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NSHN Forum Support & On Topic Forums. Some additional boards are viewable to members only => Survivor Room => Topic started by: Rob on October 14, 2008, 06:57:46 PM

Title: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Rob on October 14, 2008, 06:57:46 PM
This thread is a continuation of Self Harm and You - part 1.

Basically the idea is for members to post their stories of their personal journey through life with self harm. When they started, why they started, how it affects you and/or others around you, what has or hasn't helped in the past etc. Whatever you want to ramble on about really.

Please be aware that people reading your story may be triggered so be sure to add our little friend the trigger monster   :trig: when necessary.  Please stick to the rules and regs of the site eg no method sharing, no graphic descriptions of self harm etc.

When this thread gets long enough, we'll move it to the appropriate part of the reference section so it'll remain available for viewing, and start a new part 3 here :)

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: landrover on October 16, 2008, 03:35:04 PM
 :trig:
I`m not entirely sure where to start in here, I will say a bit about my life and maybe then someone can tell me where I go for advice on what is going on in my head now as nobody in my real world seem to understand.  :)
 :trig:
I started self harming at the age of 13 I think, I barely remember, I was SA by an relitive after them that I had been raped by 2 people I thought I knew. I don`t know if the SH started before or after the SA or rape. I had an awful childhood, my father abused my mother all my life, the things he did still torture me inside my head now, not SA but physical, I was bullied right through school, I believe my fathers ways were what made me stand out as I was quiet and scared. I was frightened to go home, I lost my so many people in my life, my nephew at age 7, my school friend at age 8 (roughly) grandfather, family friends ect ect, then my best school friend took her life when I was 14 and she was 13 after it came out about my abuse, 6 months later my sister did the same when she was 28. I was already in hospital before it happened from trying to end things and SI. I was on 24hr care for 2 years then thrown back into society and I could not cope at all and still can`t, nobody has tried to help me, I have 4 sons, I love them so much but I am ruining there lives with my paranoia. My son nearly choked this morning, an ambulance had to come, I would rather die than him. I hardly SI for years but now it has come back regularly, I hate myself for it, I worry for my children. I have nobody to help me.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: snapcracklepop on October 17, 2008, 09:45:06 PM
just in case :trig:

i started SH'in last year, properly but i cant remember exactly why but a few years ago it did, i had a few people who i know telling me all their problems and that they SH'd, at first i was shocked people i new would do something so drastic, after all they seemed so happy at school, they were my 2 best friends, i just wanted to help them stop, but i couldnt, their scars got bad, the more they told me the more i couldnt  handle it. Then i thought, if they do it coz they feel down it must work,  so i did it, nothing major just scratching, when people saw the scabs on my arm i used 2 say i had an itchy bite.

later on in the year i found out one of my best friends, had an ED, had been SA. and another ad been into hospital after attempted suicide. these two friends both tried 2 kill themselves more then once and i thought i must have done something wrong, i wasnt a good enough friend, and maybe i thought i was a reason they did it, an extra pain for them, so i began to do it to just to try and make myself feel better, it didnt, it made me feel worse the next day. so i didnt do it again.
 
until i was in year 11, i had been talking to a guy in the year below, we hit it off from the start. we just understood eachother so much, he new i had previously SH'd and i trusted him with all my heart, we both fancied each other, but he also liked another girl.  he told me he liked me more then her but because of our 1 yr nd 2month age gap he  didnt want to ask me out and asked the other girl out. i wished him luck because i loved him so much i wanted him to be happy. that night i cried myself to sleep and i scratched myself till i couldnt cope with the pain any longer and went to sleep, i woke up and remembered the night before when i had a sharp pain on my stomach, i look and the size of a 2p coin was a scab. later that day the boy told me the girl said no and was pleased coz it made him realise that he should have askd me coz i meant more to him and stuff. i told him what i did he apologised to me and told me in about a week we could be together because he had only just asked the other girl out. we started goin out on the 6th december last year, things were looking up.

then once again things took a turn for the worst, my b/f started getting jealous of my best male friend and was saying tht he fancied me wen i new he didnt. it turned out 2 b the reason he split up with me, i was crushed i loved him so much, i cried so much, he came 2 get his belognings from me and he cried aswell, we stood by my front door hugging. that night, he said he made a big mistake and would i take him back, after advise from friends all telling me to say no i didnt listen and took him back,  we had gone through a lot together and i still loved him so much. 10 days later i ended with him coz i couldnt cope, since he split up with me i got paranoid i didnt think i was doing anything right, started isolatin myself from my friends and used 2 sit on my own down a corridor, the same as him, but he didnt seem to care that i was down and carried on with his mates being happy, it made me so angry that he could be so happy and not wory about me feeling like sh**. it made me feel worthless and started self harming once again.

i became depressed, me and him both were self harming, i blamed myself for him doing it, it was my fault coz i told him that i had done it in the past, i got the idea in his head, made me feel like i just bring pain to everyone. and i still loved him, i caused him to SH and that just destroyed me. we were still friends until i ruined it again, i started liking his friend and his friend liked me, nd my ex tried 2 kill himself coz of he thought we were guna get together. we  werent tho coz we lived 2 far apart. he forgave me for being a b**** but i carried on self harming. i used 2 do it at school coz i cudnt go tht long, i used 2 go 2 the toilet in lessons with a tool 2 cut myself. seeing the blood made things better, i was feeling the pain i had caused other people. people at school staretd to see me change, someone even thought i was depressed coz i was taking herion which i wasnt.

i stopped again for a few months, then people started to change, all my friends went off to college, and i went to work, everyone seems to forget me and is moving on and leaving me behind. and my best friend is too busy with her boyfriend to notice how im feeling, she thinks she understands but she doesnt i no its probably my fault for thinkin she possibly could. i went to her the other day and told her im seeing my ex in the half term becoz we hav met up a few times and had a great time, but she was totally against it and didnt understand, it makes me happy to feel loved again whats so wrong about that. i SH'd the other day because i thought she didnt want me to b happy and just wanted her to have a perfect life.  although i no she probably does want me to be happy. but i still cant help but SH and make me feel like i can control something and feel better for about 15mins, seems better then nothing.

sorry 4 the long pointless story. im a pointless person.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: thereishope on October 24, 2008, 11:50:20 PM
Hi people,

I posted last way way ago, but I'm back to the forum after a LONG break, thought I'd post again, 'cos I want people to understand that it's not a dead end street.  I don't self-harm anymore, been about 5 years - although I still get strong urges.  I wish I'd found this place back then!

I don't regret cutting myself - it was a relief mechanism, and with out it I think my head would have just exploded (or something)

I just wanted to say that it is possible to get through SH'ing.

I started when I was about 15... and carried on until I was about 25 (29 now)

The cutting was probably the best bit!.. I also got into serious drinking, then taking too many pills... sometimes instead of cutting I'd jump in the car and go and see how fast I could drive, didn't really care if I crashed... fortunatley I never did.  I never told my family, although they knew about the drink problem.  I had a good mate who, tho didn't understand, was a rock.  I spoke to my doctor about everything (depression, alcoholism and cutting) he was good, I recommend talking to people..  sometimes  IT DOES help just to talk.

Anyway.. I just wanted to say to everyone NOT to give up... NOT to feel stupid... NOT to think you're a burden ...  YOU CAN GET THROUGH IT!!!

People have asked me how I stopped... I can't really answer that - the only thing that comes to mind..... if you have enough energy inside to SH... surely you can take that energy and do something constructive with it instead.. you (we) self-harm for a reason, remove (or change) that reason - take the energy and do something to change your perspective!! It sounds like BS I know.. but really, I believe SHing is NOT AN ANSWER, it's just a relief.  Above all, realise _____ things will get better _IF_ you are about to CUT YOURSELF ---- BUT YOU STOP, YOU PUT DOWN THE tool and you say to yourself NO, I WILL GET THROUGH THIS ANOTHER WAY... It's the first step, take it!
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Maddy on October 27, 2008, 11:52:29 AM
Hi!
I'm Maddy, I'm 18.  :trig:
Sorry if this is a bit long and confusing. My thoughts are just all over the place. But it actually helps to write it all down, so I do feel a bit better now.


The first time I tried self-harm, it was really just because I was curious. I'd heard about it. I knew enough about self-harm to not do anything on my arms - that would be the obvious place to look for scars. So I did it on my leg. I was 13. And after that, several years went by before I tried again.

The first time I self-harmed because I couldn't deal, was when I was 17. Once or twice in the years before I had gotten so frustrated that I didn't know what to do, and had punched a wall or something. That should probably have been a warning. When I was 17, I just got so overwhelmed, and I dealt by self-harming (although that isn't really dealing). I loved the feeling. It wasn't the pain I enjoyed. I loved being able to stop all other thoughts and focus 100% on the pain. And in the weeks after I'd self-harmed, I had to clean the wounds and hide it from my family. And that also served as a distraction from everything going on in my life.

I have a certain idea of why I started self-harming. Whenever I'm really tired, overwhelmed, exhausted, anything like that, I start thinking about SHing. But it doesn't have to lead to self-harm. That's where my mother comes in. She has this amazing ability to push me over the edge. My mother and my sister. I guess it's because we're so close. And I know I probably can't blame someone else, but the pattern is there. If I'm on the edge, and my mother starts acting like a b**** or treats me badly, I cut.

When I self-harmed last year, it was because I felt so much pressure from the world around me to do well, to live up to some extremely high standard. I had two English exams, 5 mid terms, a huge oral presentation which counted for like 75 % of my grade and several other tests. I was at the top of my class, and felt an incredible pressure to do well. (Yes, I did pressure myself too). It was just too much. And my mother wouldn't take the time to talk to me, to talk about what I was feeling. So I self-harmed.

Afterwards, I really regretted it. I had marks on my leg, and they were still visible a month later, when I was at the Christmas dance at my school. I was terrified that someone would see it, that someone would call me on it. No one did, but I was really paranoid, and vowed to not do it again. EVER!

That lasted about 5 months. Until I had my exams this spring. I was finishing school, so I had 5 exams, as well as so many tests and everything. It was too much. So I self-harmed. This summer I went on vacation with 4 friends, and the scars were pretty visible. I wore long pants as much as possible - but we spent our days on the beach, so I had to have bare legs a lot. I was so careful at hiding it - and if my friends saw it, they never called me on it.

Then, these past few months, I've had a lot of changes in my life. My father was diagnosed with cancer (he'll be okay, but he really freaked out and thought he was going to die before Christmas). It really took a toll on my family. I was going to start studying this fall, but I didn't. So I've been trying to get a job. I did get a job in a newspaper. It sounds awesome, especially since I've always wanted to be a journalist. It was only for a month (thankfully). Before, I'd been the one to put pressure on myself. At this newspaper, someone else definitely put pressure on me. I felt like I had to deliver all the time, and it felt like I had an exam every day. The paper's income, for instance on advertising, was affected by what I did, how well I performed.

So, instead of talking to someone about it, I spent the month a nervous wreak. I kept trowing up and I was incredibly tense. And I self-harmed. Every day. Work haunted by every thought, except when I was self-harming. So I did it A LOT! By the end of the month I was a real pro. Part of my morning routine was dealing with whatever I inflicted the night before. I don't know how I could have gotten through the month without it.

The thing about my mother is that I pretty much know that she's experienced a lot of bad things in her life. I think her father beat her when she was young. And I'm pretty sure she had an eating disorder when she was younger. She's made comments about it, but she's never sat us down to talk about it  (and my mother has two daughters, who probably both could have benefited from hearing about it). And I think my mother self-harmed. It's just a guess, but it just seems that way. But she has never ever ever ever talked about it.

BTW, speaking of eating disorder, my mother once tried to claim I have an eating disorder (yes, I am a bit on the heavy side, but I really didn't think it was that bad.) She introduced this idea when I was in a really good place in my life, as if she was trying to ruin the good grove I was in. I dunno. It seems like my mother always has to ruin it if there's something good in my life. (it probably just seems that way to me, but that's really the one person it matters too as well) And mom introduced it by giving me an envelope with info on eating disorders. She actually gave me pamphlets. She never sat me down and talked to me about it (and that's just wrong).

I'm guessing that my mother knows more than I think she knows, so I wouldn't be surprised if she, at least on a subconscious level, knows that I've been self-harming. But she ignores it. (thankfully) In my family, my mother, sister and I are very close (my parents are divorced and I've lived only with my mother since I was 9). We talk about our day, we have dinner together every night, we talk about a lot of things. But there are some things we never talk about. We've never talked about eating disorders (hers or mine), self-harm (hers or mine), sex (other than "use condoms"), love, boyfriends (my mother has never known about my boyfriends), our periods (we're three women, it gets pretty bad one week a month), drugs, alcohol, STDs (my mother ONCE talked about her old boyfriend. I was 17 when I learned that the guy I thought of as my father for a huge part of my life in fact was HIV positive), sexuality. We never talk about the huge topics. I don't even know how to broach the subject of self-harm with my mom. That's kinda sad.

Right now I don't really SH much. It's not nearly as frequent as it was in September. It changes with the circumstances in my life, but I don't really want to self-harm.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: thereishope on October 28, 2008, 11:33:53 PM
Thanks for posting Maddy... i find sometimes it just helps to write things down too. :)  *wave*
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: catalyst2 on November 03, 2008, 12:12:50 PM
 :trig: (Mentions cutting and suicide.)

I started self-harming nine years ago.  I knew I was going mad (I wasn't familiar with words like "psychotic" then) and was desperate for help.  When it became apparent that the mental health team wasn't going to help (having since seen my notes, they simply didn't realise how ill I was) I decided that I couldn't go on and that I was going to cut my wrists to kill myself.  At the last minute, I found something in myself to stay alive and just lashed out at my arms and legs in frustration and anger.  That happened a second time.

Over a year later, in a psychiatric hospital, another patient told me that you could cut to increase your endorphin level.  I started cutting, on and off, on my arms.  At that point, I realised that it was important not to cut deep, but I did cut deep enough to leave scars.

After a while (not sure how long) I came here.  By then, serious suicide attempts were more of a problem than the cutting, but cutting was still an issue.  I got help and support.  I started using a red gel pen to simulate cutting and to write on my arms.

One day, when very unwell, I freaked out (I don't want to tell you the background) and cut my arm deep to make some people go away.  They went away but an ambulance and police came.  At the hospital, a very kind and gentle nurse patched me up.  I had cut deeper than before and frightened myself.  It was a turning point.

That was four years ago.  I haven't cut since.

Sometimes when it gets bad, I start binge-eating, but I panic and stop after a few binges, ditto drinking.  I don't think I have a problem with either the eating or the drinking (I don't have a big enough capacity for either), but I think that I would have if I didn't nip it in the bud each time after a few days. 

I find it incredibly difficult to find constructive alternatives to cutting.  It gave me a calm high.  But I think that I feel better about myself not cutting.

Mostly what I do to deal with the urge to cut is to talk, on the phone to friends, to family, to the Samaritans, and on the internet to all sorts of people.

I'm grateful to this site for the support it has given me and I continue to recommend it to others. 
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Azure on November 06, 2008, 10:15:08 PM
 :trig:SA SH SUI

Firstly I think you're all  :1025: for being brave enough to tell your stories. I thought "OK, tell yours, it may help unburden the stress currently seizing your mind"
I first tried to kill myself when I was 9. At that time i was being SA'ed by two diff family members, one of who was seriously violent as well. I witnessed him beating my sister to a pulp and my parents telling her she deserved it for winding him up. She would beg me to go home with them because he didn't beat her up as much when I was there, no guesses as to why! One particular day after she had gone out he took me into a derelict room and cut his wrists in front of me, he then proceeded to put the tool to my wrist and said if I ever told anyone what was happening, he would do the same to me. As young as I was I remember thinking "you've done enough to me, if anyone is gonna cut me, it'll be myself" That was the beginning. When my niece was born he used her as a weapon to do whatever he wanted to me, often with her lying in her cot awake and witnessing everything.

I learned never to cry out or make a noise as this had a worse outcome, the only way to deal with it was to think of ways to hurt myself, but secretly. As I got older 2 More family members became involved. I was used as a sort of bartering system between three of them. Often I'd be delivered home in not a very good state and my mum would medicate me with her pills to keep me quiet and compliant. Often confused I would try and tell, but was told "oh, you must have had a bad dream".

Getting older at secondary school with the SA continuing-it didn't stop til I was 17, I developed eating problems and at this stage the sh was superficial and I was able to patch myself up. I had a 10 month admission to ED unit where s/h started to take place of ED. I ended up in a hostel, I was blackmailed into going to the police and as expected my family said I was a liar, a fantasist and an attention seeker, and because I had psych treatment THEY were believed. I expected that to happen, but it still hit me hard. My self harm progressed to needing hospital attention then to needing general/plastic surgery. I rarely harmed in visible places and NEVER told anyone when I was in hospital. Once I needed to be in for 10 days as the surgeon was concerned about things and I had to lie to people as I didn't want anyone to know the truth and needed my cat to be looked after.

I has specialist IP treatment which really helped, but last year things plummeted-memories from the past- and I s/h'ed and needed CPR-which I don't remember, but when I was told was shocked. I'd always s/h'ed to live, not to die. Then October last year a friend of mine died of an "accidental" OD. I realise just how much we play russian roulette when we s/h. I'm 42 now and REALLY trying to find my feet again, I know my treatment worked, I just need to want to get back that control over my s/h again. I feel like a failure a lot of the time, if I'm not using 1 coping strategy, it seems I'm using another.

Sorry this is long, despite missing heaps out.

Good luck to you all in your journeys and recovery-whatever that means and looks like to you as individuals! *flower*   
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Gasoline on November 10, 2008, 10:00:49 AM
Story time, children :]

Okay, the first time I remember self harming was when I was about 10 years old when I was in year 5, and I pulled some hair out of my head during a family argument and it relieved stress.
Thats when I started self harming.
Cutting. Over exercising. Starvation. Binge eating. Purging.
It would increase when I would get bullied at school, or during a family argument.
Then when I was 11, a girl I used to hang out with felt my crotch area and tbh I felt violated.
The self harm continued
When I reached secondry school I got bullied
The self harm got worse.
My weight was going up and down like a fart.
I took my first overdose when I was 12 years old.

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: sarahlouise on November 10, 2008, 11:05:02 AM
 :trig: obviously.

Been on for a while and am only now starting to get my head around things. This could help, I think.

I was Little Miss Perfect up until we moved when I was seven. Then in my new school, the girls I wanted to be friends with didn't like me at first: cue first sense of not being quite right. Same thing happened again when I was eleven and switched to grammar school...wanted to leave. I was really bright, standout in all my classes, 10 A* etc etc etc and people saw me as some kind of brain, never as me. So I had my first bout of what I now recognise as depression when I was about 14. My parents were fighting a lot, my sis had an ED and I spent all my time worrying about and trying to protect my mum (still do - I love her more than anyone in this world). My dad's a recovering alcoholic and incredibly selfish, so I was stuck playing the parent myself.

I was still bobbing along, fairly miserable but making it, and then I got into Oxford. That had pretty much been what I had been aiming at for years, not due to any outside pressure, more just a goal I set for myself, to prove I was the best. And Oxford was pretty ghastly, if I'm honest. Back to being not quite good enough, only this time it was my background and my accent and my clothes that were wrong. I had a friend then who had been a serious, serious harmer: my first contact with it. I just took it in quite a blase fashion, if I'm honest: Oxford's a hotbed for ED and drugs and God knows what because everyone is under so much pressure.
 
So I got sadder and sadder, and madder and madder. And then I fell in love. He was German, so I spent my whole time commuting back and forth. I'd never been happier. he was my first relationship and it got serious terribly quickly: we decided to move in together, we were talking marriage and children and all that. It was all I could focus on, which was good because I'd got to the point where my mind, which had always been the thing I could rely on, was deserting me. My essays weren't good enough; I couldn't get the compositions the way they wanted them. My tutors freaked cos they'd been expecting a First: they said I'd lost my spark. And I was working so, so hard and my mind cracked. I couldn't study any more.

So I took my exams and went out to Germany. We split up within a month. I got my results the same day: a 2:1. I was devastated. My whole life was in tatters and I still remember very clearly the feeling of not knowing in the slightest what I was going to do. I got back to England utterly shattered. I refused to contact any uni friends (they hadn't been so great anyway) and spoke to only 1 old friend (my best girl, Char). I spent my days sitting in tears. And one day, one magic day, i remembered my old friend and went to the kitchen and...well.

It's been 3 years. Sometimes I feel good: I've been free (except for 1 scratch: no cutting/b**ning) for I think a month, and I have longer periods of feeling better. I've had 3 relapses of depression, though, and I have a funny feeling I'm going to be chased by this thing forever.

The funny thing? I wouldn't change it. However crazy and damaging it is, it's me. That my past has developed like this is okay, cos it's MY past. I'm going to use the SH to make me a better person.

This has really, really helped.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Nightowl on November 10, 2008, 03:34:03 PM
I am the youngest of four sisters, growing up we were not allowed to play out or brinmg friends home and just had each other.  We never went anywhere as a family at weekends or holidays and I was lonely.

I had few friends throughout secondary school and just drifted from one group of people to another, and I don't think anybody even noticed if I was there or not.

At aged 15 I was sexually abused by a family member.  My family found out when I was 17 but it was brushed under the carpet and not spoken about for many years.

I was happiest during sixth form, for the first time I had good friends, both at school and at my part time job and I had a good social life.  I got a place at Uni but left after a couple of weeks.

I found a full time job and moved out of my family home but I was lonely again and used to dread the weekends.  After a year I moved back in with my family and that was when the sh started.  I would cut and od.

I met my now ex husband when I was 21 and we got married after 8 months.  At first I still sh'd but during the marriage I stopped sh.

Looking back my husband was my escape route from my family but I was never in love with him and I hated the sexual side of out relationship and would avoid it wherever possible.

We split up after four years together and my sh returned.  A few months after we split I had my first psych admission for two weeks observation.

For a while I went to support group and I think that was the worst thing I ever did as it was not well facilitated and I learnt how to harm more.

