Self injurers.

[English Lady]

My husband cuts himself, or at least did. He hasn't done it in *thinks* about 5 maybe 6 years (coincidently, we married six years ago and became pregnant not long after) and I am so grateful for that.

I remember one time, he was so depressed and he locked himself in the bathroom and all Icould do was keep talking at him through the door -finally he came out, both arms just above the wrist to just below the elbow crossed with razor lade cuts, blood dripping everywhere. I remember using my dressing gown to stop the bleeding, remember tending for the cuts, and the vacant look on his face. It was scary.

My husband finds the Mode series by Piers Anthony to be theraputic, the main character is a young girl who self harms and is suicidal. He says the way she is portrayed in the book explains exactly how he feels when he cuts himself. It's a release.

Slowly, he has learnt how to realease those emotions in other ways, he'll talk to me now, tell me what's going on orsimply just say he's down. Iknow not to press him for a reason 'cos often he'll just not know. he's leart ways to cope, and to all you who self harm, I hope you can find ther ways to release those negative feelings and emotions too. I'd love to kiss each one of your scars and make them better

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Thank you all for sharing here.

 

[672]

Does mental self-injury count? ... Poor 672 is a victim of my infamous "make you laugh at me instead of scream" philosophy.

Yes. She does this thing when I get overly out of control. Meanie. Nnn. Lemme have my rant! ~cry~

(decides this was a stupid thing to say to a bunch of strangers)

Anywho..

 

[arienette]

K's Choice - Not an Addict

I have the CD this song is on, it's one of my favorite CDs, in fact. So I did a search on YouTube and found a short film using the song

It definitely provoked some deep thought and it's just amazing.

Click here

I'm not even going to bother posting the real video, it's just lame.

 

[Huckleman2000]

My own self-abuse is mainly of the chemical variety.

That, and I sometimes go off on a tangent and write weird emails to a bunch of people, though Im' trying to limit that to instances where I really do need to explain some things, and not when I'm venting. Some people accept weird emails better than others.

My heart goes out to you all with physical scars. I don't quite understand how that impulse works, but I can imagine it just the same. Mental pain finds its own way out, and sometimes the best we can do is manage to divert the leaks.

 

[Tom Collins]

It was only recently that I realized that a lot of my writing is my version of cutting- I let the blood spill onto paper instead of out of my skin.

I didn't realize that I'd done this until I read this.

 

[Blackie Malone]

My heart goes out to you all with physical scars. I don't quite understand how that impulse works, but I can imagine it just the same. Mental pain finds its own way out, and sometimes the best we can do is manage to divert the leaks.

Its the ultimate control of your own deep pain. A release.

and I'm off the wagon again. Damn, its over a month.

 

[Liar]

Causing oneself physical pain, by cutting or other means (have a friend who used a zippo the same way others use razors), is something that I can read and hear about and I may on a purely academic level understand the reasons for it, but I can't ever make the perspectve shift to actually understand and empathize. Pain, physical pain, has always been an enemy to me, and outside injury only added to injury within, never dulled it or gave me any sense of control. So that was a short episode, forgotten as soon as begun.

I guess instead that my poison of coice could best be described as passive-agressive. Had a five year streak of utual and utter disregard for my own health and physical well being that I still reap the "rewards" from. I celt like crap, so I wanted a body that matched it.

I'm out of the binge drinking, binge eating, aspirine chewing, hygiene neglecting and not-moving-a-muscle limbo since long, but it turned me from a reasonably healthy young man to a fat blob with a back problem and a piss poor immune system.

Which of course gave me something new to feel like crap about. At least now, my problems were tangible and I was motivated to do something about them. The blob that was me is gone and is replaced with a considerably smaller blob, not a perfect specimen, but one I'm comfy with and that won't kill me prematurely.

Now I can't ever see myself going back to that kind of beaviour. I look back and I don't understand it. I have the same ups and down in mood now as then, but for some reason, my mental being and my physical being are not as closely connected that it would make any sense for me to harm my body.

For those of you that it makes sense, I send my best wishes.

 

[Just-Legal]

Advanced warning: This is probably not gonna come out right.

As most of you know I'm having a rough old time of it at the moment... When I was first diagnosed we were already going through hell with my sister - she'd taken to cutting her wrists, leaving empty paracetamol bottles around with one or two on the bed while she slept, really, really fucked up stuff. She wasn't self harming "properly" - the cuts were always just enough to bleed and always somewhere obvious, she never took the tablets she pretended to, always flushed them down the toilet, but it scared the HELL out of my parents. I came home from school one day to find her and her friends planning how to freak my parents out more - the two girls would come over when she was home with me and scream abuse through the letterbox... And then she pulled her sleeve back and said that the nicks on her arms were worth "gold" when it came to "twisting mum and dad around my finger". And then came the bit I'll never, ever get out of my head. "And I'm going to make sure they know it's all Helen's fault... that she makes me cut."

Up until that point I'd been the same as everyone else, I took it seriously, but that didn't just shock me, it made me feel phsyically sick - how could she do this? We'd been taking her to various therapists but she always said they didn't "work" for her, and now I knew why... she was 14 years old and what was going on was absolutely mad.

