Poll: Self harm (serious topic)

[Jedoro]

Once. I was a crybaby ***** of a teenager who couldn't get back the girlfriend he dumped for a stupid reason. I did cut down, not across, but didn't go deep enough to cut anything that'd kill me. Sharp knife, though, so it actually healed without really leaving a scar.

I then grew a pair and decided to never do that again, and now I'm damn good at dealing with any kind of pain.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

I don't remember when exactly I got into it, but it was a big thing for me in highschool. I'd be sweating my fat ass off every day because I walked to school in Florida heat wearing pants and a heavy jacket to hide all the places I'd marked myself up. My hoodies, shirts, jackets and sheets were all stained with blood, and when I wore a long-sleeve shirt after freshly slicing myself up, it'd stick to my arm. Mostly used a rectangular razor blade (as opposed to the angled type you'd see in a utility knife/boxcutter)... and I'm really not sure what to make of it. It's pretty common to hear people say that cutters just want to feel like they have control over their bodies and lives, and I'd say that's pretty close to how it got me off... aside from the endorphins triggered by pain and what-have-you, because the effects are both physiological and psychological.

I mean, all I can really say is that I was seriously messed up, and then it gradually went away for no discernible reason. It sure as hell wasn't a cry for attention since all I really wanted back then was to be loved, and nobody's going to give the time of day to someone that hates themselves enough to make their arms and legs look like patchwork. If I had to identify a culprit, I'd probably blame the cocktail of pharmaceuticals I was being grossly over-prescribed back in the day; I went from being a quiet, shy, timid kid to a cracked-out, paranoid, manic-depressive train wreck that couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut to save his life, and I was too high on massive amounts of Adderall and Prozac to think they were doing anything but helping. That stuff fucked me up, and it became my only source of good feelings in a life I was thoroughly sick of living. It was like living as a junkie, except the drugs didn't give me anything to live for. I haven't touched prescription anything in over four years (the only exception being the stuff prescribed by physicians, fuck psychiatrists), and now I've been kind of having to slingshot my way into adulthood by making up for lost time and responsibility (college is hard as FUCK if you spent your highschool years as a fuck-up instead of a student).

I've put it behind me entirely, though. The only time I'll cut myself on purpose is if I want to test the sharpness of a newly-sharpened knife (and even then, not enough to split the skin), and whenever I need an outlet, I'll just go exercise (which I intend to do right after I post this) or get together with friends and party or chill or whatever. At least the whole nightmare wasn't for nothing: it gave me a strong sense of empathy, made me appreciate how good life can be, and more-or-less removed my fear of death. Sure as fuck wouldn't do it again, though.

 

[thecoreyhlltt]

i only do it when i'm feeling really stressed and i can't find a way to let it out.
it started as eraser burns, razor cuts, stapling myself, and peircing my ears and eyebrows. now i use a lighter, i heat it up and make smiley faces on my arms

 

[slarlath]

While I never outright harmed myself I did go looking for fights knowing that I would get hurt. I was more interested in harming someone else but also enjoyed the pain. I suppose that kinda counts as self harm but not really so I shall vote "other".

 

[arsenicCatnip]

I am a former self-injurer... I cut pretty seriously (never across my wrists, though), and managed to get over what was a developing case of trichotillomania (where you yank your hair out piece by piece) when I was 16.

I still miss cutting. It's been just over 18 months that I've been 'clean', but when I'm stressed or upset I crave it. My former roommate helped me stop, and my boyfriend's kept me from doing anything for the past ten months. The scars on my forearm are fading, and soon they won't be visible anymore.

Part of the appeal of self-injury is the flood of endorphins, which make it feel good in a weird way. I've managed to subvert that by turning my normal craving to hurt myself into a masochistic thing and letting my boyfriend whale on me in the good playtime way.

I also force myself to vomit sometimes when I'm upset. As I have stomach problems, it's easy to pretend I'm just not feeling very good and 'my tummy hurts'.

I should probably not be posting while semi-intoxicated, but hey, it's mostly anonymous.

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

I don't see the point. If someone were to try to hurt me I would do the same to him so why would I willingly hurt myself?

 

[t3h br0th3r]

I never have but I've been close enough to the edge to know why someone would.

I'm not going to get inot details but for me the urge came after i did soemthing that made me feel very, very guilty.

I got away with it but i felt so bad that I had the urge but i managed to resit.

In my case, I wanted to cause myself pain beacuse i felt I should be punished at the time the only thing that stoped me was the want to keep from assocating what i did with pain but i now realize that inflcting pain on the body is nothing but tricking the mind.

You cause the body pain to calm the mind for a a short span of time but in the end you wind up casing the mind FAR more damage than the body.

I never cut myself but 'there but by the grace of God go I'.

 

[Heartcafe]

I did, for quite a while. I wasn't really going through all that much at the time, it was more just a culmination of a lot of things that I found an outlet for through self harm.

It's not a good thing, and it's habit forming. Anyone who thinks they might, take it from someone who has: Don't. It's not a good path to go down.

^This.

I did it because of pressure and stress of having to live up of being a perfect child with lots of friends and great grades. I guess it started because I didn't want to be perfect anymore. It's ironic that even though I had everything going right for me that I still felt miserable. It wasn't until I realized that it was ok to make mistakes that I stopped.