Now I am 35 and still sh and od on a regular basis.

In the next few months I am hoping to begin intensive residential therapy.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Le Loup on November 14, 2008, 09:17:35 PM
Well i'll try to tell this best i can, but i have disjointed thoughts and so might ramble a bit.

 :trig:

I guess i was a pretty happy kid..then i went to school. I guess i've always been "different" didnt like to dress like other kids, bit dependant on my mam, bit of a loser. I preferred animals to people lol. I started school at my usual age and i can never really remember being happy there.

From day one all i remember was intense bullying from other people in my school. Hey someone has to be the "Omega" right. At first i'd cry when i got teased and tell the teachers or my mam but evenually i realised that nothing was gunna change. That this was how it was gunna be for as long as i was around these people. So i stopped crying, i stopped whinging, i stopped reacting. It was like someone switched off my feelings.

I went to secondry school the same way. If someone hurt me too much i'd punch back. I lost my self confidence and i lost my voice. I harldly ever talked. I focused on just dissapearing into the background.

In about year 9 i'd say i picked a sharp object up and hurt myself.. not thinking about it. it was somehing people did to mark in "I heart somone" bit supid right? But i didnt write anything, i made lines.

From that day on i have Self Harmed, every time i do it, i do it deeper. I started because i hated myself so much, because i hated everyone around me so much and because it made me feel better. My few friends outside school tried to get me to stop but i wouldnt.. couldnt. I had thoughts of suicide and was uninterested in my surroundings. An aquaintance from my school who didn't bully me saw my arms one day by accident. He voluneered with the ambulance service and he made me tell someone what i was doing or he'd do it himself. I told a liason officer who was shocked at the injuries and she told my parents who then, stony faced, drove me to the doctors in silence. I hated every second of it. The face of the doctor when i told him why i was there, the roll of his eyes when he saw my arms. I hated him too. He refferred me to a councillor and that was that. months later i got one. But she never helped. she made me worse.

The month i left school i had stopped eating. I had been putting weight on from comfort eating and it scared me. I simply stopped and didn't eat anything for almost 6 weeks. Nobody did anything to help me. I went to college and struggled with food the whole way through but i made some friends and they got me to eat again. I still battled with bouts of hate and depression and self harmed frequently but it was better. I left college 2 years ago i think and met my Fiancee. She has helped, i dont SH as much but i can't say i'm happy. When i so SH i do it worse than i've ever done it. I dont believe that i will ever be normal or ever be happy and SH free ever again.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Hannah xx on November 16, 2008, 12:42:18 PM
Ok, I dont really know where to begin....
 :trig: Just in case
well I'm 13 (14 next month) and i've been self harming for 18 months. I found out last year that my uncle had cancer, but i wasn't allowed to tell anyone, I wasn't supposed to know. Keeping it a secret was really hard for my and it put alot of pressure on. I also feel like my lifes being lived for me. My mum keeps trying to make me do all these GCSEs that i dont even want to do early which is really hard work and it gets on top of me and I get really down alot. I know she wants the best for me but whenever i try and talk to her about it she'll just get angry and say i'm not trying. I was also anorexic for a while and I know how much strain that put on my family. Thankfully i'm over that now but I dont want to let them down again.
A few of my friends also self harm and i get really scared for them. I know i'm a hypocrite but i tell them to stop. And now i have GCSEs next week which is alot of work and not something that i want to do. My relationship with my parents isnt very strong and i feel like i'm a bad person (i guess i feel guilty) for S/H. Sorry its a bit long and not terribly interesting  ::-\:
 :1059: xXx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: adriana on November 16, 2008, 10:57:15 PM
I guess it's hard to say where it began. I was an outgoing child until I was about 6 when I withdrew from everyone quite suddenly. Not really sure why. I was moved into the juniors a year early, away from my best friend and my brother was misdiagnosed as having Asperger's which was probably pretty stressful, but I don't really remember.
From then on I was consistently pretty anxious. I was self-conscious and bad at social situations, which got worse when I went to secondary school. I put on a lot of weight due to comfort-eating. Also my parents' relationship had got so bad I found myself actually praying they'd get divorced. The friends I made were pretty awkward and messed up themselves and we took our fear and anger out on each other. I took to digging my nails into my skin to get through that.
At the end of year 8 I started going to church and got some new friends and some confidence. The nails thing didn't stop but it was less frequent, I drew blood less often. My parents went to counselling and astonishingly actually learned to like each other again. But I still wasn't OK, no matter how good life was and I couldn't explain that.
In sixth form I made some great friends. Then one of them tried to kill herself. She was the first person who I had ever felt really understood me. I had a horrible 3 weeks while she was away where I stopped being able to focus on anything. My mother, whose father killed himself, was always trying to tell me about it which was more than I could handle, and one of my very fragile friends was looking to me for support I couldn't give. The nails thing (still not sure if it was sh) returned with a vengeance and I couldn't do any work at all.
The next year, she was back and everything was better... but I wasn't. I was working again but I still couldn't do art. I was too numb. I started falling out very badly with my dad. I was working on a project where I carved a wax figure using a tool. When I finished I kept it. Don't know why. And when the pressure got too much I started to use it. I stopped in the summer. Threw away the tools. But then I started uni, and my granny died and one of my friends got all suicidal and my social anxiety got worse again and the sh started again. And I don't really see it stopping soon.
Sorry, that was long and pointless. Nothing in my life really justifies the sh. But for some reason I still need it.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: skipscop on November 18, 2008, 04:32:16 PM
Hey everyone *wave*  Firstly many many thanks to everyone for writing their stories - it's lovely to know I'm not alone and that you're all out there surviving too  :hug2:  Also to all those who find it hard to believe (myself included!) - remember that we are all perfect people deserving of love and respect, if someone doesn't/didn't give you that there is a problem with THEM...it is NOT YOUR FAULT.

 :trig:
I started sh when I was 16 (22 now).  Was feeling pretty sh*t at the time cos I'd left/been excluded from/felt like I'd been kicked out of the stables where I helped out.  I was getting bullied there by some of the other girls and didn't feel like I could say anything cos we were all special to the woman in charge, and also by that point I felt like they were a lot more special than me...turns out that was just my stupid teenage perception but hey!  Anyway yeah so she was my surrogate mother and it really really hurt not to be able to talk to her anymore cos I'd always told her all about getting bullied at school (which happened all through from primary til about 5th year when all the bullies in my year had left) and she was the only one who knew.

Anyway so it just started one night when I was watching TV with my Dad and just scratched my knee and then the next day had a scab.  Then quickly moved onto using other tools.  And soon I was doing it most days when I got home from school.  I interfered with the wounds too so I could keep them going for longer, and often this gave me my fix at school.  It was amazing how no one would notice - my friends knew, but I remember bleeding in PE cos I'd picked scabs and none of the teachers ever commented.  But then there were a lot of us in my year who shed so...  Anyway so that carried on until in fifth year when I was really stressed about exams my new surrogate mother (yeah, I know!) said to me 'you have to sort yourself out now or your going to get really depressed'.  And that really scared me.  And it kind of worked for ages because I would really try and stop myself thinking how sh*t I was all the time - and it was just really special that she'd noticed I wasn't ok and I knew that someone cared about me again.  Also my physics teacher totally saved me, just by being there and telling me all the time that I wasn't stupid and I could do well  :) - she's the bestest!  I was still shing, and stopped sleeping while I had my exams but (somehow) managed to do well.

But then that xmas after exams I got raped by a friend of my new surrogate mother while I was house sitting for her.  It was the first time I got kissed properly or anything so that totally ducked me up about any form of relationships with people.  Also it brought back memories about being groped when I was 9 by a paedophile who lived in a nearby village, and 'playing have sexging' with a boy at primary school when we were both 5/6.  So that was really hard too.  At first I thought I might be pregnant and would have panic attacks when I was in the loo and didn't have my period yet.  But I couldn't really think about it and didn't actually sh (or think about it/feel anything) for the rest of school.

But a year later I started uni and it was really stressful, esp cos I've never really been able to make friends well and the rest of the people in my corridor formed a clique pretty quickly.  I wasn't sleeping, and if I did I was waking up with nose bleeds.  Then one day I was just looking out of the window and it all came back and I just cried for hours.  And since then I think about it every day.  My shing came back.  At first only around the anniversaries but then at random times too.  And then last year I was on a placement as part of my course and living in a house share for the first time which was really hard for me as there were three of us and I constantly felt left out and as if they would be happier without me there.  I think this was just how I saw it too but it hurt.  A lot.  So I was shing the worst I ever had.  I took a packet of x from the stores at work, was really hard when I saw them I just immediately wanted to cut and I thought 'no, I'll just take them home and then I'll have them if I need them'.  Bad decision.  At one point I was cutting every night plus biting/hitting myself several times while I was at work.  And I really really enjoyed work, I think it was just because of the stress of living with other people and going out and realising that a lot of stuff I think about guys sounds really wierd to other people and having to try and deal with that.

So anyway now I'm back at uni.  Wish I was back at work!!!  Even though it was really difficult there was good times too.  But the rape was just more and more on my mind every year so I had decided to do something about it and am now having counselling.  It was never something I thought I'd do cos I was sure there were loads of people who deserved their time more than me.  But my counsellor is really lovely and I totally trust her - which is very surprising for me!  So I think maybe we can get me sorted out together.  Started shing again though cos of all the things coming up in counselling (after a couple months break).  Hopefully I will stop again now but thats easy to say when I've still got 'a wound on the go'.

Wow, thats longer than I expected...thank you to everyone who hangs in til the end!!!

Skips  :1059:

 :icon_arrow: Edited out tool names
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: hugaholic on November 24, 2008, 07:49:52 PM
hi,
i know it has been a long time since i posted, sorry.

my sh started when i was 11, i am now 18.i have no idea why i stated apart from i was being bullied and my parents kept hitting me. (this doesn't happen anymore).i kept it secret until i was 14. i told close friends and my school, who gave me no help at the time, so got worse until i was doing it 4 times a day everyday. By 16 this had calmed down and i started fighting back. i lasted 9 months-until my exams began. nobody knew it had returned until in yr 12, i came out again to my school with a very different responce. i got help,support and counselling. i have almost stopped. I've had to stop my counselling due to my A-Level work at the moment. now i can tell people and be light hearted about it, because i control it, it doesn't control me anymore.(not that this is a joking matter-but i am sure you all know what i mean)

There is light at the end of the tunnel, it just takes alot of fighting. i am not cured but i am better then the way i was 7 yrs ago.
My message to anyone is that they must keep hope in their hearts, that has got me through this alongside really good friends.

Have fun people,
hugaholic :1059:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: babysmith on November 24, 2008, 09:46:05 PM
hey, reading these posts makes me remember how i used to feel. i dont self harm anymore its been about a year since i last did it, its not easy to stop but it can be done. im still very angry about how i was treated when i self harmed by doctors and stuff they looked down on me. my best friend self harms she was always far worse than me. she's been doing it for 7 years i dont know how to make her stop she's not as strong as i was. and the doctors and councillers just dont help.
im now a student at university im studying film studies and this year we have to propse an idea for a documentary. i decided to do one about how medical proffesionals treat people with self harm. i want people to realise that loads of people need help not to be discriminated against.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: lulu30 on November 27, 2008, 11:20:50 AM
 :trig:hey, things have moved  on a lot for me since i first started on this forum, i'm more in control now in a way but self harm still plays a big part in one way or another.
I've done it for years since school (i'm 25 now) but things got considerable worse about 7 months ago. I was sexually abused from age 4 by my dad and his friends, i was raped repeatedly and left to believe this was normal. I was pregnant at 15 and had an abortion and thank god he left home. I blamed myself for my Mum's unhappiness, she was suicidal and wanted to put me and my younger brother into care, i never told her what he had done to me and know to this day i could not possibly tell her.
I've dealt with this my whole life so far by ignoring it and numbing the pain with drink and pushing people away when they get too close. I take things out on the people closest and they have no idea what the problem is. Until 7 months ago when one of the girls in work decided to tell me a few home truths, she told me what a complete witch i was (i don't think i was as bad as she made out) but she sent me over the edge. I hated myself enough and to hear that my friends hated me as well was the final straw. I drank myself into a stupor, my husband was away. I was on facebook of all things and was chatting to an old friend who apparantly as he was chatting to me phoned a friend to come and see me. by the time she got there i was passed out on the floor with lots of tablets (i didn't take any) but she paniced and called an ambulance. I'd also cut my arms really bad, there was a lot of blood and mess all up both my arms, i'd never done it drunk before i'm usually meticulous at hiding it and being neat but it was a mess. No one not even my husband had ever known about the problem but now it was out. I'm in a job where this sort of thingis not kept quiet. I was forced to go to the doctor and to the cpn, i got prozac and other help, they threatened me with going to the priory as i couldn't even speak when i went to the doctor. My husband was amazing and without him i'd never had got through that part. I really want to self harm at times but manage to control it by going for a run, although i don't eat an awful lot so the weight loss i have is now taking the place of cutting. I'm bulimic also, which i'm being treated for, i feel this awful guilt from somewhere and feel like i don't deserve to be alive at times. i'm coping at the moment, just hoping this feeling lasts. :1027:

Edited - Amount and type of tablets removed
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Yoda111 on November 28, 2008, 05:15:58 PM
 :trig:

I started cutting when I was 13. I had just lost the friendship of the only people who had ever understood me, just because they wanted to move on to better friends. When I first tried it i had no idea how to do it so it didn't cut well more of an indention. then I started talking to this girl she was a cutter and she told me how to do it. I cut once to see if it would make me feel better. it gave me clarity released my anger just generally helped. People noticed it and accused me of being a cutter i denied it and made up phony stories I didn't cut for a long time in fear of being caught. There was this guy he was 15 when i met him, i have known him briefly for almost 3 years, he had dated a friend of mine. I really liked him he was cute, funny, and strong and unlike most guys he liked me. He always told me I was pretty and was there for me. I thought he cared till one day I realised he only wanted me for sexual things and now being 14 and him 17. I was most definitely not ready for that. We stopped speaking to each other. I was already not a happy person but he was one of the only people who had made me smile genuinely. So I cut myself on my leg deep and long. i played taking back sunday so loud the only thought I could process was relief. I cried so hard but then I looked at the cut and smiled, to me it was something to be proud of. I wanted myself to be in pain, it was a way of saying I'm the only one who can hurt me now. I continued cutting after that 1cut a day. Then 1 week later i found out my childhood friend had cancer. I cried and cut myself. I thought I deserved to be in more pain then him he was a good person. I kept telling myself I should have cancer, I should be dieing i want to die. And at the time I did I just couldn't bare my family to think it was there fault. I don't want them to be in pain because of me I don't deserve them. Both of my grandparents had died earlier in the year. It took a tole on my parents it made me wish i could die so they could live but i knew it was impossible. Then i found out that my sister has these reactions where at any time she could die if she doesn't go to the hospital. I wanted myself to feel her pain so i cut myself on my wrist in the same place as my first cut because the scar was fading and I wanted to remember where it all started. I'm now 16 and I'm still a cutter. I cut once a week because i was running out of unnoticeable places to cut. I'm ruining my body but I'm ugly no one is going to see it. I sometimes cut more if I'm extremely emotional. My life is not any more painful then someone else's. physically I'm the only one who hurts me, emotionally everyone hurts me so it seems. I'm trying to stop cutting but i dint know if i want to.






Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: ThatRadFreak on December 08, 2008, 04:43:09 PM
my mum and dad split up before i was 2.
he threw me and my mum out to the streets.
after a few weeks my brother and sister joined us.
school was alright, got a bit bullied but nothing major.
moved school due to problems with my father.
new school, new start, loved it there.
Under immensly high pressure to do well in SAT's.
Y7 started cutting, knew what it was, heard how it helped other people.
Sister was thrown out, left mum in really bad debt [10k].
sister sort of made contact again after a year and a half and was pregnant.
Under huge pressure for SAT's.
12 november 07 took an od.
baby niece born.
end of march beginning of april
would sit in front of boxes of pills for hours.
april 11th 08 went to doctors for help.
Now in Y10, and guess what all my GCSE targets are,
A*
Guess how much pressure im under now.

not the most interesting story
and not the best written
but hey,
thats the facts.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: rogue82 on December 10, 2008, 05:19:42 AM
Am 26, i have spent most of my life trying to be what i should be to my parents, to my friends, and to myself.  All conflict, cos i dont know who i am.  My mum always says up till the age of 18 i was an angel, and then everything went wrong! but shes right

At 18 i moved away from my security of the family home, to nottingham, id never been so lonely in all my life, then i met some1.  I loved her with all my heart and time and time again she let me down, she was bulemic and also a drug addict, one day i lost it and i cut my wrists, she noticed me and for the first time i felt she cared, it was enough 4 me to send me on a path of continual s/h.  It took a while tho, and a couple of yrs later again i harmed, this time landing me in hospital, but again getting what i needed from it, the person i loved came and got me from a&e (different person to the first time) then she let me down more than anyone has in my life, and i stopping feeling anything 4 her in a split second, she dint deserve my thoughts.

I stopped harming 4 a while, but then i got in a relationship with some1 and the harming took on a live of its own, and she tried to support me but in the long run always let me down, and still does 2 yrs after we broke up.  While i was with her the harm escalated and i oded seriously 3 times.  We broke up, and i got help, thru cbt which was really useful i managed to go 2 yrs without an od and over a yr without harming.

But recently ive got scared again by life, and also by getting to close to people and feeling too let down. S/H is off the scale like nothing b4, but now its for very different reasons my harming has evolved and where cbt helped b4 i now have to find new ways 2 deal with it, its a whole new cycle  :(  Ive od but not seriously and done a couple of other things that have seriously endangered my life.  Am in serious danger of losing everything i hold dear, my housemate (also bf) my degree, and seriously my mind.  I cant seem to stop the self destructive part of me, s/h has become an obssession, even when i dont need to i do.  I pray to a higher being that ill get better, and that the people who love me will stick with me till i get there.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: rogue82 on December 10, 2008, 05:22:59 AM
Sorry should say bf, was meant to be b/f (best friend!) !!!
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: StrangeGirl on December 10, 2008, 10:04:36 PM
  I'm an old member who doesn't tend to post on here so much these days, but I'm still about.

  I started to harm when I was 12. It was after a fight with a friend, I felt the need to let off steam so went for a long walk with a tool and hurt my wrist a lot. It was very superficial and just looked gross and was sore for a week or two. But that was the first time I can remember harming myself as 'self harm'.

  My parents spilt when I was 7 after years of fights, and they both had new partners. My mum's new partner was physically abusive. He used to punch holes in the walls and hit her, the police were involved and eventually they split up a while before my little brother (their son) was born. My mum married my step dad about 4 years later and though that home is very stressful because of conflict between people there (step siblings etc), at least it's safe.
My dad dated this woman who I believe had the most negative effect on my family of anything that has ever happened to us. She constantly argued with my dad and belittled all of us. She stopped me and my sister seeing our mum so often (until i went to high school and moved in with my mum) but encouraged our dad to leave us with babysitters and child-minders so they could go out. She took over our lives with my dad so I found it impossible to have a real relationship with him - we would fight viciously and I sometimes wouldn't speak to him for months at a time. He is also now with a much nicer partner and we have a better relationship.

  As a result of the arguing and strained relationship with my father I find it difficult to trust people, which was not helped by the constant bullying from year 5 (in primary school) to the end of sixth form (year 13, A levels).

 My self harm has been a fairly constant thing in my life since i was 12, though I go through periods where I will harm lots and behave in a generally self destructive way (drinking, smoking, not eating, bingeing, running away, skipping school etc etc). I have been referred to MHS twice, the first time was when I was 16 and harming several times a day all over my body, visibly and hidden. At this point I would wear knee socks under tracksuit bottoms during PE to cover the bad harming on my legs, even though this meant I was always hot and had to fight with teachers to wear them. I had an assessment with CAMHS and had 2 months of counseling and 6 months of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I was not really playing ball with this as I simply learnt to hide and control my feelings better so people would think I was ok. I also stopped harming for about a year, simply finding that I was in control enough not to need it.

When I was 18 I had my second referral after 2 months of extremely erratic moods and self destructive behavior. I would go for 4 hour walks in the rain on my own because it seemed like a good idea, I took a week off sixth form to go see a friend because I couldn't cope, I wouldn't get out of bed or shower or get dressed for days and days, I stopped eating for a week before bingeing, I tried to ruin my relationship at the time by behaving inappropriately with mutual friends, I cut a lot and began hoarding pills. However by the time I had an assessment my mood had stabilized so I stopped most of the things and I guess i seemed healthy enough not to need treatment this time.

Since then I haven't been back to the doctor about any such problems, I had a very good year last year and went SH free from October to February, then again from april to august. However since being at uni and starting to live on my own, my 4 year long relationship ending and general stress my mood has been erratic again and SH (along with some of the other issues) is becoming a problem. I guess it's my way of retaining control when my head feels like it's falling apart. At the moment only 3 people know I'm self harming. My ex, my current partner and my best friend. Though I don't tell them every time it happens. Again, the trust thing is an ongoing problem.

So thats mostly it. Sorry it's so long. There's a lot there I guess. Thank you for reading.

Strange xxx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Miss Gail on December 13, 2008, 12:57:33 PM
I started SelfHarming when I was 7. In primary scholl I was bullied up until now really. I still get bullied. Also my Dad has cronic Renal Failure ( Kidney Failure) which is killing him. I did it because I thought it was a good way to release the tension that I coulndn't get rid of any other way. It has effected my life so much,as my Body (entire body) is covered in Scars, Deep and Shallow !!! It was my way of coping but it is killing my Family !!! And I hate other people seeing my Body because of the ugliness and that has effected a lot of Relationships !!!
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: MentallyUnsound on December 19, 2008, 08:48:16 PM
Not sure if it will,but -  :trig:

I'm Caitlin,i'm 14 now,but i started self harming just after i turned 13 . My mum had dies suddenly a month before my 13th birthday (May '07) and it drove me off the rails. I didn't take it well.I didn't cry or grieve for probably 3-4 months. At first i just broke the skin. But life got too hard to bear - I missed mum terribly, I was angry,being bullied, and my dad favoured my brother over me. One night I got hold of a tool and hurt my arm. It was the best feeling in the world - I felt refreshed,as if i'd been holding my breath for a long time and had just taken a breath. All the anger and sadness and hate i'd been bottling up just went away and it felt great. Of course it hurt like hell when i woke up.. and i had to convince my dad that it was a school accident,but i'm an extremely good liar.

