(Yes, this gets a trigger warning.)
My History with Self-Harm
I used to self-harm, sometimes known as self-injury, self-mutilation or nonsuicidal self-injury. It started when I was 13. I remember the first time. I remember thinking that the point on a compass (used for geometry glass) was very, very sharp. And then I remember thinking what a bad daughter I was. And then I remember using the very sharp compass point over and over on my flesh until I had dug a line extending about two inches on my ankle. After that, it happened again and again. I remember thinking I deserved it. And when I got older, it became more apparent that I was using that behavior as a way of dealing with pain that I couldn’t control. At 13, I didn’t get this, but at 17, I did. At 17, I was aware of the acute, painful, depressed (although I didn’t know it was depression), suicidal feelings I was having but I had no way of dealing with them so out would come the Exacto knife (I had graduated to actual blades when I was quite young). But things got better when I graduated from high school and got away from my very sick family. Over time, I stopped self-harming without really trying. I knew I didn’t want to do it so eliminating the behavior was simple once the pain lessened.
The Pain of Depression Returned, and So Did the Self-Harm
Unfortunately, the pain came back a couple of years later. When I was 19 or so, the depression really hit, like being bludgeoned with a 2×4 with nails hammered into the end of it. The pain, in all its infinite darkness, had returned. And so did the self-harming behaviors. Self-harm was being driven by the pain. [Some people say self-harm is an addiction and I don’t believe this to be the case for most. I would simply call it a maladaptive coping strategy. But that is for another post.] Of course, by this time, I required considerable more injury to try and overcome the pain. Self-harm is like that. It starts to require greater severity to get the same result. Yes, you become tolerant of self-harm’s “high.” When it started again, I self-harmed for years. It was the oddest thing. I only associated self-harm with angsty teenage girls but there I was, a full-fledged adult, self-harming with the best of them. However, after a lot of personal work and a lot of prodding by the people who loved me, I curbed that behavior. As I mentioned, self-harm is a maladaptive coping technique and beating it involves finding better ways to cope with pain (or lessening the pain, should that be an option for you).
My Current Use of Self-Harm – I Want to Self-Harm
I can say I haven’t self-harmed in a long time. Unfortunately, I can also say that I want to self-harm often. This is because of the excruciating pain I’m in thanks to under-controlled bipolar depression. I’m in so much pain that my usual coping strategies don’t work and I want to fall back onto self-harm. This is a very strong urge and one I fight almost every day. But I don’t do it. I don’t self-harm. And I think this is because I understand the roots of the behavior, I understand why my brain is pushing me to self-harm and I understand that doing it does hurt those around me. People do care if I slice my arm open. They really do. (Even if they didn’t, I would care. I have nerve damage in my right arm thanks to this particular coping strategy and I really advise against causing that.) Wanting to self-harm and not doing it is torture, honestly. Desiring something, all the time, and not being able to have it, having it be just out of reach, is agony. Even though I’m the one who chooses to keep it out of reach, that doesn’t make it grate on my insides any less. And the thing that really gets me is that with the bipolar depression, I want almost nothing. But I do want to self-harm. It’s an incredibly cruel twist of the brain.
How Not to Self-Harm – Even When You Want to Self-Harm
Not self-harming can be a challenge for people, for some more than others and it’s okay to admit that it’s a challenge and it’s okay to admit that you lose that fight once in a while. But I still think it’s important to fight the urge as much as possible. Say to yourself:
- “Self-harm hurts myself and others.”
- “Self-harm is a way of coping with immense pain. The pain is real but there are better ways of handling it.”
- “Just because I want it, doesn’t mean I have to give into it. Want does not necessitate action.”
- “I deserve to be treated well. The soul of my being knows this. It’s just an evil monkey on my shoulder that’s trying to convince me otherwise. I can fight that dark voice.”
I can’t promise that self-talk will save your skin or prevent the next scar, but it really can’t hurt to try. It’s battling an illogical act (self-harm) with logical self-talk. It’s using the wisdom of your mind to battle the illness in your brain. I know not giving into the desire hurts. But giving into nonsuicidal self-injury is worse. Just ask the nerves in my right arm. For more on avoiding self-injury, please see Stopping Self-Harm Urges Using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).
Susan Larson< don't you give up sister! God has a good plan for you. Do NOT be overcome by the abuse you have faced….you will get through this..forgive your mom and family..and stay strong
oh stop guessing. The reality is self abuse is rooted in brain dysfunction, although in autistic people it’s different and more complex, for the most part it’s a problem of dopamine, norepinephrie and serotonin imbalance, and since doctors seldom if ever order PET scans to see what your brain functioning is, they will waste years and LIVES guessing and ASSUMING what is wrong without ever looking at the brain to see what is wrong before prescribing medications that target receptors in the brain….psychiatry is the only profession that just GUESSES what is wrong based on what you can tell them and if you are severely disabled and can’t tell them, well they guess anyway and that’s why you see so many horror stories of failed psychiatry meds…..doctors aren’t doing the PET or fMRI’s needed in the most vulnerable patients who can’t talk so these poor patients are left as experiments for the psychiatrists, just guessing what they need….NOT every person would need a PET or fMRI, but for those patients who CAN”T TALK you must do an fMRI or PET to see WHERE n the brain there is dysfuncttion since the patient can’t tell YOU what is going on…..