Though I have to admit, a lot of people who I know do or did self harm; do it for the attention though a lot of people will deny it.

But yeah, anyone who thinks about doing it: Don't. It's horrible and lonely. Stop and eat bacon. It'll make you feel better.

 

[pixiejedi]

Most people do it, whether they relies it or not, because the part of the brain that controls pain and the part that controls emotions are different. So if you're either under a lot of emotional stress or you get to a point of total numbness, (most people can never truely understand that unless they've experienced is or seen it. The feeling of numbness is more similar to an outer body experience. You're just aware of things, but you don't interact. You don't feel or do or want anything. You're just a husk of a person.) self harming causes the brain to work with another part and hence distracts you from those feelings.

I've never heard that stuff about the brain before, but it makes sense. I know that I use SI to "snap out of it" when I'm feeling really emotional. In a lot of ways it feels like flipping a switch--it never occurred to me that this could by why. I will definitely need to look into this more.

Thats news to me too, trying to explain it to my boyfriend was very difficult but thats probably why.

I used to cut a good bit, it went away for years but recently its come back. It has always been a form of me punishing myself. I have a bit of a guilt complex from a messed up childhood and I'm sure that didn't help. At first it really was a cry for help, specifically to my family that has this philosophy that if you can function day to day then nothing is wrong. I don't really care if people think less of me for knowing that. I was legitimately suffering and if someone wants to get on a high horse saying I'm pathetic for cutting my forearm to make them feel better about themselves that is fine. Ill pick empathy any day.

 

[Posh]

I have never been driven into self harm. But my girlfriend is trying to recover from years of living with anorexia, bulimia, and self mutilation. Her thighs are inlaid with old scars, and still every few months there is a new one. For her, self harm became her means of coping with emotional hardships, and even more than that, her way of exhibiting control despite them. She places all of these strict and irrational rules and restraints on herself so that she feels like the one in control. The only way I can classify her behavior is as an addiction. But I am so proud of her for every step she has taken to become a healthier person. She is nothing short of amazing for bringing herself this far.

But I have to ask... Does anyone actually make a "full recovery", become miraculously better with time, and put the urges behind them? Or is that an unreasonable expectation?

 

[MyEscapistUserName]

I've only tried it once, and it didn't make me feel relief or anything at all. It just fucking hurt. My girlfriend, on the other hand cut her stomach up pretty badly on a regular basis for about three-quarters of a year. She did it because she felt responsible for the death of a close friend/soon to be boyfriend and the pain she felt when she laid on it at night "helped put things into perspective" as she put it. She's pretty scarred up from it and won't fully take her shirt off around me unless it's too dark enough for me to see them. According to her, talking to me (we were talking through all hours of every day at one point) was the main reason she quit feeling the urge to do it. Definatly my proudest moment in life.

 

[InfiniteSingularity]

I just wanted to bring up another point. Although a lot of people don't actually do it for attention, is it really so bad if they do do it for attention? If you've ever had depression, you'd know it comes with a sense of isolation, and generally you aren't thinking straight.

So someone's crying out for help! Is that really such a terrible thing?

I don't think it's terrible at all. I know a lot of people who do however, and it makes me sad how self harm is considered some sort of "evil sin" that no one ever talks about. People think its some "horrible thing" that only emos and attention whores and sad little lonely fuckers do. It's incredibly misunderstood.

My mum used to. She says it's horrible and you should never do it. My dad once assaulted my mum for cutting herself (it looked like it from my angle, but she was nearly screaming and he was yelling so i'm probably not too far wrong). So I've always got the sense that it's a horrible thing to do. My girlfriend is in tears whenever she thinks about it and whenever she suspects i've been doing it she acts like she's worried i'm about to kill myself or something like that.

It's not like that. It's people who have no escape and feel trapped, and have no one to talk to, or no one to trust.

 

[redisforever]

No, but boy have I considered it. Fortunately, I'm too afraid of pain.

Pretty much this. I don't like pain at all. When it's there, I can deal with it just fine, but I can't deal with getting the pain.

 

[Korak the Mad]

You really need to specify what kind of self harm you are talking about. Theres the obvious wrist cutting and such, and then theres the self harm people practice deliberately but subconsciously, etc.

I harm myself, but not in the ways of cutting myself or burning myself. I don't do acts of self harm that will usually end up with me having scars for every time do it. I actually have a condition called Dermatillomania, or Compulsive Skin Picking. I tend to pick at my skin when I am bored or nervous. I've tried to stop doing it multiple times, but sometimes I do it and I'm unaware that I doing it.

Because I do this my arms and legs are covered in scabs, but the thing is I don't pick that the scabs, I let them heal.

 

[Shraggler]

I used to get curious to see how much certain injuries hurt and would perform them on myself, but I never "self-harmed" or cut myself regularly, nor did I do anything like that out of emotional stress or depression.

I've personally never understood it and probably never will.

 

[Quaxar]

i'm dismissive of subjects such as this because the very aspect of pain agitates the shit out of me. seriously. i get agitated by thinking about stubbing my toe.

Yeah. Same reason I would never do heroin (well, one of them). Putting a needle... in my OWN arm? Fuck you kindly, good sir.

I had a friend do it though. She said she quit, I'm not entirely sure she did completely. But until my shipment of miniature spy cams is here I have no way of knowing. Err... I mean... look, over there!