I had an argument with my dad a few days later about something silly. I went upstairs and I cut my arm again. That was the tipping point,after that I couldn't stop.

I managed to cover it up from my Dad,friends,family and the school,but I slipped up a few times and my dad would catch sight of a cut. Luckily for me he was preoccupied with his girlfriend so didn't really question it when I told him it was random accidents.

I got more and more depressed very quickly. I got better for a while when I got into a relationship,but the circumstances in which he dumped me (he started another relationship and then dumped me on MSN) threw me back into the pit.

I was lucky that by now one of my friends had caught on and was attempting to stop me. He knew that I loved him to bits,so used it against me. At first he just tried to make me see how it was hurting people,but I was stuck in my own little depressive world. In the end he just let rip and told me exactly how it made him feel when he saw a new cut,how it tore him apart to see me so unhappy. He told me that if i didn't at least attempt to stop he would walk away,and b**n all bridges between us. I knew he was serious because I'd seen him do it before,and I'd never seen him so upset. I love this guy so much that I would give anything not to lose him, so I began trying to stop. At first there were a few slip ups,but he could see that i was trying so carried on supporting me.

I threw out my box of weapons In early October,and made my last cut a week or two later. So I've not cut for almost three months.  woohoo     I've also been diagnosed with Manic Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder so i have an explanation as to why I couldn't find another way to express my feelings. I'm proud of my scars,because they are like medals to me - they show that i've been in a bad place and managed to drag myself out.


:icon_arrow: Edit due to method sharing and graphic content - Gerard
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Prawny on December 20, 2008, 10:30:54 PM
*possible si/od triggers*

I started si-ing when I was probably about 13 I think (and I'm 22 now), though that was really only when I started doing it regularly.  I was showing si behaviours when I was very young, 4 or 5 is the earliest I remember.  I hadn't really heard about it or anything before I started, it just seemed like a natural thing to do in reaction to the way I was feeling.  I drank too much for years (only stopped in the last two months...well, apart from a couple of occasions), and know I have a very unhealthy attitude to alcohol.  I go through phases with cutting...sometimes I can go for months without it, then I start again for sometimes no reason.  I'm managing to resist at the moment, but it's hard.  I have taken a few serious overdoses, hospital visits for cuts, waiting on new therapists after the last ones said si is for attention (*sighs*)...and horrible as all this crap is, I don't know how I will ever live without it.  I feel like I'm always struggling, you know? I always have to try, I can't just be.  I feel like a waste of space, and I'm so disappointed in myself.  Nothing I ever do is good enough.  I never seem to fit in anywhere, I ruin everything I touch, and I always pretend everything is fine, so noone can ever see how shredded I feel inside.  Sorry, this isn't a very good post really, what a mess.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Ludovica on December 23, 2008, 05:44:31 PM
:icon_arrow: This letter was written when I was in hospital and it was written to the bullies who affected how I see myself now. It is not a suicide note, but rather me trying to talk directly to the people who hurt me so much.

A letter sums up one of the many reasons I started SHing- bullying. Here it is:

Dear all of you,

You don’t realise how much you messed me up with your actions. You don’t realise I can see you all now, as vividly as my own family, haunting me every day. You don’t realise I have dropped out of university, because I can’t keep myself physically safe anymore. Funny really, as it used to be that I couldn’t keep myself safe because of you- you hitting me, pushing me over, setting your hands alight in my face, forcing me into smokey toilets. It was you who made me unsafe then, now it is me who makes me unsafe.
You thought I could cope with it, you thought I would forgive you, and I have. But your way of slowly pushing me down into a corner hiding from the world  has stayed with me, all these years later.
You called me bad names, you caused me to hurt myself, you stood outside the toilet cubical that first time I took an overdose, you took great delight in watching me pass out due to hyperventilating during a panic attack.
You should have made me angry. But you didn’t. I just accepted it, stopped going to school and didn’t tell anyone what you did to me. You should have made me tell someone; instead I turned into a completely different person. I used to be outgoing, I used to be alone, yes, but not because people frightened me, instead because I enjoyed my own company. I could have made friends if I so wished, but you stopped anyone from even wanting to say hello to me, for fear that they would be bullied too.
When you would talk about me, when I was in the same room, I used to listen without flinching, without showing emotions, and just absorbed every word. The voices I had for a while, though they have gone mostly now, used to shout like you used to. They said the same things, and like you, I still believe everything they said. However horrible, I believe it.
I used to hide in the music department, as an escape from you, and just play the piano. No one could touch me then, as I was in my own world. My hearing is focused on my playing, even today when I play and nothing can touch me. Not even you.

You affected me loads, but now, it is me who is the bully. I bully myself almost constantly. So you don’t matter now, but neither do I. I will die, no matter what, and all the times you said “I wish you were dead”, will be true. And I am calm, now, knowing that you were right. All of you were right. Anyway, I will die, and you can all go on to lead amazing lives, unlike me, who lives knowing only thing- that soon I will die. That is all I know, and you all know how to live great lives. I will never know that, however much people try to teach me.

Anyway, I will go now,
Bye,


The stupid one
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Icantchange on January 09, 2009, 04:46:56 AM
 :trig: just in case.
not sure how 2 start.

when i was l3 i had a teacher training day at school so me and my best friend decided 2 go to the cinema to see ''ants'', (there was us 2 and another 4-5 people in,so uiet really)about 30 mins in to the film the manager came round asking 2 check tickets, he told my m8 to move over and he sat in the middle.. my friend was nervous so she went to the toilet.. well whilst she was gone he S.A me. cant remember much after apart from running out 2 where my dad was piking me and my friend up. i told my dad and he went straight in after him, police wer foned .. went to court , he got 2 and a half years ''pathetik''. nothing was mentioned after nothing at all. (im 2l now) .About a month after a close family member died and i was gutted, hartbroken , words cant describe how i felt.
things got to much and i was in my room and S.H for the first time nothing major jus little cuts. I fell out with my friend who was with me at the cinema (even tho it wasnt her fault and supported me and spoke onvideo link) i guess i blamed her for leaving me, but seins as i didnt tell my other friends what had happend they all went with her and left me. I started 2 hang around with different ppl and got naughty at school,, started drinking etc. Then after a year or so i just went in 2 a shell (still S.Hing) wernt botherd about anything.. started to get bullied by my old friends and jus hated my life, and me.  Left school in yr ll and started working and stoped S.H'ing. a year on i hit a bad patch (for no reason) and started S.Hing again my family was away for a weekend so i O.D'd i lay on my bed and i new i made the right decision. BUT... i woke up i must of had 24 hours sleep, maybe more. i was glad i woke up it was a eye opener.i was ok had down moments but kept my self occupied..
The beggining of november 2008, i woke up with a empty feeling, feeling down, depressed , and hating myself and started S.H'ing again, twice a week.. its been getting worse and worse and since the first week in dec iv been doing it almost every day this last week hasd been my worst had anxiety panic attacs and have been S.H'ing 5-6 times a day, and there deep cuts aswell, i cut yesturday and got angry and upset and did it again and cuddnt stop the bleeding..paniced, it stopped in the end tho. went to the docs b for crimbo and hes put me on anti depressants, i did for a week the decided i dont want pills 2 make me happy,i wanna just be me.
I have days when i dont want to be here, but wouldnt take a O.D again cause ... well i just dont have the guts to do it..plus i wuddnt do it 2 my family.

sorry for rambeling.. thanks for reading.. take care. x
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: mice on January 22, 2009, 03:09:42 AM
i,m 33 and still do it when the urge overwhelms me. been cutting since i was 12 MICE :banghead:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: sarah louise on January 31, 2009, 09:07:03 PM
hi, first time I've been here and I've not spoken about this before.
can't remember much from when I was young, am 30 now.  dad had a violent temper, mum and dad used to fight a lot, I'd hide in my brothers room and listen to music with him.  I was flashed by a man when I was 14, raped by my boyfriend when I was 15, thought I was pregnant, mum 'prayed' for me when I told her. That was when I SH'ed for the first time, it was an accident, I was angry and threw a plate, cut my hand, was fascinated by the blood, forgot what I had been angry about.  Kept a sharp bit of the plate, next time I boiled over I used the plate instead of breaking something.  Wasn't pregnant- thank god!
Most of the time I'm calm, layed back, I scare myself when I get angry.  Don't like getting out of control like my dad, bottled up the anger and frustration, then when it gets too much, I cut, then feel happy and normal.  For a while.
Lived with older sister and her family for a while, nephew was ill, leukemia, bone marrow transplant, almost died.  Was sleeping with a jerk, used me for sex, treated me like s**t, I loved him.  Took first OD, spent night in hospital, felt safe and happy for first time in months. 
Moved into own place, was fine for a long while, slept around, felt dirty after each time, got too much after a while, SH'ed again, OD again, felt better.
Couple of years passed no SH.
Met husband- alcholic, didn't see it,  I loved him, he drank, started SH again, not cutting, b**ning, he didn't care.
Had daughter, left alone all the time, SH'ed more, he left me for ex, they're having a baby, got very bad for a while, I was evicted.
Now it's been almost a year since I last SH'ed, think about it a lot, not done it.  Own place, no b/f, no sex, no money, just me and little girl- happier than before, don't know what the future holds, anything?
hope all that made sence, x
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: tinkerbell2004 on February 09, 2009, 07:23:38 PM
I've not posted on here before but i'd like to share my story. I've suffered from depression since my teenage years (i'm now 32) and began self harming around the age of 14. I hid behind a childhood diagnosis of ecxma for many years as it provided the perfect excuse for scratching my arms. I have been sexually abused at a party and raped by my husband. They both played a part in my self harming becoming out of control. When ever i get stressed or slightly low i turn to harming to control things. Now i have a 4 year old girl who is really noticing when i scratch my arms and i feel so guilty. I don't know how to deal with my feelings any other way
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: summer on February 23, 2009, 09:38:48 PM
 :trig: i havnt realy writen on here b4 so dont hav much rite to but im nearly 15 and i first self harmed when i was 9 my mum did it and told me if i was to cut myself when dad hurt me it wouldnt be so bad i didnt like it but it made mum hapy so i caried on, i 1st od when i was 12 and since then been with 11 diferent foster parents my real 1s both went jail soon after im in hospital @ the moment from my 3rd od in a month have been self harming in here so anurse sits wiv me 24/7. Not sure what i want.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Icantchange on February 26, 2009, 09:48:04 AM
^  :hug2:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Sian on February 28, 2009, 01:02:26 AM
I'm sorry if this is disorganised but I wanted to write this down because it seems to have helped others so I thought I may as well give it a go.

Basically the first time I sh was when I was 16. I was on a camping trip and realised that it was the first anniversary of my Uncle's death. I was so overwhelmed with guilt that I'd forgotten about it as well as other feelings due to school problems. In the past I'd normally have coped with it by pretending that everything was ok and hitting walls and other things when I was alone, but this time I truned to sh.

Although I felt guilty afterwards, the feeling of relief and control I experienced was too strong and I was soon sh to cope with the sadness I'd been feeling for so long, and after a while it was the only thing that helped.

Throughout my life I've been bullied and made to feel worthless. People have targeted my weight, the way I look, what I wear, how I act, my family, basically anything they could to make me feel bad about myself. I would normally keep it all bottled up inside and go through the day pretending not to care and then I'd get home and cry all night. I absolutely hated myself. I got into the thought pattern of 'if they hate me enough to make me feel this bad everyday then there miust be something wrong with me'. I also hated the fact that it was having an effect on my Mum - she was friends with the parents of the people who bullied me and I could tell that she wished I could be less hassle. At one time she even told me that I should 'just ignore them, stop being so sensitive and get on with things like everyone else'.

So after this I decided to keep all the bullying to myself. I came up with ways of hiding how upset I was, I'd pretend that I'd watched a sad film or had just kicked the bed and many other excuses. This led me to being withdrawn in school and at home. I hated doing anything that they could use against me, I would beg to be able to wear trousers in P.E. because I was scared that they would tease me. I was even scared to go out to town at weekends in case they saw me and made fun of what I was wearing.

Then I started sh, and everything changed. I'd found a release for all the anger and sadness I was feeling. Doing it helped me feel calmer and I was able to be outgoing, and things were looking up, until I told my best friends about it. Things were ok for a while but then they decided that they couldn't deal with me and my 'problems', which was fair enough, but then one of them sent an email to my other friends telling them about it (this was about a year later, when I'd actually been able to give sh up for 6-7 months) and this affected me really badly. Fortunately one of the friends talked to me and explained that she felt no differently about me and was really proud that I'd given up for so long, and she encouraged me to continue to not sh.

But then I got to uni. I don't know what happened but I completely crashed - I couldn't cope and so I started sh again. Since September things have got worse and I really can't cope with it, hence why I joined the forum, so that I could talk to people who actually understand and don't just judge instantly.

Sorry It's so long, I've not really said the half of it, but at least I got that down.
 
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: utter nutter on March 01, 2009, 10:43:07 PM
I started SH when I was 14 due to several things that were going on in my home life. I was asked the other day what made me start, where I got the idea from. I have no idea really but it started maining due to the fact I was really hurting. My brother use to abuse me, he would beat me up for no realy reason. I would then go to school and be the school bully, beat people up by request of others (Please know I am not proud of this at all, and still feel really ashamed about it). One day I beat a girl up quite bad and it really hit home to me that I was doing what my brother was doing to me, how could I make these people feel as bad as I do. I went home that day and started to SH. This went on for at least 10 years..There wasnt just cutting, I would also puch walls until I could no longer move my hand, I would also beat myself senseless. At 21 I left my home country and moved away from my family and set out for life on my own in the UK. I felt safer in a strange country on my own than I ever did being at home. It was a few years later when everything hit me really hard, mainly I guess due to struggling with my sexuality issues and more rejection from people. I took my 2 OD. After this I got help I needed and stopped all the SH. For the next 10 years I didn't SH, it was all in my past. Yes I had the scares to show for it and people would ask about them but it was in the past and sometimes, not often but sometimes I would look at teh scars and be pleased they were there, this way I could remember how far I had come. It all was going well until may 07 when my father died. His death hit me really badly and slowly things went down hill, I started cutting, not often but I was cutting. Now I can hardly control it, I feel the worse I have ever felt and want to give up all the time.. I am in therapy and my friends are holding me up, being my believe that I AM going to get through this. I now live in fear as my SH doesnt feel enough anymore, if its not deep enough, I dont get the release I need anymore, it really is scary.... It is good to be able to read, to post, to know that there are people out there who understand excatly why you do it, how it makes you feel..
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Rubber Soul on March 07, 2009, 11:40:02 PM
I started SHing when I was 14, I am now 32. I lived abroad and we had a maid when I was 10 and she went to bed with me to show me what my boyfriend would do to me. I have alway felt that that was my fault. I then started going out with my first boyfriend a few years later and he did some really nasty things to me. We both decided to keep it a secret. I still have never told my parents who he is. I wrote a suicide note when I was 15 and my dad read it but chose to ignore it. My friend at school was a self-harmer and got loads of help and that upset me. When I went away to college I really was able to be myself but couldn't cope with my feelings so I drank all the time. 2 Chrsitmases ago and after three suicide attempts I told my mother what the boy had done to me when I was 14. She couldn't believe, she thought that how could I feel this way and he hadn't even raped me! I did try to stress that he tied me and held me by the throat but it didn't matter. I had not been raped so what was I complaining about. I know I have been abused when I was about 5/6 or maybe younger but I can't remember but I feel it so strong so I want to know the truth. So many things point to this being the truth but just how do I remember? Maybe I will never know.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: orbs on March 08, 2009, 02:51:56 AM
my stories isnt as bad as some peoples but:

my father left when i was 5-6 i cant quite remember, i just have this vivid memory of when it happend it was christmas and my dad drove off, a month later we moved house and i stated to see my dad at weekends. at 14 i found out the truth to why he had left, he was homosexual at the time it hurt me and i didnt speak to him for months, reason:

from about age 9 i got bullied one or two kids used say i was gay, and that i couldnt fight (well i couldnt) then they started saying my dad was gay etc.. this continued until i was 15, at 15 though the bulling intensified far worse then ever, i couldnt go out on a friday because id botteled or beatend up, i became "gothic" which annoyed my mother who used to have ago at me all the time.

before that though between the ages of 7 to 10ish i had a step dad who used to beat us up somedays and treat us the next, he used to beat us up worst when his son was born (by beat up i mean he would throw us in to bed... we had bunk beds and i was on top! or just push us about for no reason), he held a tool to my mums throat and similar stuff like that, my mum left him and got with another man who was fantasic until he slept around and we trusted him alot, and he lied to us. he left when i was 15, to summarise i didnt know what love was, i could never get a girlfriend, i was bullied at school and never had a stable home life.

i started self harm from about 13, at first it was little things hitting walls chicken scratches, the main reason was because of the bulling, i managed to keep it quite for years. at 15 it worsed to cutting the top of my arm very deep, but as well as this i started to drink and smoke and take drugs all the time.

at 16 i went to a festival with a friend and we got with these girls one of which i slept with not know that it was her first time and i was heavily intoxicated, over a few days we got on well she was fine but then my friend who was jelous convinced her that a raped her, she started going on about how i had forced her and she wasn't ready which messed me up no end because we got on great until my friend got his way, in the end she went off with him in front of me, i now know that i didnt rape her and that my "friend" was just trying to make me feel like crap. she emailed me some years ago now explaining that she didnt feel raped but did feel akward about loosing her virginity on a one night stand.

at the time i went through a spiral of blaiming my self which worsened the cutting, drinking, drug abuse. then one night i was in chester by the river dee with some people i met drinking away getting really stoned, wen i broke, i went to the top of the bridge got over the railings and jumped with out hesitation, i hit the river water hard (winded myself) and started to drown, i was almost gone when my friend dragged me out and took me to her house, she stripped me of all my clothes and found the scars and the fresh cuts, and her mum who was a nurse, got them all cleaned up and dressed properly,

that night i slept with my friend kelsey and i felt safe... the morning after i told her everything and she convinced me to go get help, which lasted a month before i just lost control again,   along the wall of chester there is a small narrow bridge that used to go to a prison house that is over a canal, i was sitting on that when kelsey once again came to my rescue, she talked me off and i once again spent the night at hers, she hugged me all night and wouldn't let go,

anyway after leaving chester again, i went back to finish my gcse's and get in to college in which time i got to know a girl called j, four years on we are still together and i got my life sorted and every 6 months or so id get an urge to cut or i would cut but in the last year i havent need to at all, because i have taken up climbing and the buzz i get from that has kept me from harming and you see things out there that changes your point of view in ways you couldnt imagine
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: phoebe_monkey on March 10, 2009, 08:28:08 PM
I'm on the brink of a big change... I've just started a new job (which I love), soon I'll be graduating from university and moving on from the last part of my life which, to be honest, kind of sucked. So I decided it was about time I added my story on here.

I came from a pretty typical family- mum and dad and two younger brothers. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened until I was 9 years old and my youngest brother was diagnosed with leukaemia (he was 3). Our whole family was in complete chaos and my other brother and I got packed off to stay with relatives. I became extremely quiet and withdrawn and began getting bullied at school. My brother was fine after 5 years of treatment, but I never really regained my confidence.

For the first two years of secondary school I was bullied and excluded by my entire class, until I moved schools to a private girls school. I managed to hide in the background for the rest of my school years until the end of 6th year, when I left school.

I think I've already changed a lot from the slightly naive 17 year old who moved away from home to start a teaching degree. For a start, I'm now 21, a lot more knowledgable and about to graduate- but not with my original degree. I'm also a lot more messed up than I was back then. As the pressure of university life steadly increased, my underlying problems began to surface. At the end of my 3rd year, it got too much and I ended up in academic suspension from my course. I was diagnosed with social anxiety. For two months I was a day patient at a private psychiatric hospital... where the therapists didn't seem to understand why I could not 'open up' and talk. By the time they discharged me I was more distressed than ever before. I began self harming while I was there and continued afterwards. I became quite depressed and withdrawn.

It's taken quite a long time for me to start feeling a bit better and although I'm still struggling with my anxiety and self harming, with the help and support of my counsellor I am now working towards accepting myself and looking towards the future.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: broken down on March 17, 2009, 02:53:55 PM
 :trig:

I have suffered from depression for about 10 years. 
Mostly i can cope with it, but for the last year i've been finding it really hard to funcation.  My next door neighbour found me on the drive one lunchtime in tears.  it was her that got me into see the emgernacy doctor.
My GP thinks i might have Bipolar, as my mood swings have been getting a lot worse, and i've started to lash out at people i care about.
I was ment to start councilling a month or so back, i made the appoiment, but i cancled it at the last minute.  But know i have to go and see shrink.  Which i'm in a total panic about, The last one i was was a total waste of time, and we didn't get on at all. 
I had a CPN once, who told me "we all feel like driving into a brick wall at times"  Makes me wounder if i just get all the  :doh:

It's only been the last year or so that i have taken to hurting my self.  Mostly by cutting, it started of with a craft scaple that i use for my cards etc, now i have progressed into razors. 
My self harming takes many forms, cutting, b**ning mostly.  I also bite the inside of cheek alot, but than thinking about it i have allways done this.

I don't seem to have any triggers that casue me to SH, it just sort of happens.