I have been begging God to take my life for several months until recently as I’ve became more agitated,I’m hearing voices to be dead is better. I’m always crying because I hate my life and no one understands me, I live with my 77 year old mother whom I’ve became to not trust as I’ve seen her mentally abusing me and my oldest sister makes me spend money on drugs and if I don’t all hell crashes down and the manipulation she uses against me to make my mom think of me as a liar,stupid,as she tries to stop me from saying how I wished I would die by saying to me I don’t want to hear it and she and my sister often say shut the fuck up dumbass,and more harmful words. I pay 450.00 plus more for nothing but.a couch to.sleep on and I’m limited as to how much I am allowed to sleep or rest. My sister has a room and pays nothing at all. She is always telling me how her homies are going to harm me, and is on parole for attempted homicide and is a active gang member, she has no respect for me nor my animals except when she has her supply of Methamphetamines!. I’m blamed for everything I do but I don’t do it good enough and I’m never feeling safe in this house because my sister is sneaking homies and drugs into the house to her room while my mom is asleep and unaware! I can’t be here like this because I’m either going to hurt myself or kill myself to.going so far as doing damages to my sister because that’s how bitter I have become. No friends visit me she scares them away! I can’t call the police or her parole officer because my mom will find out, my sister says her parole officer wants to go out with her and he will never believe me over her anyways because he trusts her and doesn’t care if she uses drugs. I’m going to lose it and it’s scaring me but yet I feel I will be free!. I’m afraid to talk to the police or have any contact with them. I’m on SSI Permanently and have no money to even pay for this cell phone which.I need because I have seizures on a daily basis, as too other medical problems and presently under going several surgeries to my upper and lower extremities I injured due to seizures with falling and sometimes I have bruises on my arms like finger print shapes that show up later after I come out of a seizure and see the marks. I don’t know if I’m being physically abused during a grand mal episode, I’m always taken by ambulance as 911 is called in by my mom or sister! What do I need to do to confidentially talk to someone without my mom or sister being present like at my doctors appt?. I have faith in God but I’m barely hanging on, I am stressed,depressed,confused,worried,in pain,angry,sad,a place I don’t want to be in as I’ve attempted over a dozen times to take my own life and maybe more. It has to stop, the shadows,the voices,taunting me are getting stronger God help me should I die. Please help me!?
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought
this post was good. I do not know who you are but definitely you’re going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already
;) Cheers!
I am 51 and still fighting this need, and only just realised stuff i was doing at age 8 was also self harm…hmmm interesting. I have several very highly qualified scientific friends, and between them..to stimulate endorphine production have suggested I experiment with a high quality tens machine. It actually can really hurt but cause no visible damage. I have just been using it throughout a Bipolar crisis in hospital, and tho early days it has significantly reduced the actual damage to skin. I am a major sceptic of fads and alternative therapies, but this does seem to make practical sense and I will continue to be open minded. : )
This was a very good post. Even though I have never “Self Harmed”, I have attempted suicied multiple times. I maintain my regular regime of medication but still find, every once in a while, thoughts creeping back into my mind. I easily dismiss them now but always communicate with my Social Worker and Psychiatrist. I have learned to make these two people my best friends. I know if I do not keep these thoughts in check I will eventually succeed . Just like you, I know many people do care and would be hurt by my action. However, when you are in the grips of depression, you only see yourself as a failure and that everyone would be better off with out you. At least that is how it works for me. I truly wish we could show norms the mental battle we face every day and just how exhausting it is. I have been through two marriages and find that marriage is not for me. Both times when I was facing depression they would basically say pull yourself together without realizing that is easier said than done.
Thank you for writing this. I never called what I did/do self harm. Self harm was something those emo teenage girls did. I’m a grown adult. However call it what you want but cutting callouses off your feet till they bleed, picking your cuticles till they bleed and your scalp till it bleeds is self harm even if it has some OCD tendencies. All of it was stress relief for me. Talking about it with my therapist and finding alternatives has helped. The first thing to go was cutting the callouses. Now I have this thing that’s like an electric pumice stone and when my callouses get out of control I use it. It doesn’t hurt or cut. Now when I look at the callous cutter I cringe because I cannot fathom doing that to myself anymore. The cuticles and scalp are about 75% better for they are still the easiest to pick at when I get stressed. I went to a dermatologist for my scalp and I have three different shampoos and an anti inflammatory liquid I put on my scalp. I carry around a thing of cuticle serum that I brush on my cuticles 80% of the time I get the urge. I also got this thing called a Tangle. It’s a fidget toy that was originally designed for autistic people but it’s been helpful for more than the autistic. I got the fuzzy version and I rub and pick the fuzz off of it instead.
