if I am hurting myself then i do need to ask for extra support, i know that i need to work harder to stay busy, and use my coping skills. I can make it through the urges now without acting on them, im not successful all the time but every time i manage without cutting is a success for me. i am still working on stopping the behavior completely. cutting is an addiction, the more i try to stop, the more i want it. Not the act itself but the release that it brings me. I no longer carry razors with me everywhere i go and I can manage longer periods of time without cutting. I have to remind myself repeatedly on a daily basis that i am okay, and that its okay to feel the feelings that i am feeling.
The most important thing that i can say about self harm is that it is not okay or helpful to demand that the self harmer stop the behaviors. If it was easy enough to just stop, I am positive that we would all stop and let that be the end of it. Placing demands on a behavior that is so addictive sets the self harmer up for failure if they give into the urge after promising not too. it is important not to take away a self harmers tools because anything and everything can be used to cause harm if the urge is strong enough.
The most important thing I can think of to say to other self harmers is that it is possible to find support and understanding. It may come at the most unexpected times and from the most unexpected people, but it can and will happen. I will also say that it is important to understand and accept that there are people who will struggle to understand the behavior, to understand the act itself, but that does not make you a bad or horrible person for cutting. as i said behavior cutting is a symptom of something more, it is not something that defines who you are. It is okay to ask for help and support. It is okay to sit down and just talk to someone about how you are feeling. The biggest challenge self harmers have is expressing themselves verbally. we have to relearn to speak, to feel, to live free of being hurt by ourselves or others.
It may feel like you are alone in your struggles, but you are not. There is help out there.
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