My family don't know what i'm doing, if they do than they have't said anything about it. |I can't really talk to them as they are from the Old school way of thinking, and if they can't see it, they don;t belive in it. 
The only people i have told is my boyfriend Peter, and my so called Steven (who told me last month he loves me) Great more pressure! :banghead:
Peter is Great, but i can't tell him whats going off in my head, as i don't know my self

I'm go, as i'm just ranting now :ranting:

thanks for listening
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Emmz on March 17, 2009, 03:22:07 PM
 :trig:

I first started sh when I was 11. I was sa by my stepdad from the age of 6 until 2 years ago. I have had 2 children whom both have been adopted by really nice people, fathered by my stepdad. I was my mums main carer for a lot of health problems both physical and psychological but she died 2 weeks before christmas just gone. I was and still am bullied and have hardly any friends.
I don't talk to my biological dad as he was violent and agressive.
I have ptsd and borderline personality disorder along with severe depression.

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: kathleen on April 18, 2009, 07:21:03 PM
 :trig:  ..am new to this site, but what a relief to release those most inner thought, i too was abused by my brother..he,s died now, we had a rotton childhood, we lost our Dad when we were just 5, he died of cancer & so did our brother. Our Mum  drank & was addicted to cough medicine of which she got me & my brother to get her when the chemists refused her. I care for my twin sister as she has learning needs..our older sister has no contact since she acused our Mum of hurting her & causing Maries learning problems.  Well i just went to pieces last year, i loved my elder sister so much it completely tore me apart..since all our other family has died i had no one to back up the claims up.  So stuggerling with deep depression all year i asked my Gp for more specialsit help..so i became involved with Mental Health Services in Jan this year..well it blew my mind sky high..so many painful sad memories came to the surface..when i first did that tiny cut no way did i think i would keep on doing it, but it gave me a release, like i could now see that pain that was trapped in my head..yes i tried not to do it but once i had that thought in my head i just had to carry it through..like it was some kind of ritrual...i gave the tools away in the hope those thoughts would go..but i just went out to get some more..am now doing my best not too..the last time was last week, i now have about 14 on my left arm, 1 on my tummy & 7 on my leg..i have,nt done them on my right side of my body..because i know it sounds weird but am in control of those tools & i need my domanate hand to make sure i do keep control & not go too deep...sorry for long post but god do i feel abit better now, mine is just one story amoung thousands but everyone remember one thing were,re not alone or the only ones..we have each other & thats worth its wait in gold. x
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: molllls on April 18, 2009, 07:42:30 PM
 :trig:

i dont know if this is triggering, but i though i should put in just in case.

i am new here, and my story may sound rubbish, im sorry, if it does.

i s/h at 7, 11 &12. At the age of 2months, my dad threw me down the stairs and i watched my dad abuse my mum. At the age of 2 my mum tried to kill herself and a month later, my bestfriend died. i got put into care,for 3months, then returned home. At 5 my mum put me back into care,and soon after met my stepdad and got pregnant with my sister. I returned home. At 7everything got to much for my mum took an od and she tried to kill herself again, seeing as she has been on anti-depressants most of her life, i found her. At that point s/hing came into my life the first time, i started bitting and b**ning but stopped shortly after. At 11 my bestmate killed herself i found her covered in blood, i tried to save her but i couldnt;( i gained an ed. Then summer '08 (last year) i tried to kill myself 3times, i failed miserably each time. In october i started s/hing but cutting this time, although i stopped after i did it once. Then after a massive family row in january i started again this time, i couldnt stop. Then 3weeks ago on tuesday, i tried to kill myself and failed once more. I am still s/hing and dont know what to do anymore :(
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Awayfromthesun on May 02, 2009, 08:11:56 PM
   
 :trig:
      I can't say exactly what started it, it was just a lot of things at one time, there was a lot of stuff in my past difficult things and they just started to get on top of me. At the time I was being bullied by some people that before were my best friends, what they were saying about me made a lot of the school turn against me and I used to have people I didn't know or recognize shout abuse at me. At the same time my grandmother (the women who raised me) was very ill with a terminal illness.  I couldn't cry and I turned everything around onto myself and thats when I cut for the first time.
    There was a lot of pressure on me at school to do well, I turned out to be smart, even though my brain seemed to work in different ways than other. My teachers started to realise I could do well, my parents quickly found out and then pushed me as I had a key to a future they didn't and they could see college and then university something neither of them had managed. I got really stressed when I was 14 the cutting got worse. As I entered my GCSE years things went downhill, I had very low self esteem.  I wanted to do well for my parents as this was the only way I could see to gain self worth and so pushed myself, but  actually ended up very depressed, harming myself more and suffering terrible anxiety attacks. I had a breakdown and missed the last 6months of school only attending to take my exams which somehow I managed to pass.
       College was like a breath of fresh air for me, a new start, the first year I spend recovering from the past, by the end I was happy and had stopped harming. I stood up to my parents on results day and after achieveing A grades for A-levels they let me choose my own path for university.
     My first terms at uni was amazing. I made loads of friends and was always out clubbing or hanging out with friends. The second term started but something didn't feel right. The depression came back and an intollerable sadness with no apparent cause. I was constandly crying and had to start hurting myself again to hold myself together, my attendance dropped and I went from being the top of my year to barely passing. I  couldn't control myself and constantly was in A+E needing stitches to fix what I'd done in a moments of madness. 
      When I left halls I moved into a flat of my own, as I could see the effect my mood and behaviour had on others and didn't want to worry them.  I worked all summer and in my spare time slept or cut.
    In my second year of uni I couldn't hold it together, I took a couple of overdoses, missed weeks of lectures and no matter how much I enjoyed my course I couldn't attend them, the sadness in me was too much. At the end of december they forced me to suspend my studies until I was better, I lost my job and was too ill to work and had no money.  My social anxiety became a lot worse and I could hardly leave the flat. The only time I would leave was to go to A+E, getting everything else I needed delivered to the house.
     I'm now on benefits still living alone in my flat and rarely leaving.. Its my own fault my mood has made me isolate myself. I have been waiting for therapy on the NHS for nearly a year and hope this will help me find and deal with the cause of my depression. My birthday is coming up and that will mean its been 7 years since I started self harming and although I am not yet ready to give this method of coping up, I am keen to make sure the total never reaches 8 years.

Sunny
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: MFP451 on May 03, 2009, 01:54:30 PM
Very touching accounts above.

I just want to report that i havent SH'd since joining this site about ten days ago. The wounds i gave myself prior to joining are healing very well and i might just be able to wear something short if we have a nice summer.

Thanks all x
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: boots120 on May 03, 2009, 02:55:03 PM
 :trig:

I first started “properly” selfharming at fourteen but i had already experienced the relief it could bring, i remember on one occasion i was watching tv and my brother was in the room, and he was eating something with his mouth open. I have a thing about people eating with their mouths open but i didnt want to get annoyed at him so i pinched myself and focused on that pain rather than the annoying sound.
The reason i started self harming was because my dad left when i was six years old and it caused my mum to have a mental breakdown. My brother was off getting stoned and drunk with his friends so although i was just turning seven, i had to look after my mum. I hid her tools from her, got her into bed, helped her to get changed, helped her to go to the toilet, made sure she took her meds etc. I was only seven yet i was more of a mum to her than she was to me. I remember one time we were in the park and she started talking to someone in a tree who wasnt there. She said she was talking to jesus. Someone saw her and called an ambulance and i watched as she was strapped down to the bed in the back of the ambulance as she was going so crazy trying to hit them and get away. Then my dad came back to “help” my mum. We moved back down south and then two years later, two days before my birthday my mum found out he was having another affair. I didnt speak to him for a year. My parents got divorced and everything settled back down. Then my mum took him back. And i cant forgive him. He has never apologised properly, he wont acknowledge that he did anything wrong. When i told them about the SH he said “ive had troubles in my life but ive never self harmed, why the f*ck do you”. I wanted to scream BECAUSE I AM NOT THE KIND OF HEARTLESS SELFISH PERSON YOU ARE I DONT WANT TO MAKE EVERYONE ELSE SUFFER FOR HOW IM FEELING LIKE YOU DO.
I dont trust anyone because of him, i self harm because of what he did and what i had to deal with. Where the hell was he when i was looking after my mum? Oh yeah thats right, he was down the pub getting wasted. Yeah good role model dad.
I used to be such a “Daddy’s girl”, my dad was my hero. Not now.
He’s ruined it all and it will never be the same again. I feel like s*** because of him, im in this stupid f*****g hole because of him.

Wow i feel so angry right now. Maybe that wasnt such a good idea afterall.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: just Mel on May 04, 2009, 02:29:02 PM
 :trig:

I started to self harm when i was 14 i ant remember alot of it but i didnt get along with any of my family i never spoke to them or even looked at them i spent all day everyday in my room alone, it was hard to get away from people because there where 6 of us my two sisters, brother, mum and dad i had to share a room with my little sister and little brother so i couldnt go anywhere to get away. i got really badly bullied in school for all different reasons and the teachers never did anything no matter how bad it got, i felt trapped and alone, the only person i had was my nan but i never really spoke to her much.
i started to get angry and be the time i was 15 i had no relationship with my family and i had 1 friend who i just about got on with i didnt want to live anymore and i cut myself nearly ever night, i could stay awake all night just lying there looking at the ceilling i was to scared to sleep, terrified of being alone even tho i knew i did it to myself i could except it, i blamed everything on everyone else as far as i was concerned everyone was against me, hated me wanted me dead and i was right there with them i hated myself to the point where i couldnt look into a mirror without cutting and wanting to die.

i meet a boy a couple of months after turning 15 he was the nicest person ever and i fell for him straight away we started dating seeing each other nearly everyday i never told him my real feelings he would ask me how i was and i would smile and tell him i was fine, i think he knew i was lying half the time because he could look into my eyes for a little while and then hug me, everytime i had to fight the tears it was the hardist part about the relationship. it wasnt long before he found out im still not sure how he did and i cant really remember how but he was shocked he knew something wasnt right but didnt know it was that bad.

after that our relationship, the walls we put up to get away from the outside world crashed, he started to cut and show them to the world i didnt understand why, why he would do that to me he knew i wasnt stable yet he carried on, people started bullieing me again say i was with a freak telling me in a loser puching me i didnt know why, i just kept think why me, i couldnt cut anymore because everytime i did he would cut so it would be my thought i had to stop and i started to bottle everything in i wouldnt speak or look at anyone in the eyes i was to ashamed of myself thinking about what ive become how i used to be the smilely happy easy going girl now i was this terrified shy angry scarred girl who did know who she was or why she was alive.
its was his birthday on the 4th january he turned 18 he wanted sex i wasnt shore i was still just 15 but he kept asking i didnt want him to hurt himself so i did it, i felt used and disguessed in myself i had 4 showers a day for a week after brushed my teeth 4 times a day cut myself more then ever.
sex soon became the only thing left in our relationship if you can even call it that everytime we saw each other sex, leave, that was it i was sick i started to hate him as much as i hated myself and i didnt even know why!!
My dad hated him and me he begain hurting me every chance he got he would touch me about two weeks after startin he raped me, i cant remember alot of it where ive bloked it out so much, tried to convince myself nothing happened it made my mind fuzzy all i remember is the two little one going down stair to watch something on tv and then it happened i blanked i told him to stop but he wouldnt i could shout for help what if one of the little ones ran upstaird and sore i would of never forgiven myself .... i was trapped...

so we ran it was just me and my boyfriend gone for 3 days 3 nights my mum called the police i hurt my nan so much she didnt understand why my mum and nan where left in the dark, i became nothing i went into a panic attack i wanted to see my mum and my nan i picked up his phone, he told me if i ring home he wouldnt come and he would kill himself but i rang home within 3 hours i sore my mum and nan sitting there waiting for me both had tears in there eyes i couldnt hold everything back anymore i broke down cried in my mums arms for ages. i got in the car and my boyfriend jioned my, i looked at him confused thinking to myself i thought you was gonna kill yourself i had only just realised then who he was and what he was doing, he was playing me making me worse the day after i left him i text him to tell him it was over i still wish i told him in person but i was to scarred i didnt want to hurt anyone anymore i couldnt do it anymore.
morning after i sore him cuts all over his arms showing them to the world he watched me as i walked into school i went staight to class he sat outside still watching me the kids who bullied me sat beside me hugging me telling me it will be ok i was confused why are they being nice to more they were acting like soilders one in front, one on the left one on the right and one sitting behind, i smiled to myself thinking will everything be ok now.

mum picked me up from school i didnt want to walk home alone anymore i wanted people around, when i got home i went straight upstairs i still had to live with this monster who calls himself "dad".

mum can upstair and sat next to me then the words i was terrified of hearing came out "did your dad rape you" i was paralized i couldnt even blink. i looked into her eyes i knew how much she loved him, how much my two sisters and brother loved him so i said no i told her i lied she walked away and i broke down again the same night my big sister came up to me and said i was braking this family into shreds.

i turned 16 we moved 3 hours away mum said it would be a new start i believed her, i got my own room so i could get away from everyone i lived in my room i got a job as a waitress along with my mum in my "dads" new cafe i know..... it is the worst thing to do, but i did it for a year i never once got paid but i knew if i quit id get it again and i would be right back at the beinning again so i held my head up and carried on.
i turned 17 and got into college even with no GCSE's i started studing art and design, drawing has always been my excape from the world i passed and got onto a 2 year course.

im now 18 and 5 weeks away from finishing the two corse i got onto another one called foundation art and design which i worth 4 A levels.
i still live at home with my mum "dad" little sister and brother my big sister is and universeity she wants to work with kids like me.

i still cut and still get flash backs of it all but im more stable then ive ever been, i have accepted everything ive done wrong or right and im slowly starting to accepted the fact the i am crazy, i dont have the same views as other people, and sometimes i do want to die but i cant because if running away hurts my family i dread to think about if i killed myself.


thats my story so far, all the sick and hurtful times i wouldnt trade becasue its made me who i am today, more understanding of myself and how other people work
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Wolfie on May 15, 2009, 12:58:47 AM
The fact I self harmed is partly environmental and partly due to my personality. I have always been an isolated person. My earliest memories are of sitting in my house looking out the window at the other kids playing on the street of the council estate where I lived. I wasn't allowed to play with them as they were *too rough*. I didn't understand what the other kids said anyway, as English was my second language. I was detached from other people and lived in my own world. It didn't bother me. Being isolated and alone didn't bother me, I was very quiet and just buried myself in my books and my pets. I wasn't encouraged to socialise or make friends so I never bothered. I was aloof and detached. It only started bothering me in my pre-teen years when all the local kids turned on me as an easy target and started to hound me. I was bookish and years ahead of my peers in my reading age but not streetwise at all. So a very easy target. Being bullied probably would have done me no harm and might have toughened me up a bit and taught me to fight my own corner and stick up for myself but it didn't work out that way ... I took being bullied very personally and completely blamed myself for it. I believed that I had been chosen as a target because I was stupid and weird in some way. I blamed myself and so I didn't fight back or tell anyone I was being bullied, I just stood there and took it. This went on for about 2 years and I was so convinced I was weird that it started turning into a self-fulfilling prophesy, I found it very hard to speak, I stopped being able to make eye contact with people, I couldn't stop shaking, I constantly fidgeted, I pulled out a lot of my hair and gave myself a bald patch, I went from being one of the brightest students in the class to being the worst student in the whole class. I was acting like a nervous wreck which of course delighted my bullies and only increased their attacks. Its funny I was approached by one of my bullies a couple of years ago and she apologized for what she had done to me and was sincerely sorry and I laughed it off and told her it was ok and all water under the bridge now. Little did she know how much it effected my life but I would never let her know - I am wary of giving people information that they could use against me and anyway, it would give me no personal satisfaction to tell her, it is none of her business. I moved away from the bullies but the damage was done, I was convinced I was stupid and a weirdo and nothing could change my mind about that. All my teenage years and all during my 20s, I told myself the same old bullsh*t story over and over, I'm a weirdo, I'm stupid, I'm worthless, everyone would be better off without me. I cut myself, OD'ed, vomited, starved myself, drunk myself unconscious trying to escape from myself and from the feeling that I was utterly worthless. I tried to kill myself because I thought that everyone hated me and wanted me dead. I'm trying to stop that way of thinking now and to believe that I am normal because at the end of the day if I believe I am normal, that is what I will be.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Jessica on May 25, 2009, 11:36:13 AM
I'm really new to this and it seems like a really good idea. You're all so brave and I admire all of you. I'm only 13 but I've been doing it for nearly two years.
I was 11 when I began to think about self-harm, my great grandfather had died in January and I didn't really know him, so I took bad. I started stealing to stop myself from thinking about it. It was a stupid thing but it sort of helped. Then in November, my nan was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm very close with my nan and was terrified when I found out. I started talking to this girl about everything (she self-harmed, so I got the idea off her.) It made me feel in control of how I was feeling and what was going on around me. I self-harmed everyday for six months. I wore long t-shirts all the time to cover the marks from my mum. Eventually I stopped after my bestfriends tried it. I felt sick knowing they felt as bad as I did. This year hasn't been great so far, (my sister has been diagnosed with depression, I had to move schools, I've lost many close friends, so I'm miserable, starting my new school was very difficult as I'm very insecure) I often daydream about self-harming again. I'm not a strong person and I'm very sensitive. I've thought of suicide so many times I can't even count it on my fingers anymore. I've also tried making myself sick. I've starved myself for months. I love swimming, but I can't do it anymore as my body is full of scars that are very visible.
My story is a stupid one, my 'problems' seem like nothing. I've been trying so hard these last few months to stop myself self-harming, but like I said, I'm not strong, I don't believe in myself (I find myself really pathetic) and I have no willpower. I try everyday to make myself believe that I don't need to self-harm, I fail often. None of my family know, just a few close friends. I never tell anyone if I self-harm anymore. I still self-harm, not as often but when I start I find it very hard to stop.
I don't have any psychological problems (that I know of), my story is a stupid one of a pathetic girl, who just hates herself. I don't know if I'll ever properly stop self-harming but I'll try.
Thanks for listening,
Jessica.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Jessica on May 26, 2009, 08:31:15 PM
I'm really new to this and it seems like a really good idea. You're all so brave and I admire all of you. I'm only 13 but I've been doing it for nearly two years.
I was 11 when I began to think about self-harm, my great grandfather had died in January and I didn't really know him, so I took bad. I started stealing to stop myself from thinking about it. It was a stupid thing but it sort of helped. Then in November, my nan was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm very close with my nan and was terrified when I found out. I started talking to this girl about everything (she self-harmed, so I got the idea off her.) It made me feel in control of how I was feeling and what was going on around me. I self-harmed everyday for six months. I wore long t-shirts all the time to cover the marks from my mum. Eventually I stopped after my bestfriends tried it. I felt sick knowing they felt as bad as I did. This year hasn't been great so far, (my sister has been diagnosed with depression, I had to move schools, I've lost many close friends, so I'm miserable, starting my new school was very difficult as I'm very insecure) I often daydream about self-harming again. I'm not a strong person and I'm very sensitive. I've thought of suicide so many times I can't even count it on my fingers anymore. I've also tried making myself sick. I've starved myself for months. I love swimming, but I can't do it anymore as my body is full of scars that are very visible.
My story is a stupid one, my 'problems' seem like nothing. I've been trying so hard these last few months to stop myself self-harming, but like I said, I'm not strong, I don't believe in myself (I find myself really pathetic) and I have no willpower. I try everyday to make myself believe that I don't need to self-harm, I fail often. None of my family know, just a few close friends. I never tell anyone if I self-harm anymore. I still self-harm, not as often but when I start I find it very hard to stop.
I don't have any psychological problems (that I know of), my story is a stupid one of a pathetic girl, who just hates herself. I don't know if I'll ever properly stop self-harming but I'll try.
Thanks for listening,
Jessica.