I used to cut and burn. I had no illusions that it fixed things in the long term- but you have to get through the short term in order to get to the long term. I’ve stopped- and when things aren’t too bad, the urges have gone away. When things get bad, I still want to. What stops me? I think I don’t want to go back to hiding my legs and arms. I don’t want to have that pressure to always cover up, and fear being seen. I don’t want more scars. But sometimes I feel like I am really handicapping myself. If I would just do it, maybe I could feel better for a couple of hours so I could function, etc. But I don’t do it anymore.
Minor attempts to escape life is the degree of pain or pleasure it takes
to remind yourself your still alive – depression is the place
where you find implements of self destruction. Sadly you may not
know you are depressed. Safe self discovery is one of the better choices.
I used to scratch my self so raw… I also used to beat myself with my hairbrush… anything to deflect and distract the pain, I felt inside.
When I had my horrible car wreck and went through horrendous nerve pain (which I still have, from time to time)… I would hit the opposing appendage (ie., left leg searing, hit the right leg.. etc.) and my family used to joke about it. My left leg would be hurting so badly so, I’d deflect and distract by hitting my right leg so hard.
Humans, for the most part, so fear pain.. pain of any kind that they/we find whatever ways possible to alleviate and relieve ourselves of said pain. Self-medication, for those with mental pain, is a means to alleviate and relieve ourselves of said pain and to show ourselves, the pain we feel by self-medicating.. thus furthering the mental pain. Yet, it’s the pain that must go away… any way possible… even for just a few moments.
I am one of those who do believe that self-harm; be it cutting, burning, beating oneself, exercising to extreme, etc.. is a form of self-medication and an addiction to that behavior can occur. You, yourself, noted the build up of tolerance and the strong desire to act and the “high” of having performed the act… even if briefly.
A maladaptive coping technique would be feeling emotional pain and downing liquor OR snorting cocaine OR smoking weed… popping a few benzos… cutting oneself… or beating oneself to deflect and distract.
“A maladaptive coping technique would be feeling emotional pain and downing liquor OR snorting cocaine OR smoking weed… popping a few benzos… cutting oneself… or beating oneself to deflect and distract.”… meaning that if we can be addicted to these… we can be addicted to self-harm.
It’s all, self-harming.
Thanks for shariing your story today, Natasha. You are an incredible person. Try to have a good weekend. Best.
I’ve never experience this. I used to have very severe obsessive thoughts about extreme forms of self-mutilation such as blinding myself, but this was part of my OCD and something obsessively feared rather than desired.
You say that, in your case, the problem began with feeling that you deserved to suffer for being a bad daughter. You obviously picked up some extremely unhealthy lessons from your parents in how to think about yourself. Do feelings of being a bad person and deserving punishment still underly the desires you feel now?
A friend of mine tried to explain something of her self-harming to me at one time. She said that it often wasn’t the pain but the visual aspect of seeing blood which was the appeal for her. And she was a bit annoyed that people criticised her for doing it when, as she pointed out, other people have pain inflicted on themselves unnecessarily by getting tattoos. If every time she felt the need to feel pain she got a tattoo, nobody would worry about it. On the other hand she realised that it could be unsafe.
Is there a link between feeling bad about feeling pleasure and wanting to self-harm? Or negative feelings about the body, either feeling unattractive or feeling too attractive, especially in the case of someone who may have been sexually abused? Puritanical cultures used to express their guilt or fear over bodily pleasure through self-flagellation. And the psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich said that some of his patients were drawn to suffering because they experienced anxiety about their body’s desire for sexual pleasure. They could only experience pleasure after “paying the price” of experiencing suffering.
Self-harm in the form of cutting seems particularly common today. I wonder to what degree this is because it is more talked about or whether there are other aspects of our culture which encourage forms of thinking which lead to this behaviour.
It always seems to me that the most important part of psychological healing is learning the habit of unconditional self acceptance. It may take time and patience, but surely someone who accepts themselves unconditionally will have no desire to inflict harm upon themselves. But such a habit does run counter to our culture which constantly bombards us with messages about us not being good enough.
(Triggering) Thank you for addressing self-harm. I started in 1992 after my 16 year old daughter died in a car accident. I discovered self-harm when I tried to suicide by injecting oxygen into a blood vessel. I couldn’t do it so I cut into my arm to find the vein and suddenly I felt better. I continued to self harm off and on for 15 years but on a pretty regular basis. I have my exacto knife put away and sometimes I still want to self-harm even when only mildly depressed but I don’t do it. My left arm is badly scarred and it embarrasses me. I hope never to self-harm again but I still want to sometimes.
Huh, hair pulling is possibly OCD? Could you please elaborate on that Natasha? thank you
Hi Denise,
There is a disorder called trichotillomania which involves obsessive hair-pulling or skin-picking. You can learn more about it here: http://www.trich.org/
– Natasha Tracy
just and FYI
your link for nonsuicidal self-injury on first page. is broken
Is hair pulling considered self harm?
Hi Michael,
Thanks for letting me know, I fixed it.
Hair-pulling might be considered self-harm or it could be a part of OCD. It really depends.
– Natasha Tracy