The long and short of it was that we had a big bust up about it, that resulted in my sister throwing me down a flight of stairs and leaving me there for my mum to find, after she'd smashed my head off two walls and a mirror. I only remember falling, and waking up hearing my mother scream. Luckily, I wasn't too badly hurt, but it made my mum at least realise that something *more* was going on.

A few months later I finally got the courage together to turn around and tell my dad that I was sick. I expected... I still don't quite know what I expected, but it wasn't what I got. He went absolutely mad, raging about how he couldn't cope with another of my sister, that all the women in this family were mad, that he didn't need another attention seeker - this is from the man that used me as his verbal punchbag for years, slagging off my sister and my mother to me repeatedly, complaining constantly about our finances, the state of the house, anything, I was his personal vent - and took my medication away and flushed it.

That's when it started. I don't cut, I don't starve or binge, I tend to... draw on myself. Which isn't so bad, except when you use a flat-tipped fountain pen... tends to scratch a lot, and I'm bloody surprised I haven't got ink poisoning yet. My other habit when things are really out of control is to get a new peircing - the more I think about it, the more I think its a control issue, when everyone else is screwing my life up, I can have this done and I chose to do it to myself, I could have stopped it at any time, but its like a badge of honour, I will survive...

/ramble

 

[Selena_Kitt]

there's so much pain the world, in our secret hearts, that we keep hidden...

why do we think that letting it out is so much worse than swallowing it all??

 

[ABSTRUSE]

there's so much pain the world, in our secret hearts, that we keep hidden...

why do we think that letting it out is so much worse than swalloing it all??

Because we are told to be good, that how we feel is 'wrong' and to get over it.

 

[Just-Legal]

Because we are told to be good, that how we feel is 'wrong' and to get over it.

Or, to quote my dad, "I don't care how you feel, I'm sick of being told how you feel, your feelings dont matter, and don't think that the waterworks [crying] makes it any different."

*hugs for all*

 

[English Lady]

Because we are told to be good, that how we feel is 'wrong' and to get over it.

And I'd like to slap every one of the daft sods who say that - even if they think they mean well.

Feeelings are NEVER wrong, negative yes, destructiv sometimes but never wrong -feelings just are, and you've got to learn to cope with them somehow -you can't just get over it.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

For everyone on this thread.

Luckily, I never got into self-injury in the form of cutting, etc.
However, I've known people who have.
I've never understood the draw, but I'm sure it's because I've never felt that type of pain.

But I guess, I did it in my own way.
When my life wasn't going exactly as I wanted it, I went through a small period of time where I just didnt care. I didn't want to die, but it didnt seem to really matter if I lived.
Life was rough, although compared to some, it was a piece of cake.
I didn't see it like that though. It was my life. It was my problems. It was my world that was crumbling.
So I drank.
I lived on a liquid diet of coffee, Diet Coke, and alcohol.
Well, thats not completely true. I did eat. I also gained quite a bit of weight.
It was very fun to abuse my body. *sarcasm*
I started losing the weight, but I still drank, took too many No-Doz and Excedrins.
Life sort of turned around, and things were getting better, but I'd aquired an addiction, so I didn't stop. Then I drank for fun, or at least that's the excuse I gave.
I didn't get proper sleep because of all the caffeine, which of course, led to drinking more coffee and whatnot.

Where did this get me?
This got me at work, on Valentine's day, having heart palpitations and them calling the squad for me.
This also got me a life-long prescription for blood pressure medicine.
I can't imagine the damage I've done to my heart. Being overweight and being a smoker sure is good for it too.

I went cold turkey off caffiene after that, which was a bitch. I was tired for 3 weeks straight with a monster headache.
I started drinking pop and coffee again, but I know when I've had enough.
Funny how before when I had chest pain, I ignored it.
Now, it scares the shit out of me.

Now, I don't have the desire to hurt myself, but I did become dependant, and I'm working on that. And that's a bitch.

 

[Guest]

i didnt understand this until a friend explained.

i come dangerously close to this sometimes. but like some of u have said it seems like the wrong thing ta do so I dont. I came close to slitting my wrists bout a month back. Scary stuff

HUGE hugs to everyone

 

[NoJo]

Its the ultimate control of your own deep pain. A release.

and I'm off the wagon again. Damn, its over a month.

I hope you meant "on the wagon", but fear you didn't. Thornless

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Yes. I did it.

Hit a bad patch and made some art on my arm.

I'm okay, really.

Its like taking a drink or smoking a joint.

I'm not in a dark place, just a hard place.

 

[English Lady]

*great big snuggly hugs for abs*

 

[Stegral]

Just read thru this thread...