I guess I'm not a survivor at all, I'm just a person, still struggling through it, who justs needs some support and advice.
Last SH- 25/05/09    =/
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: firefaith on May 31, 2009, 10:51:38 AM
 :trig:

Hi everyone, i am new to this forum and think this thread is an excellent one, sometimes i need to get stuff out to try to figure out, to see the patterns though sadly in my case i dont see any solutions.

my life went downhill from age 10 im 28 now. i was at boarding school that time, i was horribly bullied, remember crying all the time and feeling this emotional and physical coldness and emptiness. other stuf happened too but it is hard to bring myself to say it. my paranoia started at that age, really bad, thinking people hated me, constantly seeking reassurance and torturing myself, feeling sorry for myself, people hating a victim and the whole sorry story coming full circle and starting again.

i started si when i was 18. that was the year i finally got help for my depression and anxiety in therapy. it started mild just scratching. until a few months ago i cut deep my arms my legs my stomach and i b**ned myself. i scar really easily and literally every single scar i have has not faded or disappeared. now i hit myself mostly my legs until i bruise. i cant bear any more scars. is it better than i have moved on to a more "moderate" form of SI? Really I dont know. I dont do it because I am scared for my health or cos I want to stop altogther, i feel like others think i am crazy or will isolate me cos of my ugly scars. i went to a skin doctor and basically she cant do jack sh** for me, all this fancy technology wont help like laser esp the ones that formed keloids. i am trying to find a plastic surgeon but i relaly dont know if that will work out.

why do i si? its hard for me to sometimes figure out. when i am caged and frustrated to the point where i feel like i crawling inside my skin i hit myself hard without thinking to channel that frustration at myself. i want to wear myself out so that i dont feel it but it doesnt really work. its a distraction for like 2 seconds but it doesnt distract me from what i really feel.

when i go through a bout of bad depression, i dont think i do it as much cos i am flat and dont have the energy, i curl up and want to sleep forever.

i have a bad problem with paranoia and obsessions and ruminating over the same thing over and over. its really bad. i worry badly about everything that is to happen in the next day. sometimes the worries get so bad i hit myself hard in the end without thinking. no one understands the worry and think i ruin the fun in things and get pissed off with me and some abandon me for saying the same thing over and over which is all i can to alleviate my anxiety. sometimes i get scared and feel so alone and angry i hit myself hard without thinking. i torture myself with things that have not happened in such a sadistic way. when i have a paranoia like my good friend who i love and miss doesnt care, it hurts me so much i feel like my heart is breaking, and then it leads to a cruel fantasy in my head and i dont know why i do it. like for example i torture myself he will abandon me he will hate me and it scares me that i am emotionally dependent on him. i fantasise, if thats the word, that he doesnt ever want to see me, he makes up excuses and then sees his work mates who he seens every day. i fantasise that the girl he likes wll order him to stop talking to me if they get together. these are the things that i fear but when i think of them in my head it becomes real it is like it is happening and i cry and break down as it in reality it has ALREADY happened. these thoughts torture me and go round and round in my head till it becomes too much for a person to take and i should stop and beat my body over and over and i dont remember doing it. hitting has pretty much become my reaction to sadness, anger, paranoia, fear, rage, anxiety, frustration, feeling caged, misery which i pretty much feel every day. when i hit and i am not aware of the fact that i am doing it, it is like depersonalisation in some way and i cannot remember the details and sometimes it is good cos it distracts me and after doing it i collapse onto my bed empty like i am comatose or something. tbh i am glad i have a way other than cutting and i regret cutting cos of the scars. at the time i was completely isolated and thought whats the point.

i dont si or cut as part of an intention to end it all. i have od'ed twice before.

this is my work pc and i am paranpid they will read it but i needed to get this out cos i have been crying for an hour imagining my good friend abandoning me and getting together with that girl who clearly resents me. i cant explian the magnitude of how much he means to me. he is the only person i can open up to in real life other that posting online or phoning the samaritans. i need that support. if he leaves me, i can guarantee that i would cut badly. i fear many things but i fear this the most right now.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: jandj on June 06, 2009, 06:55:58 PM
 :trig: :trig:
I was not even 8 when my oldest brother 'shagged' me as he called it. I thought it was a special kind of hug and as no-one had ever hugged me before I like it and am ashamed of that even now. When I reached 11 I realised what was happening and was worried I'd get pregnant so I told my mum. Her response was to tell me not to make a fuss and that all girls got molested by their brothers and if I got pregnant I could live at home with her. When she died in January this year I subsequently discovered from a letter she left me that she was sexually abused by her brother and to her it was indeed normal. The abuse continued and at secondary school I was very conscious as to how wrong it was. I had several psychosomatic illnesses and mum threatened never to love me or talk to me again if I ever talked about my brother. She told me how bad it would reflect on me if I told people. My teens are a total blank of unhappiness and the abuse continued until my brother left home.
The escape route was university and I thought I was saved but then the self harming, suicide attempts, smashing things up went absolutely wild. After being in court and police trouble and dam near killing myself several times including a 2week stay on a drip in the general, I was hospitalised under the mental health act - still my mum had a hold and I didn't tell anyone then about the abuse. She told me it was shameful and I was weak and stupid as it was history and water under the bridge and I should just get on with life and she hadn't brought me up to smash things up and get arrested.
As a result of probation and medical supervision, I self harmed in secret and dressed wounds in secret and took overdoses by the bucketful and never told anyone so was quite surprised to be alive when the brain power got a degree regardless of me.
Then several years of job hopping and moving to try and escape from myself before another round of very destructive behaviour landed me back in hospital. I'd had enough of life and had resolved that by 40 I would be dead or talk about what was really bothering me. I went the being dead route but when among medics again this time I did talk to them about the abuse and my family disowned me for bringing such shame on them and it took a while for the tirades from my mum especially to die down.
Self harming then out in the open again and that was the start of talking to medics openly rather than as the enemy to be wary of in case they lock you away. Still very very hard but it is liberating to be able to talk to people about what happened. Still feel guily and shame and hate myself  - not helped by talking to the police and being told they wouldn't even interview my brother. I guess I am incensed he is wandering around consequence free but I am beginning to believe the 7 year old wasn't at fault.
I don't mind the BPD diagnosis as I can read about it and people do get better and some real inspirations on this site. I am responsive to talking talking talking but still find it very hard to initiate and there are things I still need to sort with the therapist but the mere fact I can post this here speaks volumes.
Sorry to ramble on.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Tasssshhh_x on June 12, 2009, 04:49:53 PM
 :trig:

Im 16 now and i cant really remember the age that i first self harmed, but i imagine i was probably about 10. Tbh, i cant even remember why i did it but i think it was due to a family argument. I really didnt get on with my mom and stepdad, we argued every day - morning and night, and i felt like they hated me. To begin with, after an argument i would just scratch my stomach with my nails - nothing major, and i didnt really think much of it when i was younger as i didnt really know the meaning of self harm, i just knew that scratching my stomach made me feel better.

After years of arguing and running away, i moved in with my dad and his girlfriend. I felt so much happier and i put on Y stone within the first 3 months of moving in. I guess that me being underweight was due to the stress and unhappiness of living at home with my mom and stepdad.
It didnt take long before something upset me again and i began to self harm again. Silly things would set it off, such as arguments with friends or family, and i know i havent had a terrible life and you probably think im selfish for hurting myself over silly things but i only did it because it made me feel a hell of a lot better when id done it. I continued with the scratching and soon turned to other things to hurt myself with.

After a few months of living with my dad, his girlfriend started to be really nasty to me - telling me she didnt want me there and that she never wanted me there but she just went a long with it. She used to make me believe that i was trying to make her and my dad split up cuz apparantly i wanted him all to myself. She would always be trying to get me into trouble with my dad, for example me and her would be sitting in the lounge watching tv perfectly normal and the second my dad came home from work she would start screaming at me pretending id done something wrong to try and get me in trouble with my dad.

After about a year they split up because my dad caught her being nasty to me and he had had enough of it. I was happy for a while and stopped self harming. But over the last 8 months ive been doing it again. I really dont know why i do it, but i usually do it after an argument with my boyfriend. He knows i do it and he says im doing it for the attention but im really not, it makes me feel better at the time. Obviously i dont feel better about it afterwards because i have to hide my body incase someone sees it. I just get so angry sometimes and thats when i do it when im angry not when im sad, because it feels like im taking my anger out on myself and if i didnt take it out on myself i would end up hurting someone else. Feeling the pain on the outside feels like im stopping all the pain on the inside, if that makes any sense?

I really want to stop cutting myself now because me and my boyfriend are going on holiday this year and i wont be able to wear shorts because of the cuts all over my body. I really have ruined my body and as much as i hate myself for it, i know il do it again next time i get angry.

I really need to stop because one day im going to end up cutting too deep and then il be in trouble. I dont want to kill myself although i do think i want to die alot of the time but i know i havent got the guts to go all the way. I really want to stop.


 :hlpp:

(sorry for such a long story, hope i havent bored u too much lol)

 :icon_arrow: method removed
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: elfimarie on July 15, 2009, 05:30:10 AM
I still get nervous and anxious talking about this, like I shouldn't be, so here it is, short, sweet and to the point. I'm Elfi, I've been cutting since I was 13, so for 4 1/2 years now, and I honestly have no idea if I'll ever stop.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Rutter on August 15, 2009, 10:10:08 PM
 :trig: :trig:

i first sh when i was 13... i was sa by a stranger, he held a tool to my stomach and cut me, i found the pain of picking the cut made me feel better so i would often scratch myself a few months later my granddad died... after this i started cutting myself... i suffered with flashbacks, nightmares and paranoia and the bullying at school gradually got worse and i would cut myself more and more and i started to take pills and drink anything that i could get my hands on... eventually one of my friends told my form tutor that i sh and he got the school mentor to talk to me... i told her about the sa (she said that everything i told her would be kept a secret but did not tell me about the child protection thing) so she had to tell my mom... this made me cut my wrists and try to kill myself but i just passed out from the pills... after that the sh stopped for a while but i came out as bi-sexual the bullying got unbearable and at one point i was punched by a girl in my school... i did not sh much for about half a year until things with my girlfriend started to go down hill and we were on off for a while... recently the sh is at an all time high... doing it multiple times a day and do not sleep well... i still suffer with flashbacks, nightmares and paranoia and hoping that one day it will all be ok but i am currently on my own because the only person i can talk to (my girlfriend) has gone away and i feel so isolated...
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: kazza05 on August 19, 2009, 01:09:53 PM
 :trig:

i started sh when i was about 10, my parents thought nothing of it. i sh'ed because i got bullied very badly, i had rocks thrown at me when i walked home, pushed down stairs at school, had my head smashed into a brick wall nearly everyday. i tryed telling teachers but they did nothing but make the situation worse. i started cutting to get rid of anger (i have ADD). i told ma mum about the bulling and the SH but she did nothing. when i got to senior school the bulling got worse, i was pushed down flights of stairs after every lesson. i started to skip lessons because i had things thrown at me during lessons. i ended up in big trouble at school and was in fights every day.

the bulling got to much for me and i tryed to top myself. unfortunatly im that fat that i didnt take enough pills so i woke up the next day. i started cutting even more, deeper and more often. i then tryed 2 hang maself but ma mum walked in on me. she told me to stop being stupid. my own mum didnt believe me.

i gave up on life and everything i enjoyed doing. i stopped goin to school and hung around up town all day getting into trouble, i didnt go home when i was meant to and i stayed out past curfew every night.

i ran away from home nearly everyday and still my mum and dad just said i was attention seeking.

i still SH n im 16 now. i see a counsillar now and im on anti-depressents. i now make myself sick everyday atleast 3 times a day. i only eat 1 meal a day if ive been good, and i still cut. i cant stand my life and regually try to OD, im very close to being sectioned for 'my own safety' i cant stand anything any more. i dont see the point of life anymore.

my mates n counsillar are tryin 2 tell me i hav an eating problem but i dont. its not a problem its a solution. i cant hav an eating problem cause im so fat. ive got enough fat on me to last me years of not eating. ive shrunk ma stomach to the stage where if i even eat a few grapes i end up in agony. i dont care tho. im losing weight.

sorry 4 rambling
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Sophie-marie on August 23, 2009, 03:57:32 PM
 :help: hi I'm Sophie-marie I'm 12 and i have a problem self harming! i find it difficult to talk to people! some of my family don't know about it! but unfortunately my mum does!  :doh:

my child life hasn't been great my sooo called farther blew it with mum when i was 6!
he was so cruel he wouldn't let us out of the house! except when ever she went work! she met someone at work who she began to like i guess she used him as an escape route from my dad! she broke up with dad then lived with this guy!?!?!?
he was great the 1st year but time changed when him and mum brought a house together and proposed! shortly after he told her he was seeing the Blondie from over the road! from then on everything flipped!!!! :trig:  :help:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: denial_priest on September 12, 2009, 12:49:30 PM
I dont know why. I get this choking feeling as if i don't have enough air, like im empty inside and I do it then.. Im really happy though (kind of) becasue i havnt in ages. There was a time a few days ago when I got so scared of loosing everything but i didnt and now i know how strong i can be it gives me hope and faith for the future. I feel that I have expierienced the things life will throw at me and even though I know il have to suffer them again and maybe worse I feel like I have my survival through these last few years to lean on. 

I have survived and though its been close I know that means something. I remember the little face of the person I love and I couldn't make them cry.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Zezeri on September 14, 2009, 10:17:51 PM
 :trig: I'm not sure about this but here it goes.

i started when i was 11. i just started high school and i hadn't done well in my exams, it sounds so stupid now, but i thought that my mum was disappointed in me. It hurt seeing that in her eyes. I blamed myself, I'm stupid and thick and not worth it. That night i took a tool and cut my arm. i felt better seeing the blood, it didn't hurt as much i thought it would. i just felt better, released. after that whenever it got too much i did the same thing. i would get incredibly irritable, the slightest thing would throw me. i would carve into myself.
Now i  realise that it was around the time of exams. i suffer from severe anxiety and I'm prone to panic attacks.

A major trigger for me has always been my father. he has never been around, he's in the armed forces. when he came home he was grumpy and i couldn't do anything right. i couldn't express emotion or my opinion. my mum works long hours constantly at the hospital. i felt and still feel lonely and isolated. academically i flourished in high school, socially i shrank. i had little friends that stuck by me. when i was 13 i started going out with a guy, it started out okay but he pressured me into advancing it. He made me sleep with him two months into it and then didn't leave my side at school. i lost all but 2 friends. every week he would make me pleasure him. i finally managed to end it when i was just started year 11. by then i was addicted to the relief i got from cutting. i was getting very sick but i didn't really know that at that time. the Christmas of year 11 came and everything came to a head. my head of year found out about my SH and was trying to help me, he told my parents and they took it badly. they accused me of being selfish and stupid. i was also diagnosed with diabetes. i was scared and angry. it may sound odd but i felt violated. i still do now- everyone asks me my blood glucose and it bugs me. i was good though i didn't cut.

i was cut free until recently. my parents have never really been happy. about a month ago they started yelling at eachother. i shouldn't have listened but i did. what i heard hurt me more than i care to admit. they blame me. they have said it to my face and behind my back that it was when i was diagnosed that things started to go bad, and it was them finding out about my SH that just made it worse. my dad is angry at me for not sending him emails and letters when hes at sea. i annoy my mum all the time. if i ask for something for college, she says i don't need it because it doesn't matter. she yells and screams at me when i have a panic attack and my dads worse.

i have tried so hard but i just can't stop it. in the past month i have SH 3 times. it is this that has lead me here.
if someone could help me, want to talk with me or something. share experiences etc. i would be grateful.
sorry it's so long
xx

 :icon_arrow: edit for name of tool
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: millie on September 18, 2009, 09:35:58 PM
 :trig:

I'm not entirely sure when I started SH... I know that I developed trichotillomania (hair-pulling) around the age of 7, I think because people used to say this thing about if an eylash falls out, you can make a wish on it and blow it away.  I was so scared as a kid, my mum has major MH problems, and has been in and out of psych units, and used to OD alot, and was always shouting and screaming at me and the rest of the family, and I was so scared, and I just wanted everything to be normal, so I started pulling out my eyelashes, in clumps, so I could make wish after wish that things woiuld get better.  I still do it, though not as bad as I used to, I just wish my eyebrows were less patchy (I moved onto them and then my fringe as I literally ran out of eyelashes).  I'm lucky really, they do grow back when I let them, and I only really pull now when I'm really stressed, or drunk.

I'm not sure when I started doing other stuff.  I can remember hitting myself with stuff when I lived at my parents old house, which we left when I was 12, I used to hide in the garage when mum was in a rage, and get so frustrated and angry and couldn't think what to do, so I'd hurt myself to give me something else to focus on.

I think I was probably around 14/15 when I first cut myself, only scratches at first, but more as I got older and stuff got worse at home.  Eventually I tried to take an overdose, when I was about 16/17, it was around Christmas, I'd had a massive fight with my mum and I'd just had enough, I couldn't see any way out.  Fortunately, my cousin walked in as I was doing it.  I don't think she ever realised what she interrupted, but I stopped and went and did something else, and got rid of all the stuff I'd got together later on, which I was proud of myself for doing, I still felt rubbish, but I guess she showed me I could still have fun (we were having a family party).

I saw an educational psychologist when I was in year 7 of secondart school, so around 11/12, and we had several family therapy sessions, and I still feel resentful that nobody picked up on how completely messed up I was.  Still, I managed to get to uni, and things got worse at home, but I was living away by now so I was kind of out of it, though I used to get horrendous phone calls from mum.  She was really bad towards the end of my second year, and I went and spoke to my personal supervisor at uni, she was a life-saver, literally, she was the first person to pick up that I was completely at the end of my tether and very close to seriously harming myself, though I never admitted my own SH to her.  She got me an emergency appointment with a counsellor at uni, and I then had weekly sessions with her until I finished uni.  During my fourth year, when my mum was taking significant OD's every week, ending up almost everytime on ICU on a ventilator, or on HDU or the cardiac unit (she took some scary stuff) my supervisor came to the rescue again and got another lecturer she knew, who was a mental health nurse and trained psychotherapist, to see me the same day I went and pretty much cracked up in her room.  He, the MH guy, was great, he got me through my final year, I would've dropped out without him seeing me at least once a week, and sometimes two or three, and he gave me his mobile number, so I always had someone to turn to.  Might not sound very healthy, but I think he saw in me alot of himself, from things he told me towards the end.

I graduated, started working, bumbled along, all the time from being in uni, I'd been hurting myself, but only intermittently, and usually only near exams, which were a stress too far really.  Work was OK, and I kept going, until I moved to a different department.  The occupational health suggested I have some therapy, which they'd refer me for, but I was too scared, until my boss placed me for a month working with people who SH, which I just couldn't cope with.  The people all wanted to talk to me and it messed my head totally, I can do it when I'm strong enough, and in control, like on here, but at work, I was just expected to listen to all this stuff and not be affected by it. Occ health went mad when I told them, and banned me from ever working in that particular place again (though I could stay in my proper job) and I agreed to therapy, which was absolutely the best thing I ever did.  I really struggled to start with, going over so much old stuff, and current stuff, and I hurt myself more than I ever had up til then, but eventually it got better, apart from a blip when I was assaulted by a colleague whilst at work and got absolutely no support from them whatsoever.  I hurt myself at that time the most ever, but my therapist got me through it.  I finished almost exactly a year ago at therapy, and haven't really looked back.  I still have trichotillomania, but it's much better than it was, and I am getting stronger all the time, and I still cut, but, again, only occassionally, and only a small amount when I do, which I'm really proud of.  I saw my therpist a few weeks ago for a one off appointment, as I was struggling with my mother again, but that one session really helped, and I know I can go back any time I need to, which helps because then I know I always have a safety net to fall onto, if that makes sense?

Anyway, I'll stop waffling now.  I have to say, I feel so liberated for writing all this, even if it never gets read, it feels like I've taken some stuff off my chest (have a new job starting in a month and been a bit stressed!!)

Millie  xxx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: black_wing1987 on September 19, 2009, 08:30:19 PM
My story began back when I was 14, I am 21 now and finally ready to face everything. :trig:

First time I ever harmed was after school one day, now I was always the odd one out, never really fitting in. After so many years of being bullied by everyone else, and feeling alone and isolated at home. As the youngest of 3 with a demanding older brother and an eldest brother not being around so much, and the other either playing my parents off one another or spending his spare time beating me up because he thought thats what he was supposed to do.

So to cut a long story short, I was subject to allsorts of physical and mental abuse which went on for many years, then was subject to six weeks of SA, at the hands of one of the school bullies, not to mention my first "boyfriend" at 14. That day, I took the first thing i could get, locked myself away and systematicly cut myself.

This happened frequently until I was 16 and my next partner (who I was with for 5 years) and he had emotionally blackmailed me, telling me that he was going to abandon me if I did hurt myself. Finding other, more subtle ways to harm, I got through that when it became abusive too. Finally breaking free last October.

I soon started having regressions. Rather than being safe in my own bed, I was back there, in all those situations. Then the other day, when things finally got on top of me, I cut myself deeply and severely, not intending to harm myself, but just to get out of all the pain again.

After a trip to hospital and stitches, I got reffered on to the psych team and now I'm scared of what may happen again.

Sorry if this has upset anyone in any way

Wendy
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Wolfie on November 09, 2009, 11:48:10 PM
This is the third time I've posted on this thread!  ::)

I did not self harm during my childhood. It was only when I hit 13 that the trouble started. I had been bullied in school between the ages of 10 until 12. Which is pretty common. What really started the trouble was not the bullying itself, but my attitude to the bullying. I blamed myself 100% for the bullying. I told myself that I deserved it because I was so stupid and weird. The more I told myself that I was stupid and weird, the more my personality and confidence got eroded away. The only friend I had, died when I was 12 which didn't help. Eventually, by the age of 13, all this self-criticism had taken its toll. I'd lost most my social skills - I found it difficult to make eye contact or speak to people, I was very nervous and I was pulling my hair out until I had a bald patch on my head and I also had developed an eating disorder. I managed all the way thro' school, just struggled on, keeping quiet and keeping my head down and keeping out of everyone's way. It wasn't until I was 27 years old that things just blew up in my face. For the first time in my life, I felt suicidal. It was a combination of things - my brother had cancer, I was not coping at work and was at risk of losing my job and I was out of a relationship with a man who I had dearly loved. Those 3 things just were too much to bear all at the same time. I blamed myself 100% for everything, I told myself that I was a nuisance and that everyone would be better off it I was dead. I tried to kill myself that year and it was after that suicide attempt that I started to self harm. There was no purpose to the self harming, it was more that I was feeling very confused and didn't know how to change things for the better. I then wasted 3 years of my life in and out of the psychiatric hospital for this, that and the other before I saw sense and just stopped blaming myself for everything and just got on with living my life.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Sono_Impaurito on November 10, 2009, 03:31:48 AM
 :trig:
I guess if you ever met me, you;d think am happy-go-lucky, a bit kooky, a dork and a bit weird. And to be honest, that is exactly what I'm like. I don't mind, if anything am quite happy with being described as that. You'd never guess that I SI.

My first time, I don't really remember, but it was around the age of 14.  Growing up was hard for me. My parents acted as though I didn't really matter always doting over my younger sister. If I ever did anything, she always did it better, even though she never. I couldn't do anything right by them and this was drummed into me. I got 8 GCSE's at grade C and above  and all I can hear is my father saying "You could have done better," and my mum nodding saying I was disgrace. I remember my sister going completely off the rails and all she got was a slap on the wrists I got caught truanting from school, once, and I was grounded for a month, amongst other things. The mental abuse continued all through my teen years until I managed to break away when I was 18 and went to University. But when you're young, you take everything to heart your parents say

During those teenage years I guess I sank further and further into what I best describe as a cocoon. Believing more and more that I was nothing short of a loser. I kept up with school work only as it was one less thing to get moaned at about Never telling anyone how I felt and keeping myself to myself even at school. I had a few friends but none that I would call close friends. That's how it started. Angry at myself for being this pathetic loser who couldn't do anything right believing I was quite literally nothing.  Having no outlet to vent those feelings, desperate to feel something. Little cuts at first, then progressing. People did see the scars and with not saying anything about them it just reinforced everything that I thought about myself.

It was while I was at University I met a girl who I got on with, was into the same things as me This girl has since become my best friend, my closest friend.  When she noticed the scars, she sat me down and let me talk, she didn't push or criticise just listened.  She helped me to get a therapist or 3 as the first 2 didn't really deal with it that well and the third helped a bit, giving me all the different way I could re focus all that anger towards myself that I felt towards the true culprits. I thought I had mananged to put it all behind me and at last start to live. Yeah, right!

Just after finishing Uni I met a girl who I fell madly in love with. Not to long after we started to live together she started to act the same as my parents had. Belittling me, saying how useless I was when I was holding down a full time job and looking after the house. I gave her everything I could, yet it was never ever enough for her. I even gave up a good job, just so we could get a house rather than live in a flat.  The vicious circle completed again. I doubt I'll ever know if she noticed. Then she left me for another guy. That was it everything just went into a nose dive. I just thought whats the point. My friend caught me just in time.

That was 5 years ago. I'm 35 now and I still SI, the last time was 4 weeks ago. Bad day at work.  I guess it's something I have to learn to live with and to try to control the best I can. I have a good thrapist. Everyday is a struggle to resist but I feel like am getting there at last, a little late, and I'm gaining control of my life. I am now with with my friend, as in bf/gf, and she just lets me talk if I have to, encourages me to if I can't. and if am a little stressed and don't want to talk she just makes me a coffee and cuddles up as close as she can. Her way of reminding of something. I am not alone.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: LeftBehind on November 17, 2009, 10:14:53 PM
Helloo :] I'm Tee & I'm 14.

The first time I ever remember selfharming was actually a full year ago, last november. I remember it like it was yesterday..
I had my cousin who is my age and my then best-friend over. My mother had left to have a date with some guy and told me to do jobs/chores while she was gone [hoover, mop & wash dishes]. My phone kept ringing and it was her but everytime I answered I heard nothing.. In the end I sent her a simple text saying 'Can you stop ringing me please? x'. About 20 mins later she came home and shouted at me, telling me how it was her money that paid for the phone and how she could ring me if she liked [and went on to tell me something was wrong with her phone thats why she kept ringing, it wasnt actually her and how she had told me to ignore the calls.] and  ended slapping me a few times.. At the time I was really shocked.. I only asked her to stop because I didn't know if it was serious or not and I didn't want to ignore it and get into trouble.. After she left back out I ran to my room and started crying and crying so hard.. and I balled my fist up, curled my other hand around the balled up first and dug my nails into the back of my hand. And thats how it started. I suppose I've always found ways of hurting myself [punching things and suchlike] when my mother used to upset & hit me but this is how it really started.. The pain peircing my skin with my nails brought was beautiful.. and I craved more.. Everytime she shouted at me.. Or called me a name.. Or upset me in anyway.. I'd go back to it.. The first time I actually cut I do believe was some time in this year Janurary.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Frankie89 on December 08, 2009, 10:50:28 PM
 :trig:

Having read some of other people's stories in this thread, it is quite comforting to know that I'm not alone.  Hugs to everyone :hug2:

I can't remember exactly the first time I SH.  I think I vaguely remember when I was about 10, whenever I got annoyed I would hold onto a hot radiator for as long as possible, but it never left a mark, and like it say it was only a vague memory so I think I think I was about 12 when I really started to SH.  I was getting bullied at school, nothing too major but enough to completely knock my confidence.  I used to be a very happy child, but when I went to secondary school I was one of the brighter kids in my class, but not a genius by any means.  I used to be called a boff (a term I hated at the time), people would chuck my school books around and people would laugh if I got a question wrong in class etc.  Like I say, nothing major but when it happens everyday it can definately affect you, especially when you are just about to hit your teens.  That I could cope with though, as much as it upset me, because I had a group of good friends.  But when my friends started to bully me it really started to affect.  People who I was best friends with deserted me for someone else and would leave me out.  Again, this sounds so petty now but it hurt at the time.  They would tease me, again saying I was boring, lazy etc.  They said they didn't want to walk home from school with me.  I tried to tell them how much it hurt me but they literally laughed in my face and told me to stop being such a drama queen.  Then I think the final nail in the coffin was when I confided in a friend how upset I was at their behaviour and she completely twisted my words and told the people I was refering to about it.  Since that point I have struggled to talk about feelings and I learnt to put on a mask.
It wasn't only the bullying which made me start to SH.  I felt as though I had to succeed...I am sure a lot of that was imagined but nevertheless.  As I was the good girl of the family and the one predicted As etc I felt I had to constantly live up to the those standards.  I have always been a bit of a perfectionist which makes it worse.  Like, if I am hand writing something and I make a mistake, I rip out the page and start again.
I can't really remember the order of events, but it was around that time that I started to SH.  It was my way of expressing how I was feeling.  Seeing as I couldn't talk to anyone, I could externalise my thoughts as such.  This continued for a couple of years and no one ever found out.  There were other bullying incidents at school and my confidence was at an all time low.  When I look back now I think I had depression.  I had stopped for a while but I then found out a couple of my friends had been self-harming, which triggered me again.  I spoke to them...ironically they were the same people who had caused me to start in the first place.  As much as I hate to use the word cause - I no longer blame them, they were young and didn't know what they were doing and we are actually very good friends now, although they still don't know the real reason why I self-harmed.  During this 'second-bout' my mum found out.  That moment still haunts me.  We both cried a lot, but I lied and told her it had just been the one time.  We never talked about it again, apart from one time we had an arguement and she said 'God knows what you are going to go and do to yourself now.'  Which massively upset me.  After my mum found out I was too scared to SH, I did it a couple of times in hidden areas but I didn't want to disappoint her or worse for everyone to find out and I would be sent to see someone.
I was fine for a while.  I guess I was still in a low place but coping ok.
Then when I went to Uni, I had a case of unrequited love. Sounds ridiculously soppy, but it was killing me inside, even worse that he liked my best mate.  That triggered me again and fell into deep depression, worse than before.  Again, I would put on a mask cos I was an expert at that by this point, but I didn't want to see anyone, couldn't be bothered to do anything.  Then I had the stress of hiding cuts.  I told 2 uni friends (Neither of whom I am friends with now, so I can't talk to them).  They were both supportive but I felt like such a burden on them.
Since then, it hasn't been as bad but every now and then I get the urge.  Especially if I have been drinking or if I am feeling under a lot of pressure.  The thing is I want to talk to someone but I don't know how to.

wow...that was theraputic...apologies for rambling.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: louise_09 on December 18, 2009, 12:36:23 PM
incase  :trig:

im 18, started self harmin in small ways when i was 12, like pullin hair, scratchin cuz was bullied and my dad was abusive then when i was 13 i was raped by someone i knew, i then cut after that wanted him out, since then cutiin feels like a realise and only thing i cud control was self harming. i self harmed up untill around 18, then i realised i was addicted 2 it and i was no longer in control so want to try and stop, i got support of ppl around me, every time i wanted 2 i wud suuround myself with people so i didnt, often had strong urges and gave in to it once but i stopped self harming for 8 months and  i was starting to see glipse of hope, however a few weeks ago everything fallin apart in my life so again i turned 2 sh as got no one for support anymore and i need the realise
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: jimmy on December 28, 2009, 08:28:24 PM
Hi i got through alot this year (not that i expect next year to be diffrent) but im proud i got through it as well as i did, i wont go into all the details as ive posted alot before. but ive been engaged, had my partners phyciatrist lied to by friends so her meds where stopped till she left and we now have to meet in secret (well until she got sectioned from ODing an for bolimea.... now its much harder) i went through sme very scary voilent situations in spain, and the basic end result of all this was me being diagnosed as bipolar (i also get alot of flashbacks) i have very heavy parinoia now too which strains my relationship atm...last time i SH  was yesterdy but it was the first time in a while and it was over smthing that never actually happened and it was just me worrying over nothing. hopefully by new year ill be in a home for a while to sort things out. i know dosent sound that great a situation but trust me compared to before im doing very well...oh and any1 on here suffering with biolar ive found i can SOMTIMES force myself into a up state from a own state with constant fast music...of course dosent always work an when it does once music stops so does up mood (frankly im at the stage of being addicted to great high moments) the only other thing that works for me is calling my partner, seeing as shes in a home atm what ive done  is record her voice when we talk so i can play it back when im low...i only mention this as i assume some of you may have simlar situations.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: lyssie on January 20, 2010, 08:04:20 PM
Hiya,
 :trig:
I first self harmed by cutting when I was 16 and at school. I was pretty much badly bullied all of my education life mainly because of my "aperance"? they'd rip my hair out, throw food at me, call me skeleton (because I was a slim kid and had scoliosis), gorilla, monkey, and this was pretty much mainly  because I had a "UNIBROW" was the main thing they used to call me actually. So yeah I was miserable. One morning I was woken up my mum as usual and every single day dreaded stepping out of that door and going to that horrendous school. By this time I was seeing a psychiatrist because of the voices and OCD. On a spur of the moment idea thing I saw a tool and wondered for a second. Didn't think closed the door and took a small swipe at my skin. Nothing came up. Not even a scratch. "Alyssa, you're late we're leaving" mum souts. *maybe self harm isn't my "thing"* I thought and sliped the tool into my large blazer pockets without a second thought. We had Science double period that morning. Was laughing and joking with the girls. Just as normal but something started to itch. My wrist, and by this time I'd for a split second forgot about my this morning's "thought" and took a scratch at my wrist which I thought was being irritated by my jumper. Took a look and a scratch was there, a little blood because I had scratched it a bit too. And from that moment when I'd realised that it "worked" I thought, hmm sort of thing. Went to the girls bathroom and that's when my self harm realy started and kicked in, it felt so damn good and it was something to focus on other than the poo that went on at school. It only took 2 days for everyone like my mum and sisters to find out and I had to go to A&E was admitted to a general ward at my local hospital for the night until I could see my psychiatrist... That's how it all started really and carried on. So yeah... meh!

Stay safe peeps, love Lyssie xx

 :icon_arrow: edited for name of tool
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: lonelysoul on January 23, 2010, 02:40:57 AM
 :trig:
im 19 now and i started sh when i was about 13. it started when my mum died. i was really close to her and i have one big question i still have that i wanted to ask her. it began with self harm on my wrist. they were not really noticeable. my dad started to drink and was unable to look afrer me or my siblings so when i was 14 we were taken into care. i was by myself. i became really lonely. my foster parents started to put pressure on me to do well in my exans and i became stressed. i started to get blamed fro everything even things that did not involve me and my foster mum repeteadly told me that she would be happyer if i was dead. she also told me that i would never get into college that i could never get a job that i would proberly end up in prison. this makes me sound like a total rebbel but i am not. i am really quiet so none of this made sence to me. at this time my sh had calmed down but when i said i would do some babysting fro my foster mums brother things got really bad. he started to abuse my. i was really scared this went on fro almost 2 years. i was thrown out of my house when my forster mum found out (she read my diary and also mocked me for saying that i missed my oun mum) and i pressed charges agains her brother but it was dismissed.

i moved again and this is when things starded to get worse for me. my new forstter mum was nice at first but she banned me feom seeing my sisters because she had falled out with their foster mum. i spoke to my social worker but she did nothing and this went on fro about 8 months. it hurt me not to see them i missed them. i las so lonely. this is when i began to cut myself deeply. i fainted a couple of times on my bedroom floor but never went to a and e. i was spiraling out of controll. i was getting behind and i was thinking suicudal thorts so mutch, i did not want to be alive any more and 2 years ago i took an overdose in college. within 2 days i had taken a large OD of pills but i felt fime. i could not even kill myself right. then one day i had had enough and walked out of my lesson. i needed to get it off my chest and i told my college tutor everything that was going. the od the sh and she he;ped me a lot she was there if i needed someone to talk to. she even phoned me in the summer to see if i was ok. from then thinhgs got a bit better. after failing my frist exam attempt i was given an assessment that showed that i was dyslexic. the college was surprised that i was not diagnesd when i was yunger. i got more suppott from college and i passed my exam and my college coses.

i mooved again when i was 18 into a supotted house. i live with another lady who is very nice and is helping me a lot. although i am happy i still cut regulaly and small things can bring back bad memores. i have social anxity disorder which means i find it hard to interact with people especialy face to face or on the pnine. (i went for an assessment for autism and they told me that if i had autism i have grown to adapt to my surroungings and nolonger fit the criteria so he told me i have social anxities) which means i have no friends and i feel lonely a lot of the time.

i have got a job now and i work with adults with learning difficulties and i enjoy it but the other day one of my collegues whent missing and i was really worried and i am worried her behaviou is triggering mine. i have been really withdrawn at work this week)

so there you go, not that intresing but it is good to get of my chest

 :icon_arrow: edited for names of tools/amounts
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: happy girl on January 23, 2010, 02:47:11 AM
I feel really humbled by your stories, hope your all ok  xx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: kirsty on January 29, 2010, 05:16:39 PM
 have read other people's stories and thought that i would share mine. Its a bit muddled but here goes...
I started sh when i was 14 (am 24 now) after my parents split up. It started one day after a big row with my siter over something really small, but it felt like something that would help. I only used to sh once or twice a month, wheni found things really difficult, but it quicky got worse and i ended up dong it most days and usally ending up in hospital or at docs. After it got noticedat school, i got sent to the coucellor, who then referred me to YC (young people's centre) where i saw a psychiatrist ad was put on meds, which i stayed on for 5 years.When i turned 18, i got referred to the adult mh centre, and found real help with a therapist there. Aftr seeing him for 3 years, i finally saw a future without sh. I had not sh for about a year and a half until a few days ago,when i felt overwhelmed with everything. I really dont want to go back to the way i was, as i have a great job and a lovey fiancee and family. I just wanted to share my story as it is possible to live without sh, most of the time for the past year and half i had not even thought about it.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: amysole on February 03, 2010, 04:53:31 PM
 :trig:

Hi peeps! Quick outline for you. Not much detail as i'm still trying to remember things myself.

I started SH when I was 14/15 (now 26). I remember very little from my childhood. It's like a locked door every time I try to remember anything that might help to explain why I SH. I was sexually assaulted when I was 15 and the SH began in earnest. I was told I was manipulative, attention seeking or possessed by the very people who were in a position to help me.

When I was 17 I got into a relationship that was abusive emotionally, sexually and physically. I finally got the courage to break away after 2 years and numerous visits to a&e. I began to slowly piece my life back together and the SH decreased dramatically.

Then 2 years ago I had another relationship that followed a similar pattern to the first. This time I involved the police and I have had no further contact. However, I was working 60 hours a week, a voluntary job 4 hours a week minimum on top of the stress I was already experiencing. This eventually lead to further admissions to a&e on almost a weekly basis until I gave in and allowed my GP to sign me off work last April.

I haven't worked since. I was made redundant in October and have been on ESA since. I am now living with my new partner who is amazingly supportive, I'm on regular medication for anxiety and depression and on the waiting list for psychotherapy. I still SH and have difficulties with nightmares and flashbacks. And I still have a big black hole that should be my childhood that terrifies me.

Sorry if its a bit vague and rambly.

Take care guys!
 :hug1:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: steve h on February 10, 2010, 09:34:33 PM
Hi I'm 20 and thought I might as well sign up to tell my story after lurking for so long.  :trig:

I started self harm when I was 13. My Mum and Dad used to hit me because I was always bad (since I was about 4 as far as I could remember). I realised I needed to toughen up when I was about 5 so just learnt to grit my teeth and started taking it out on others (yes I became a bully). When I was 11 I knew that I couldn't mess my high school up or I would never be able to move away from every thing. So just built every thing up inside for about 2 years when I first starting b**ning myself and thinking of diffrent ways of suicide that were 100%. My Mum was diagnosed with Depression which put more pressure on me (basically I became a adult over night). Nobody ever knew or found out about my SH. I'm dyslexic and found school very stressfull and just separated myself from every one so I didn't hurt them to. But my older brother (is 3 years older than me) would always find it fun annoying me and making my life worse. Due to sharing the same small bedroom for so long I just hated him and had stabbed him once and had thrown knifes at him to.

When I was 15 (still no friends) I just hated every one but stayed quiet so no one talked to me but this gave me a chance to get my GCSEs done. Which I successfully did only to find out they were a waste of time. I went to collage but had stopped SH.

Then finely I moved to Liverpool away from every one. I was happy for about 2 years doing a good apprenticeship until a uncle who lived up the road from me died (I had only ever talked to him about things over a pint) But only ever got to speak to him a bit because he worked away. Then about 1 month later I had a bike crash. I ended up under a car and the bike I had finished 1 week be for after a respray and had almost worked on it 1 year (my only thing I have ever managed to love) destroyed and taken away. When I went to Hospital, after hearing the paramedics saying I was a possible fatality the nurses phoned my Mum and Dad. By the time I managed to phone them up to say don't bother coming to the hospital they were already about 50-60 miles from home so only about 10 miles left  :( . It turned out that my dad was sympathetic and Mum turned the entire situation towards her and that's it. She was all ME, ME, ME  :banghead: made me feel like SH** and when every one left me  I started SH again.Then all the paperwork and stress after was so difficult to cope with I found it hard.

I don't even know what I'm thinking any more. Today I collapsed in collage and was sent to hospital. I was asked loads of questions but wasn't sure bout how to answer ( I collapsed/blacked out and hit my head on a load of bricks) so acted even more confused until they let me go and didn't ask me about the scars and marks. I wrote most of this, this morning and this second half really pis*** so don't expect much  :doh: might finish this off properly soon ?
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: irish_dancing94 on February 28, 2010, 03:55:26 AM

 :trig: started shing when i was 14, i just started out scratching my arms and it felt really good and made me feel less stressed (have a LOT of family issues, ie abuse [emotional and physical], etc ). it soon wasn't enough to just scratch and i wanted more, so i did worse scratches, and then again i needed something more.

i suppose it really started when i accidently cut myself shaving, which is strange so i've been told by a friend (also a sh-er), but i suppose everyone has their diff ways. firstly i was scared of what i was doing, scared of getting infected, diseases etc, but then as it got worse i just didn't care, it made me feel better, so it felt worth it. I didnt realise what i was getting myself into, i'd become so dependent on it it scared me.
i went through a rough patch where i sh-ed almost every night, and i felt bad for it, and i was scared people were going to find out, and then think i was attention seeking, when in reality i didn't want anyone to know at all.
i haven't told a gp, support line, anything except here. i once spoke to an online councellor on childline who wasn't very helpful and was more interested into moving onto the person person because there was 'people online waiting to speak', i just felt alone.
things have gotten worse in my family recently, and at new years it reached its peak.
30th december 2009, i got home after a massive row with family and a very emotional time, i cut hard, it was almost uncontrollble, and my tool was a lot sharper than my usuals, so i forgot and cut so deep i was so terrified, and i went into shock.
thats when my mum realised for sure that i sh-ed, because i had to tell  her there and then (even though i made up a story of how it happened) but she rang her friend whos a nurse and she told us what to do and then patched me up the next day, saying 'it's not quite to the bone', which scared me, because when i did it i was crying so much it was almost out of control.

after that,  mum told everyone and anyone that i cut, including tell my dad to 'hide all the tools and tool, she's suicidal' which scared him alot.
i've moved in at dads because he was more understanding, although, he thinks it was a one off, but mum knows its more longterm, but shes confused me because she says 'i know, i've seen marks before' but she didn't do anything, so now im judged whenever we go to see family, etc and i dont know who to talk to normally and who to avoid and it really hurts me, she told my grandma too, who'sthe last person i wanted to know, i love her so much :(
but ive been at dads since it happened, so two months and things are SO bad, everythings got worse and i'm not a confident chatty young girl anymore, i'm withdrawn and its affecting my school work, and i have gcses very soon, so its bad.
i haven't cut since 30th dec 2009, but i keep getting really bad moments where i almost do, or it'll just cut the top layer of skin and i'll somehow stop.
it's scary but it's like at the moments where i want to cut most atm, there's something stopping me from doing it, i promised mum, dad and dads gf (had similar experiences) that i wouldnt do it anymore because they made me, even though i explained its not that hard, but they dont get it.
i feel so detatched and im worried because things are so bad atm i dont want to ruin it all.
but i duno what to do about anything!
dad and his gf broke up and she was my rock, the one person i needed and she's left :(
i had a blood test 2 days ago and its really freaked me out, even though they didnt find out i sh-ed, but it was scary because (i'm going to sound mad) but i'd  got it in my head that nothing was going to deliberately hurt me(including myself) and thiswas helping me to stop sh-ing and now that somebody deliberatly made me bleed and took my blood its gone all weird, ahh idk :(
and also, im so obsessed with self preservation, my ocd is out of hand, i dont know what to do with myself.
i'm also getting my urge to drink more back, and depression etc, but im too scared im bother the doctors cus im there for back problems atm, and im only15!! so silly.

sorry this has turned into a rant about my life, but it's .. kind of helped, i don't know really, so much missing, but quite a bit down, so thereeee you go xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: sweetsilence on March 05, 2010, 05:10:49 PM
Here goes.

 :trig:

The first time I can remember SH was when I was 16. I had a massive argument with my mum and ran up to my bedroom, sat behind the door and grabbed the first sharp thing that came to hand and started to scratch my wrist. The argument blew over, and I thought nothing more of. Didn't hurt myself deliberately for the next two years, even though I was failing school and f***ing up my future.

I managed to get into university and so off I trotted when I was 18, expecting a world of fun, new friends and for some reason, a happier, more adult more. It didn't happen; I have only myself to blame for it as I had too high hopes. My flatmates ignored me most of the time, my course mates only spoke to me when they had to, I hated my course and I hated being away from home. I started to SH again. Having completely my own space (en suite bathroom) meant I could do what I want, when I wanted, and by the end of my time there I was SHing up to three times a day. The cross roads came when I phoned my best friend on the way home from town, and she cried down the phone because I sounded so down and was near sui. That night, I went out and got so trashed I couldn't walk properly with my flatmates, ended up losing them and having to find someone I very vaguely knew from a random night out to help me home (had spent nearly £30 on booze - all I'd bought out - I was in no state to try and get any more out!). I made it back to campus and got to the front of my flat door; before turning around. I believe the main idea in my head was "f*** them. They don't care about me, I'll show them..." I ended up on the busiest road in my quiet uni town, waiting for a fast enough car to jump in front of. Dumbest suicide attempt ever! After an hour I was cold, bored and still very upset so I took myself off to the campus nurse and stayed with them for the night. I was meant to be referred to the doctors surgery on campus, but I ignored their calls. Instead of getting help, I dropped out and returned home.