I was a cutter, full force as a teen, scars all over my body but mostly hidden because I didn't want them seen...
the wounds I opened up intentionally were for ME only.
My instrument of choice was a small switchblade that I would sharpen as I tried to talk myself out of carving more wounds... Sometimes it worked... most times it didn't. I can relate the the "relief valve" theory... it is how it felt to me so long ago... at 13 no therapist believed what was happening at home & I was suicidal... after a "session" with a particularly ignorant counciller I ran away into some woods & sat, rocking, digging my nails into my upper arms... I remember raking them down & feeling the anger, anguish, pain, sorrow, hate & so much more seem to flow downward as if my fingernails had caught it somehow... I am 36 now & my deepest cut occoured at 14, I still have that scar & it is not in a hidden place.. it WAS a cry for help. I still do slice/carve/self-harm on occasion, but it is few & far between as I am medicated for depression, mood swings, insomnia & slight bi-polar tendancies...
it is NOT wrong to carve IMHO...
some of us do it like some do drugs (which harm the brain)
some of drink like fish (which harms the liver, kidneys...)
some of us vent our anger/frustration on others in violent ways (harms others)
some of us spend money beyond our means (financial harm)
& the list CAN go on... I have a pretty high pain tolerance NOW thanks to the daily beatings I got as a kid... the blood-letting took the pain away for awhile.
when I was forced to stop (child protection services monitored my "skin" to be sure I wasn't doing it anymore, it was humiliating)
I turned to hard drugs...looking back.. I will always prefer carving over drugs... even legal ones.
some of my scars remind me of how strong I am now from what I was then.

~~Sorry will stop now~~

Hugs for all that need em

 

[Worker11811]

No matter how you end up getting cut, self-inflicted or not, you can reduce your chances of scarring right at the outset if you avoid using hydrogen peroxide on the wound.

Peroxide is actually a "debriding agent", designed to remove dead tissue from a wound AFTER it has already begun to heal. When used as an antiseptic in dressing a cut, it actually destroys healthy tissue along the edges of the wound and makes it harder for the body's repair systems to do their job, thus resulting in scar tissue.

If/when you are injured, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding, of course, but afterward, you'll want to clean the wound. Honestly, the best thing to use is good, old fashioned soap and warm water. After that, if you need to use an antiseptic, use alcohol or iodine solution. There's a product under the trade name of "Betadine" that hospitals use.

Once you have the cut cleaned and disinfected, you might want to use an ointment. It isn't strictly necessary but many authorities recommend it. Most people use an antiseptic ointment like Neosporin. It really does seem to help cuts heal faster and, in my experience, there is a lot less scarring.

I'm not a "cutter" but I'm a very klutzy person. I almost always have at least one cut, somewhere on my hands and forearms. I have five scars on my right hand, alone. I have two cuts, right now, on my left hand. One is on my fingertip. I just got it today. I cut myself with a knife. The other is on my forearm. I raked it up against a sharp piece of metal.

Most of my cuts aren't deep and are usually a half inch long or less. I can stop them bleeding with direct pressure in just a few minutes. Once in a while, I get a "nasty one" that needs stitches. It happens once or twice per year, on average. When I go to the hospital I refuse to be treated with peroxide. I demand they use alcohol or iodine, even when they say it hurts more. Most of the scars on my hands and arms are very light. Except for the ones on my knuckes, where the skin moves a lot, they are hard to notice unless you are looking for them.

I just chalk it all up to the fact that I work in a shop. I work with my hands for a living. It's just an occupational hazard, as far as I am concerned.

People tell me that I get hurt just a little bit too often for it to be a coincidence.

 

[arienette]

Something I said to Abs yesterday afternoon... (thanks for the Mommy time, by the way - you are my sanctuary)

"Yeah, if you cut under water it looks like velvet...and it is soooo beautiful!"

Okay, I'm done being morbid now.

 

[Worker11811]

Hit a bad patch and made some art on my arm.

Do you know what triggers you?

I had a hard time getting away from drugs until I discovered my triggers.
Because of some family issues from the past, I don't like being around people who argue. I can't even watch arguing on TV.

It's been almost 15 years since I got high but when I'm around people who argue I STILL get the urge. The closer the people arguing are to me, the harder it is to resist the urge.

My secret is to leave the situation. I leave the room, or the whole house if I have to. In high school, I used to go over to my friend's house and stay there all night until my parents cooled off.

I also remember that, the longer I go without giving in, the easier it is to resist in the future. I even gave up smoking cigarettes. Now, after all this time, I can stand right there and watch other people smoke and I don't even want one.

But, I know that, if I smoke even one drag, the next time I hit one of my triggers it will be just that much harder to resist when the next time comes.

Just remember, the longer you go without doing it, the easier it gets. The next time you hit one of your rought patches, hopefully, you won't find it so hard to resist.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Not sure what triggers it, its an overwhelming urge. I think its when I'm highly stressed and feel like.......I can't feel........I need to do it.

 

[NoJo]

Not sure what triggers it, its an overwhelming urge. I think its when I'm highly stressed and feel like.......I can't feel........I need to do it.

From what I've read about it, it's exactly that, a reaction to stress. I guess relaxation techniques could help?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

From what I've read about it, it's exactly that, a reaction to stress. I guess relaxation techniques could help?

I do breathing and visualization, that tends to work and has kept things calm for a bit.
Its like taking that one drink kind of thing, just that one and things will be good again.