The SH stopped for a while, in the honeymoon period of being home. I soon found a job as a healthcare assistant on an admissions unit. Loved the patients, hated the nurses! Day after day, we'd have people with random illnesses come in, ranging from broken legs to suspected (and confirmed) cancer. We were a holding bay, if you will, until the patients got a bed on the ward that dealt with their specific illness. We also had to deal with mental health patients; a fair few schizophrenics off their medications and a handful of attempted suicides. They got to me, in that awful "God, that seems like a plan... now if only you'd done this differently..." kind of ways. I remembering thinking - after a patient with a healthy, functioning family unit came in who'd ODed  - well, they have a family, kids, a dog... they have more than me, what made their life so bad? Surely mine is worse? Back to the suicidal thoughts. I left that job soon after that, ran away from another one rather than getting help.

I decided I was going back to education, to follow my dream (psychology). In the mean time though, I spent the summer making friends and influencing people  :;): and generally had a thoroughly good time. The SH remained though, even though it was just once or twice a fortnight. I eventually confided in a mate about my SH. He flipped out and told my best friend and then spent the next three months trying to convince me to go to a doctor. Every time he pressured me to see someone, the less I wanted to do it. My best mate (who knows exactly how I work!) told him to back off and I'd eventually sort it myself... And I did. I went to the GP, and got a referral to counselling. Did I take it? No.  :sb:

As college started, I had a very bad patch, SHed nearly every day solid for a month, didn't go into college unless I really had to, until I bucked up and realised that I had to work for what I wanted. The SH died down and over the Christmas period I was SH free for 11 weeks :) Unfortunately, my Dad announced that he's being posted to Afghanistan in May which put an end to the SH free me. I can't take him being away, I'm a proper Daddys girl! I'm dreading him going. At least when he went to Iraq I hadn't started SH and wasn't depressed so I just got on with it. I was only 13 then...

Back to the now. Communication has broken down with the guy who spent a lot of time and energy to get me to the GP... Mainly because he himself struggles with MH problems and is losing touch at the moment, and I can't support him and myself without one of us going down. Harsh, but it's just how I see it at the moment - Any help I try to give him gets thrown back into my face, which sends me free falling and into SH, so it's just.. easier, I guess, to just let him do it. God, I feel awful for saying that! I am struggling with college work; the thought of my Dad being in a war zone for 4 and a half months; preparing for Uni again; starting a relationship with the guy I like; learning to drive; my body image (I'm not anorexic but I certainly display the tendancies - I hate it when I eat more than x number of calories a day, I count them obsessively, I exercise and I am obsessed with my body image) and countless other things. Generally, I'm quite the little screw up! I can't help myself, let alone try and help someone else. Since the news that my Dad is being posted, I've SHed about four times. I'd like to say the suicidal thoughts have gone... but they haven't. I've just realised that right now, I'd be hurting more people than it's worth. I don't want to go back to the GP, because I'm worried they'll either whack me on some anti-depressants or they'll tell me to get out because I rejected their help last time.

That turned out longer than I expected. I was feeling a bit... iffy before I started writing this, and I feel a bit triggered from writing it, but I think it's been a little cathartic, at least..

 :icon_arrow: edited
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: misfit on March 31, 2010, 08:10:00 PM
 :trig: Hey i started sh'ing when i was 16 and i was in my AS level at school, i struggled with all my work and i just ket everything get on top of me and thats when it started. I felt like i had noone to talk to my friends wernt the type of people that would talk about your feelings to and i can't talk to my mum about most things. I failed my AS levels which made me worse, so i retook them at A level and about 3 months before the exams they sent a letter home telling my parents thats i would fail so i was not being entered which hit me even harder.

During the time i was at school, i really needed to talk to someone so i wrote a letter to a teacher i got on really well with she was lovely and would talk to me whenever i needed. She sent me to the school councillor who was useless when i didnt understand a question she shouted at me for no apparent reason so i stopped going. After coming in drunk to school (stupid i know) my teacher decided i needed more help so they sorted out for me to go to a councillor which i did till i was 18 (it was a adolecent place) i didnt find them really helpful but i got out of lessons going!

After school i got a job which was ok but by then i just felt down all the time at 19 i was put on anti depprestants but i felt they didnt help me at all so after a while i just stopped taking them. 4 years ago i ended up getting a job that i love but the stress of it didnt help with my SH. After getting very drunk at a work do i ended up sleeping with my boss which made work hard. about a year ago i also saw my boss beat up his girlfriend, which i think affected me as much as her. now im just trying no to get stressed with work but i think after so long of Sh'ing (im 25 now) i don't know if the urges will ever go away.

Sorry my problems seems cr*p compared to other peoples i just wanted to share
xx
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: SarahBella on April 14, 2010, 01:02:21 PM
 :trig:

Okay, Hi, when I read other peoples stories, I don’t feel so alone, I have friends who SH jus because of the stereotype 'depressed emo kid’ I SH when I get really angry, it’s usually over silly little things but at the time it’s massive to me. My mum views this forum when I do cut myself and the times that she’s aware of, she feels so upset, she sort of wants to read other peoples stories. She doesn’t know my whole story. I can’t find the words to tell her, I hope she reads this.

I first did it in year 7, I was about 11/12 (14 now) it was a Sunday night, I had suffered bulling my whole life, I went to a middle school where the kids actually set up a website about me and it had embarrassing photos, things id done, just little stupid things, but after a while even the school said there’s nothing else we can do, your going to have to leave. So I did, so, the next Monday I was starting a new school. she Sunday night before, I had argued with my parents about starting this new school and mum was going into hospital on my first day at this new school, I was pretty upset. My first intention was to draw blood and I was just scratching my arms till they bled, and ended up doing a chicken scratch. My first day at my new school was scary, I was painfully shy and scared to say anything that may cause me to make enemies before I settled in, I jus sat there quietly. I met a girl, she was the first person to speak to me, she was funny, she was cool, she was pretty and really kind, and she was an emo. We fell out allot and I learned that emos like rock-ish music and are usually depressed. I also found out they sometimes cut themselves. I was all of these things but just didn’t have the name 'emo' attached. This girl didn’t cut herself. She didn’t know I had hurt myself. Me and this girl fell out and soon nearly my whole year hated me, my mum suggested I joined a club so that I had some friends, I joined the air cadets, I still go there, I love it, something to focus on.

I came home from school and told my mum I was a emo, mum didn’t know that emos cut them selves, she went on YouTube and saw some videos about emos that were really taking the p** and then mum learned that emos cut themselves, she didn’t know about the chicken scratch and said, the moment I find out your cutting yourself I demand you stop bin g a emo. I was thinking, if only you knew me mum, I wouldn’t have to wear long jumpers to hide my arms. Anyways, I and that girl kept falling out and I get upset and cut my arms. Id wear a bandage under my school jumper, just so the fabric didn’t get in, and tell the kids and teacher I had shut it in  a car door. This went on right up to the end of year 8 when my mum threatened to walk out during an argument, I told her about it, well screamed it at her, and she rang and told my head of year, Mr. Radcliffe, he’s left and retired now, I had him for geography the next day, he said that I should stop, and I was a beautiful and attractive girl and in a few years I wouldn’t want the scars to show in  the summer or on holiday at the beach. I didn’t really care what he had to say and I was upset my mum had even said this to him and I felt she was telling him my personal life. So I had a tool in my pencil case and I went to the toilet and cut my arms again, it hurt, but I forgot who she had told or why, 100% pain was all I focused on.

I had my 13+ admissions test for grammar school and I had a lot of pressure, I studied for that at home, I had been jumped at school and had a massive bruise on my face and couldn’t go back until the bruise had gone. I failed that test. I had been selected for my early SATS too. More pressure. I cut my arms over that too. I finished year 8 covered with scars. I stared Minster College in the September, and this was the only year 9-11 School on the island, everyone from the middle schools came here, I was faced with the people that I had left to get away from. I hurt myself over fear of what was coming; I got suspended lot for fighting. My mum took me to the doctors and I got referred to a child phyc and after about 6 months I got diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome. I had counseling and I didn’t really understand what the counseling did but I still went for it.

I had yet another family argument and this was the first time I ever cut my wrist, my mum came up and tried to stop me but id already done it. She tried to clean it but I wouldn’t let her anywhere near it, so she called dad in to try and help get me downstairs. She was going to clean it with salt***er but I wouldn’t let her, she got so upset and threw the pot at me and went outside for a fag and then she cried. Time went on and the self harm progressed.

Year 10; I had a best friend. She was great, she lived just round the corner and I practically lived at her house, I told her everything, we fell out a lot but mates always do. She made new mates and left me out. Her new mates chose who she was mates with and they didn’t like me so they didn’t let her hang out with me. She told them everything, what was in my diary, the times I ran away; I nearly stabbed my mum with a tool. She caused £1,500 worth of damage to my house, kicking my wall down, putting my windows through etc. we made up, then fell out and made up again, then fell out, anyways, it went on for a while and then up till about 3 weeks ago, she told me to cut my wrists and die, so I cut my wrists and waited. I wanted to write the word HATE but I finished H and realized. This is what she wants. Me to leave a scar, dedicated to her……I don’t think so. That took ages to heal. Then 2 days ago, I argued over something silly with mum and dad so I got my tool box out, found a suitably sharp tool and just cut. Put on my iPod and jus went for it, showing myself no mercy.

Sorry it’s a bit long, but I feel better now. I hope my mum reads this.

 :icon_arrow: edited
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: xhannahx on April 15, 2010, 04:50:34 PM
sorry that this is long but its mainly for my own sake by trying to discover why im fighting the help and support im being given. please feel free to read but it is long and  :trig:   


so on the outside my life appeared perfect! loving family and step families, amazing friends, amazing opportunites being thrown my way, i was a dancer, people were jealous of how confident i was. I was the perfect child for my mum. I lived up to her expectations daily and made sure i pleased everyone i met. yeah, my parents were divorced and remarried but I seemed fine so nobody worried about it. I had a half baby brother when i was 13. He became the reason why i dont give up with living. My older brother was like a friend to me. So everyone seemed happy.

In reality, in my head, things were far from this.

My mum and dads divorce led me to comfort eat at 8 years old making my nearly emaciated childs body (danced for 20 each week and my body just never got chance to gain weight) bigger and i wasnt comfortable with this and everyone else made it clear that they weren't either, particularly my grandma and grandad. they still make digs at me whenever they can.

I kept smiling and led everyone to believe it was all good and life was perfect.

I got a new stepdad who i lived with and my dad married meaning i had a stepmum. Big changes were taking place but i kpet holding onto the idea of my mum and dad getting back together but i saw it quickly slip away.   I stopped dancing due to injury and i gained a lot of weight.

All whilst i hated myself more and more and began to develop feelings of true hatred towards myself. I despised everything about me.

My mum and step dad split up and divorced and all along i had to keep one of my mums secrets from everyone but pretend i was fine. I was far from coping and together with my self hatred and low self esteem and confidence i discovered bulimia. I could keep binging but then i could get rid of it. My life had spiralled out of my control and i couldnt do anything to change what was happening around me but i controlled this and I was happy for a short time. Quickly, it dominated my life!

It led onto a diet which i restricted more and more each week until i was barely eating and even going several days without food before giving in and binging and purging. I was in a cycle and i couldnt get out so i kept on with it. My friends noticed me not eating at school and being good nice friends made me aware of their concern and told me they would tell the teachers. I couldnt allow this to happen. The teachers would take the only bit of control i had in my life so i began to eat again, purging most of it.

i hated myself even more for lying to people but i lied to protect them from the hurt they would feel.

I argued with a *friend* (if thats what you can call it!!) and i reached for a hair clip and scratched FAT into my arm. I recoiled in horror at what i had done to myself. If i could go back to that day and not do it, i would. I told my self it was a one off thing. I told myself that everytime i did it after.
I purged less and less but SH'd more and more.

I discovered tools...

i felt in control of it. how many i did, how deep, how long. I told myself i could stop but i knew i couldnt.

My grandad died after a long long battle with illness. I layed by his side for 3 days and left him 1 hours before he passed away. I cried every night for 2 months but i didnt cut once.

AS exams pressure was way too much stress and SH'ing became a way to cope with it. I lost control and i cut my arm far worse than ever before. The pain lasted for days after but i couldnt stop doing it.

But i stopped it and managed it to small cuts keeping it under control.

February 8/9th = coursework deadline!!

the pressure of this was far too much for me to bear and i lost the control! everyday after for 2 months i SH'd even overdosing at one point to not have to feel the emotional pain for a little while.

I was scared! I had the ability to hurt myself severely. My arms were ruined. What else did i have the potential to do? Suicide?

I decided i needed help. I emailed my teacher who took me under her wing and told me i will be ok. together we met with the counsellor who helped me a lot. She was leaving her job though and after 6 sessions she left. I cried. I miss her. She saved me from myself on exam results day because i was such a bad state. she cared about me even though she didnt need to.

together me and my counsellor told my mum who then told my GP on my behalf. I now am under the primary care mental health team.

I have the support from the few friends that know, my teachers, my GP, my mum, the mental health team yet im resisting it so much. WHY???????

I cant remember what it feels like to be normal and happy and enjoy life. If i give this up i will have no control over my life. my choices and decisions are dominated by someone else everyday.

I am terrified. I dont want to die but I feel it would be best to die because then i dont have to be afraid no more.

I cant remember the last time i felt happy and giving up this bad way of coping with things seems the most obvious thing to do but something inside me wont let me.

I am on the road to recovery, along with those who are supporting me. If i visualise this road i see myself at the very very beginning and i see a windy, long, difficult road. All those who are supporting seem to be further ahead than me and expect me to be with them but something is keeping me at the beginning and i just want to get to the end of this road and be happy again.

so thats pretty much my story!

if you actually read this then i thankyou a hell of a lot because i really didnt expect anybody to read this because it was purely for myself and i didnt expect people to waste their time with my story! xxxxx

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Jean on April 18, 2010, 11:03:57 PM
 :trig:

I haven't been on here for over a year, I don't know why I still SH (find it hard to say or type) but I think I'm scared of admitting anything.  But for some reason today I want to tell my story.

I had a very happy childhood, stable family, great time at school and a hobby that I was lucky enough to turn into my vocation.  Which always leads me to ask the question why?  Whenever I did something my parents didn't agree with I used to stare at myself in the mirror, tears streaming down my face and slap myself around my face really hard time and time again.  But I never thought this was unusual or that there was anything wrong with me.

I went to uni and had an amazing time and was so happy. Afterwards I went to dance school to train as a dance teacher and dancer.  It was there that I started cutting myself.  The first time was on Christmas Day and I have no idea why.  Then gradually it was because I had was not perfect at dance school (a very demanding environment) or that things had gotten on top of me and I didn't know how to cope.  I relished in the fact that no one knew what I was doing, it was my little secret.  However people did find out as parading about in leotards and tights makes most of your limbs visible. 

I have since graduated and now run a successful dance company.  But I still occasionally self harm, again I don't know why and I can't verbally talk to anyone about it. 

Thank you for reading. xxxx 
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: ickle pixie on April 22, 2010, 01:18:35 AM
 :trig:
I'm not sure how to put all my story into words. I'm 19 and have been self harming for about 5 years now.
I started because i just couldn't cope with the bullying at school and thought it was the best way to vent my frustration as i had no other way of doing it. My teacher noticed and i then had to go to a school councellor but since i was under 16 they could call my parents at any time. The last straw came when she threatened to do so. After this i just got better at hiding it.
The first time i actualy tried to kill myself i was 16 and just been through a bad time with a partner and couldn't cope. I took way to many pills and was starting on my wrists when i realised what i was doing and stopped myself. This carried on for a few weeks and it wasn't unti i found myself at the top of a bridge ready to jump that i realised i need to do something. Que doctors.... who as i was under 18 did nothing.
That was 2 years ago and i am still Shing most of the time generally on a twice daily basis just so i am capable of getting through the day. Now i am on AD's though they're not working overally well and the mental health team are trying their best to decide where they think i should be seen.
Now i'm 19 and have 2 diagnosis neither of which i am completley happy with but i think thats more me trying to pretend everything is okay when in reality it probably isnt. I had an assesment with ED department last week so i am waiting to hear from them and until then i don't think the SH will get much better though i can now talk to 2 of my friends about it. I don't know if they understand but they accept me for it and try their best to help as much as possible.
The major thing for me is the guilt of feeling like i do. Guilty for being a burden. Guilty for not being able to "snap out of it". Guilty of dragging people down with me.
So thats my story in a jumbled not very descriptive way but i don't know how to put into words what actually happened because most of it i try not to think about.

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: azi_maizie on April 28, 2010, 09:43:02 PM
Hmm... hopefully writing something might help me feel less annoyed at myself at the moment.

:trig:

I know I have less problems than a lot of people here, which is partly why I haven't posted a lot as reading support and suggestions given to other people generally makes me feel better, along with reading distractions, offtopics etc etc.

My life really hasn't been bad, except for one thing when I was 15. First time I lied to my parents about where I was going, what I was doing, whether there would be alcohol etc etc and it ended badly for me. I didn't tell anyone anything and just pushed it to the back of my mind for months. It was Christmas day that year that I suddenly realised it was 6 months exactly since that night... and I started to fall apart. I still didn't tell anyone - I had noone I felt I could tell. Its not that my parents and friends weren't supportive, but I'd just moved schools and grown apart from the mate I went out with that night and just... there just wasn't anyone.

I have a scar on my thumb that I must have got as a kid, it's been there as long as I can remember. Generally I can distract myself from anything more serious by scratching over that scar over and over, noone will notice as it's a scar I've always had.

Anyways, by this point I was at college, and I became really good friends with someone who introduced me to this site as it had really helped her with the problems she had at home. That was the first time I started to talk about things with people, and it got a lot better. After A levels, I took a year out and I worked 10 hours a day to earn enough money to go to Africa - something I'd always wanted to do. And something I needed to do - I went on my own, I'd decided it was time I "grew up" and learned to go places on my own. The first week I was there I cried non-stop and didn't dare to call home because I knew I'd cry over the phone to my mum and end up going home before I'd even properly begun my 3month trip. At the end of that week some other girls came to stay in the same house and we got on really well, I pulled myself together, "grew up" as intended and had an awesome time. When I got back home I only had a couple of weeks before uni started. After that first week in Africa I didn't even think about hurting, I was too busy and having too much fun (proof distractions do work maybe?). Until a couple of months ago, none of this had crossed my mind for about a year.

Aaaand now I'm in my second year at uni, studying medicine. I want to be able to help people in a way I know so many doctors fail at (who knows if I'll do any good at it). The second year is supposedly the hardest on the course. I can see why. I am struggling big-time now. I am working as hard as I can, concentrating for as many hours a day as I can and I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Beginning to think I'm just not cut out for this. And been arguing with the boyfriend from home too, I do not have time for him to come stay at the moment and he doesn't get it... which doesn't help. Bleh, maybe I should just hurry up and fail my exams so my stress goes away and I don't need to think about any of this anymore. And now I've wasted even more time on here and typing all this out while I should have been studying... I really don't help myself! Ugh, going to be quiet now.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: aj on May 08, 2010, 11:54:48 PM
Hi, I used to use this site more often, been away for several years. Thought I'd reintroduce myself here.  I started sh when I was about 13. I remember the first time I did it, but I don't remember why. I'm 23 now, and have had periods of months, even almost a year, sh free, but I always seem to come back to it. I have been depressed twice, seriously enough to want to die, though I've never seriously considered suicide. I'm more afraid of that depression than almost anything else. I really have no idea why I got depressed, nor why sh helps me, and why I find it so hard to leave behind. My childhood was pretty good, I love my family, and I don't remember much trauma, which I know makes me really lucky. The only explanation i can suggest is that my dad has a serious temper. He'd never hit me, but he really screams when he's angry. It taught me to always seem ok, no matter how angry/sad I really felt, to avoid his anger. Since I couldn't tell people when I felt bad, or mad, I learned to take it out on myself. I don't know if this is true. I don't think I know myself that well. Which is part of why I am rambling here. So... thanks.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: DawnArcher on May 22, 2010, 11:00:48 PM
 :trig:

Hi, I'm new here. I've been reading this thread and it's so good to know that I'm not alone. My own story is a long one and I do sometimes tend to ramble on a bit so please bear with me.

I've been SI-ing for four years. I started when I was 14. (Now 18). I was in high school and I'd just lost one of the people I loved most in the entire world a few months before. I lost my Grandma. She'd lived next door to me for as long as I could remember because she had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and my family looked after her as long as we could before she got seriously ill with a heart problem and died. Because she'd been a big part of my life for as long as I could remember I was seriously messed up over her death. I loved her as much as I love my Mum and Dad.

I didn't know how to deal with her death. The pain was eating me up inside and I physically couldn't cry. I'd been bullied a lot when I was younger and I thought that crying was weakness and so I'd learnt not to cry.

I was on the school bus and I heard someone talking about a friend of theirs who SI'ed. It seemed to help her so when I got home I found a sharp object, made sure no-one could get to me and cut myself. I felt relief instantly as I was able to focus on the physical pain to the exclusion of my emotional pain.

For the rest of the next two years I would cut myself whenever the pain or anger got too much. The blood was like the tears I couldn't cry. It's was the only release I had but it made me feel so guilty and ashamed. I didn't like doing it in one way but it was the only coping method I had and I couldn't stop myself anyway. I was terrified of anyone finding out. However I knew if I changed the way I wore my sleeves people would get suspicious. So I stuck a band aid on my arm just in front of the shallow cuts I'd made with my tool. I knew if the band aid was showing I needed to pull my sleeve down.

One time I cut far deeper than I intended and scared myself when it wouldn't stop bleeding. (That cut has left a permanent white scar and a reminder that I need to be careful.) After that I stopped cutting and I thought that was great. I'd stopped SI-ing.

However my behaviour became self-destructive in other ways. I starting scratching, biting, making deep painful nail marks on my skin, hitting hard objects and sabotaging my school and then my college work, barely scraping through my GCSE's and failing miserably at my AS Exams. I didn't even realise I was doing it, (the self-sabotage thing. I didn't think the other stuff was SI because it never broke the skin or made me bleed. I realise now that it was SI). I moved onto a new college, (the one I'm at now) for a second chance, and continued sabotaging myself.

I think on some level because of the bullying I went through I feel I deserve to fail, that I don't deserve to have a good life, that I'm unworthy. When I realised what I was doing I started cutting again. I know it's not a good habit but it keeps me from sabotaging my future permanently and allows me to vent.

It also helps me to deal with periods of black despair I feel. The first time I experienced that it scared the hell out of me and I considered suicide. I know it will pass now. I haven't told anyone I know that I SI. I'm afraid they'll be disgusted and turn away. I can't tell my Mum because it would break her heart and my Dad would remove all the sharp objects in the house and lock them up somewhere.

I can understand that angle in a way but I need this because I have no other way of coping. I've joined this site in the hope that I can find others who will understand me and other ways to cope so that eventually I won't need SI any more.

Thank you for reading this and bearing with my rambling.

SardonicArcher.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Blu on June 07, 2010, 05:47:34 PM
 :trig:

Hi I'm new and I don't really know where to begin so I thought that I would start by telling my story. I've been looking over this site and it's been really helpful to know that there are other people in a similar situation to me. 

Okay here goes. I started to SH when i was 11 when my best friend and his mom moved out of our house (we were living in kind of community thing). My parents were split up at the time (they're not anymore which is great :) )and a saw very little of my dad. It started off as punching things and a bit of scratching but generally nothing too bad.

At secondary school I had a close group of friends that I had known for most of my life including my best friend that I mentioned before. This was great until a few of my friends started experimenting with drugs etc... and I got inevitably drawn in. When I was about 13 I used to go down the park regularly and binge with my friends. It was during one of he sessions that one of my friends thought it would be a good idea to 'draw' on each other. I replicated it at home and eventually started cutting, the alcohol obviously didn't help.My friendship group started to break up when my friends started to take more and stronger drugs a lot more regularly. I SHed more and more as I lost my friends and ostracized myself from pretty much everyone.

I am a haemophiliac (my blood doesn't clot as fast as most peoples) and this obviously causes problems when I SH and resulted in me getting anaemic alot.When I was about 15 i met made some new friends, and I slowed down to cutting only about once a week. My friends really helped me out but pretty much all freaked when they found out that I Shed and my girlfriend at the time cheated on me and dumped me.

When I was 16 my dad found blood on one of my shirts and demanded to see my arms. I couldn't face him seeing my cuts so I told him that I had scratched myself deliberately but I'd only done it once and it wasn't extensive. He freaked out and screamed at me and threatened to send me to a psychologist and to Doctors etc. I promised that I would never do it again and begged him not to tell my mum because I knew that they would gang up on me and i would be forced to show them the extent of my cutting. He guilt tripped me into stopping although I noticed that in the next few weeks all the sharp things in the house went missing lol.

In hindsight it was probably the best thing that could have happened and I didn't cut seriously for almost a year and a half because of it, although I stopped for the wrong reasons.

I'm 17 now and having a relapse at least partly due to exam stress. I'm a bit depressed at the moment and I am unfortunately back to SHing about once or twice a day. Still it feels good to finally talk about it without feeling really guilty and generally bad about myself. Umm that's about it sorry about the essay.  
X                         
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: worriedteen18 on July 21, 2010, 12:06:21 AM
 :trig:

here goes,

i started self harming a month after my 16th birthday, about a month before my birthday i caught my dad harming when i acidently walked in on him, about a week after he had a mental brake down and got send to a mental ward at a hospital, just seeing all the person with problems in the head and seeing my dad just broke me, i cant really or understand why i started though

all the harming i did was tame just things that would heal in a few weeks then it got worse fell into a big depression i reckon have been told ive got anything or put on any tablets, i got raped when i was 17 and lost 2 kids and that has sent me off the wall,

havent harmed in the past 9 months and its all started again, i really want to kill my self at the mo, been having that recently
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: kc on July 26, 2010, 04:45:05 PM
 :trig: so i don't really remember having a 'normal' childhood. my first memories of school are of being bullied. then when i turned 8 things went from bad to worse. thats when i started trying very hard to hurt my self. i tried everything from braking bones at this age to wanting to end my world. then when i turned 14 a boyfriend sa me. thats when i started to want to cut and b**n. didn't do that much till i turned 17 then it all got out of hand and before i new it the slightist upset and i was cutting. then i met my current partner who told me to stop or he'd leave me so i got help and for 8 years i didn't cut. but know its all i want to and i have started again. to add to all this my partner seems to have become a trigger. not good.
 :>:(:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: rainbow on September 09, 2010, 10:32:58 AM
Just in case :trig:

I started sh'ing about three years ago, when my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. I thought I was going to loose her...I really did. My anxiety issues were made worse. I was depressed, and sh'ing was the only thing that helped.

Three years later, my mums fine. My anxiety is even worse and I can't stop sh'ing. I'm trying so hard I really am. Cutting makes me feel alive, it stops me feeling numb and dead. Y
My parents know about my sh'ing now, I think it hurts them inside to think of their daughtor hurting herself...sometimes dailey and there is nothing they can do about it. They want me to talk to them about it, but I can't do that. My nan also knows. A few on my friends do to, I can talk to one of them about it, the others I can't but I can cry on them if I need to lol. I'm really finding it hard to stop, I kinda see it as a friend in some weird way!

I have seen a counsellor, I now see a cpn and am in the process of talking to her about anti anxiety meds.

Hope that's ok, green x
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Baracuda on September 15, 2010, 09:32:32 PM
 :trig:
I started when I was 12
There's nothing wrong with my life
And I feel all the more guilty for it
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: brighteyes on September 15, 2010, 10:04:08 PM
i started selfharming by accident-i tree from a tree at 14 and got a big scratch on my arm-everyone was conserned i was selfharming so i carried on and doing it for attention, i stopped at 15 grew up abit and tried sorting my life out but then i became heavily bullied and turned it around by being the bully, i was horrible i hated myself so started selfharming again but this time it was because i hated myself i deserved to hurt. i needed the release and numbness and control i felt when i s/hd noboday new at this point it wasnt ther buisness, i carried on sh up to 17 overdose and tryed hanging myself, was under cams at this point n secondary mental health, then i fell pregnant got alot better n had nearly 3 years of being ok not selfharming or anything, its not quite 3years but nearly. the last 6months ive battled with depression and anxiety-ive had counselling and cbt but have no support atm, i want to get my life back on track i havent shd and dont want to but these urges take over my mind and life and i dont know how longer i can fight it
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: HattieJane on December 03, 2010, 05:05:11 PM
 :trig:

Hi. Im new to all this, I've only just started to find help to get me through the whole self harm thing. I started around 11. i got really badly bullied in school, and i found that the physical pain took away the psychological pain; but when my parents started noticing, and i couldnt cover it up any more, i found the strength to stop. recently, at 18, its come back with a vengeance. i've started to cut myself again. i've just started uni, and my whole family are living in spain. i moved out there 2 years ago, and i moved back to study back here. i got diagnosed with depression too and im on antidepressants. but the cuttings getting worse. i found myself in a mental breakdown when i couldnt find my tool. and that scared me. its like its ruling me. i dont want to give in to it anymore, but its how i cope. i know i need to stop and my ex is worried about me (he's still so supportive) and i want to stop. but i dont know how. if someone has any tips, then please share them with me. cos i cant keep going on like this. its time to stop. i just need that little bit of help.....

Hattie
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: smile on December 03, 2010, 06:34:54 PM
 :trig: :trig: :trig:

I've been about here for over a year now, but I've not done this. I thought it might help me put things in perspective a bit, so here goes.

I first consciously harmed myself at the age of fourteen. I can't remember exactly why, but I remember the event itself in perfect detail. Looking back, I realise that I'd engaged in self-destructive behaviours from a much younger age, I simply hadn't realised there was a name for what I was doing at the time. My childhood was... interesting, but mostly happy, at home anyway. My parents were of no fixed address (PC way of saying homeless) when I was conceived. They'd known eachother a week and my dad was a drug user. They pulled themselves together a lot I guess. They stayed together, are still together now in fact. They've both had mental health problems, nature/nurture I guess. They cope, they function. They're great people, even if they're more like friends than parents to me these days.

I was a quiet, shy and introspective child. I went to a rough school in a rough area. I was a chubby kid with frizzy hair and glasses, I liked to read. I was extremely shy which I occasionally attempted to cover up with outlandish behaviour. I got bullied pretty badly. I can't bring myself to repeat some of the things that were done by kids at school, even after all these years. It's too humiliating.

But yeah, the first time I harmed myself, the first time I knew exactly what I was doing and set out to hurt myself, I was 14. It happened every so often after that, every few weeks, every time I had an emotion I couldn't deal with in a normal way. It was fairly small-scale, not the kind to leave permanent scarring. It was hidden fairly easily. It escalated.

By my 16th birthday it was happening at least once a week, and the first permanent scarring began to appear. My mum found out. She didn't react well, I got the standard "you're only looking for attention" response. She had her own problems dealing with it, but didn't exactly make it easy. She insisted I see a psychiatrist, then insisted on coming to my appointments with me, then insisted to the phsychiatrist till she was blue in the face that there was nothing wrong with me, I was just a silly teenager. I can place all of the scars I got around that time. I have a clear flashbulb memory of about twenty different events all leading to permanent scarring, some of them I can attribute a time and date to. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and given prozac. It only made me feel sick.

I sat my GCSEs and the following september began my A-Levels. I went to the small sixth-form college attached to my secondary school. I expected to make a new start, but I couldn't. I didn't have many friends, and the bullying that I'd expected to stop now that we'd all grown up a bit continued. I dropped out after a month or so. I'm not entirely sure what I did with the next few months, but a lot of time was spent in bed, a lot of time feeling numb, a lot of time wishing I could just cease to exist. I had a course of cognitive behavioural therapy, and shortly after I turned 18 I was prescribed a different anti-depressant. I had no luck here either. I felt nothing at all. I couldn't eat, sleep or function. I'd sit in the same place for hours staring at a wall. The couple of years between 16 and 18 are a blur. Grey and black.

Inexplicably, things picked up a little, I worked a few hours a week in a supermarket, a few hours in a bar. I started to develop a little bit of confidence. I decided that I did, in fact, want A-Levels, and I wanted a degree. After what I felt was a massive failure in dropping out not even a term in on my first attempt, I felt as though I had a lot to prove. I enrolled in a college the next town over, where I could be reasonably certain I'd not run into anyone I'd gone to school with. I began to feel better. I took five A-Levels, one completely self-studied (like I said, I felt as though I had a lot to prove).

After my AS exams I began to experience anxiety, which I'd not really had in a big way before. It manifested itself at first as hypochondria. I spent about three months absolutely convinced I had a brain tumour, but too terrified to go and ask a doctor. When eventually I did, I was told that the 'symptoms' I'd been having were probably a result of stress and possibly needing to see an optician. A new pair of glasses later, and I was over the brain tumour thing. Then I became convinced I had bone cancer, lung, bowel, ovarian, liver, cervical, skin cancer, one after the other. Then MS, heart problems, a collapsed lung. Of course, I have had none of these. I had (and certainly still have) irrational thoughts and feelings, things I can't explain, obsessions, things my mind throws at me that I can't deal with. I was diagnosed with OCD and GAD. I was offered more therapy, but I was too busy to keep the appointments, and eventually I just dropped out of the MH system, I coped on my own, using self harm, which had become by that point something I no longer even wanted to stop doing, my mechanism for dealing with whatever life threw at me. I got stitched a fair few times, but eventually became proficient enough at taking care of myself that I stopped going to A and E and just dealt with bigger scars from things that should have been stitched.

I applied to university. I attended interviews. Completely against my expectations I was accepted. I did my A2 exams. A couple of months later I started my degree. Things got better again. I love my course, I love the city where I live, I love the university, I love being a student. My mental health in my first year was pretty good. It deteriorated again over that summer and start of my second year. I had regular panic attacks, I once again became obsessed with the thought that I was facing imminent death. I saw a therapist for a while, I saw a learning support tutor, towards the end of that year I became very low again. I was prescribed Sertraline, which again, just made me feel worse.

I'm in my final year now, looking towards the future. I've just come out of a relationship that started wonderfully and ended terribly, and I realise my self-esteem has taken quite a few knocks. It's going to be ok though. I believe that because I have to. I'm determined to be happy and enjoy my life. Self harm has been the thread running through all of this. It's always been there. The reasons for it have changed, so has the way I feel about it, but it's a constant, and probably always will be. I can accept that. I'm scarred for life. I can accept that too. I still feel very young, despite this story beginning over nine years ago, I still feel like that girl. I wonder if I'll ever feel different?
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: wolfie on January 08, 2011, 12:04:56 AM
I haven't self harmed in 4 years but for a while, it played a big part in my life, in fact, it dominated my life.

At the core of the reason I self harmed is the fact that I struggle with, and have always struggled with, low self esteem. I am very critical of myself. This makes me withdrawn and shy because I often am feeling ashamed of myself as if I am not good enough to be seen in public and this makes me avoid other people. As a result, I have no close friends outside my immediate family.

I remember when the feelings of low self esteem began. I was about 11 or 12 years of age and I was being bullied in school. That same year, my only friend died at the age of only 12 years. I felt very overwhelmed by the situation. I started pulling my hair out until I had a bald patch on my head. I also started becoming bullimic and I thought I was fat (when I look back at photos, I was a very slim girl, I have no idea how I thought I was fat!). I was just a confused and upset young girl who had not yet learned good coping skills with the sh*t that life can sometimes throw at you.

My teenage years are a blur of binging/vomiting/binging/vomiting. The more bullimic I became, the uglier I got as my face got swollen and white from the stress of bullimia. The uglier I got, the worse I felt about myself.


When I went to college, I thought I'd have a clean break and make a couple of friends for myself. It was very difficult. I was painfully shy, I couldn't make eye contact with people due to shyness and I found it almost impossible to have a normal conversation - as soon as I opened my mouth to talk to someon, I'd start worrying that I was saying something stupid and then my mind would go blank and I'd start repeating myself or mixing up the words in my sentence and saying a senence in the wrong order. I started drinking to take away the shyness. I discovered that getting very drunk, out of my headd drunk, made me forget how miserable I felt so I started getting very very drunk very often. People in college started paying me attention because they were starting to get worried about me. But I ran away from the attention. I wanted attention because people respected me, not attention because people pitied me. That kind of attention left a sour taste in my mouth and I ran away from their concern and shut myself off from them.

As I graduated from college, after a blur of failing exam after exam due to poor study skills, too much starving myself and not eatin and general poor coping skills, I managed to find a job. Once more the poor coping skills reared its ugly head. I struggled to keep up with my job and then i discovered my brother had cancer. My dear brother. That was the last straw, I could not imagine life without my brother. I felt like I was cracking up. Unfortunately, I did crack up. I tried to kill myself and very nearly suceeded. While I was recovering from the operation after the suicide attempt, I vowed never to do anything as disgusting as that again. However, a boundary had been broken and I started to use self harm as a coping mechanism to the fact that I felt completely out of control with my life and I felt i could not cope with even the simplest things. I had 2 years of self harm, suicide attempts, hospitalisations before eventually I saw the light and stopped self harming because people were just treating me like i was crazy. Putting me on medication, putting me in hospital. WHen all I need was a bit of help with the practical aspects of my life so I could cope a bit better with stuff and not always feel like a complete miserable failure. Luckily, I have finally had that help from my parents and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be alive. I thank God for my parents, they have saved my life.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: MidnightAngel93 on May 16, 2011, 07:40:04 PM
 :trig:

I started comprehensive school and thought it would be different. that no-one would pick on me. I was so f**ing wrong.
I was in year 7 I had my hair cut and instantly got crap for it. Then as I moved up through the years it got worse. I told countless teachers and nothing was done.
Three weeks into the start of year 9 I got punched in the face and in the chest coz I said No to a girl who told me to shut up.
I got home and refused to say anything until my sister who was 12 at the time told my parents everything she was stood by me and watched as I did nothing to defend myself. My parents called the police and were shocked when the officer said I was assaulted. I cried for hours thinking about it. I went to bed that night and hurt myself with something that I had hidden under my pillow I have no idea why. I carried on until my arm was bright red then put a cold compress on it and cried myself to sleep. The pain was like a high
Then I discovered My c******l Romance, whose album Welcome To The Black Parade helped me though the rest of year 9 and the constent bullying.
Year 10 - The bullying got worse instead of stupid names and remarks about my hair and music choices. People started to make fun of my body and weight. I'm not exactly confident but with every name I could feel my heart break, I never knew people my age could be so hurtful. I told teachers and even my head of year and I may as well have said nothing, I went home as usual and hurt my arms where no-one would see the scars. Then moving into year 11 I had a breakdown, I couldn't handle it! The pressure of exams and constent bullying. I cried until my friends phoned my parents who then booked an appointment for the doctors.
I went to the appointment and was referred to a child physchologist. I was then told three weeks later that I had borderline depression. I got home and cried I didn't know how to take it in. I was 15 and suffering from borderline depression. I cut myself over and over until reality dawned on me.
I was so upset and felt I was letting everyone down. The school was told and the deputy head teacher, helped me whenever I needed her. I remember two weeks after I was told I ran out of class due to people calling me names and refusing to leave me alone even when the class teacher told them to stop.
I'm now in college and everything has changed I feel like I fit in, but I still get picked on by my alleged "Best Friend" about my choice in music.
Yesterday evening I broke down in tears as I was so confused and stressed about everything. I went to bed and pulled my tool over my wrist again and again until I felt sick from the sight of my own blood.
Today my wrist is still hurting and I can't do much about it.




  :icon_arrow: Edited to remove names of tools / method sharing ~ Bea
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: crystalbeth on June 05, 2011, 03:38:27 AM
 :trig:

Before I start I would just like to say how absolutely heart-wrenching it has been reading about how other members have ended up self-harming, especially those so much younger than I am :( I wish I could just hug you all. (Sorry if that is inappropriate- my care worker thinks I have some abandonment issues that make me over-empathetic but I am just being honest as to how I feel.)
I started to cut myself at around 13. There were a lot of family issues back then. I found self injury to be the only way to let my feelings out, to express myself, especially because my family decided it was "for the best" that I wasn't fully informed as to what was going on. The thing is, kids hear and understand more than adults let them know. I knew something was wrong but I didn't understand why. I was first sent to the doctor at around age 17-ish (forgive me, my memory of these times is quite hazy). That was when the self harm was the worst, too. Once I cut so deep I could see the white stuff underneath the skin but I never sought help for that. My thighs are covered in big scars.
I have managed to stop cutting a few times, for about a year at a time. But it always comes back. I'm 24 now, haven't cut for a few months (hitting and bruising myself though, but in my mind that's different..). The desire to harm is still strong in me though. That's why I have started using this forum. It's so hard to resist.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: meus angelus on June 16, 2011, 02:45:15 PM
Hello there everybody  :1059:s for telling your stories as its hard to do though i think that it helps to get it all out.

 :trig: will probably trigger for self harm n suicide

the first time i can remember cutting myself was when i was 18 about 6 months after my dad died.  it was just after christmas and i was missing him so much as he was like my best friend. i was in my a level year also at school and the pressure of the exams was really getting to me.  although i was seeing a counsellor at the time i couldnt cope and resorted to hurting myself.

i done relatively well im my a levels getting an ABE however it wasnt enough to get into the university i wanted and thererfore i thought i had no other choice but to move to england.  this is when things got bad, i had depression hardly any friends no family support and the self harm got so bad doing it daily really, needing stitches too. and i tried to kill myself a number of times too by taking numerous overdoses.  i didnt feel that i could go home as i didnt want to dissappoint everyone.


but in easter i finally told my mum about the self harm and depression and she brought me home, things werent great when i got home but my mum managed to get me some help by seeing a pychiatrist and pyschologist etc. i then started to pull myself out of this and what really helped was getting a new job in nov 2009 it give me a good confidence boost. :) and the self harm has been really less and im now 10weeks free and doing good in my new job :)

thats all really i suppose
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: BrownBear on July 24, 2011, 02:00:50 AM
 :trig:


Right.

I can trace my Self Harming back to maybe 4 or 5. I can very clearly my parents going at it having a full blown domestic, things being thrown about, shouting, swearing, hitting. I remember standing just outside the door way of the room they were arguing in banging my head against the wall repeatedly. A proper stone wall too. I remember it hurting, but I kept on going for some reason. I think at even that tender age I realized that pain could be a bit of a distraction to life’s problems.

My early years at primary school weren’t too brilliant for me either. I had a habit of escaping. I’m told that one day I made my way to a live rail way and was found sitting on the tracks, crying. I guess going by that maybe you could say my first sui attempt was at 5 or so? :D

Anyway, my parents ended up breaking up when I was 7 or so and long story short, I said goodbye to the nice house that I had grown up in, I said goodbye to the school that I eventually learned not to run away from and the friends that I had and ended up in a rough council estate and the type of school you’d associate with it. In truth, it wasn’t that bad I had friends and was relatively accepted.

Things went down south when I went to Secondary school. I had immensely bad anger issues. Mix this with me being chubby and being a little weird (like googling ‘How to take over the world’ in IT lessons) I was made a target of by bullies. I made things worse by my inability to keep my mouth shut, so I’d wind these bullies up, but then when it came to crunch time I wouldn’t fight back because I was scared of hurting my hands!

My SH started again at maybe 11/12, again, completely unaware of what I was doing as why. I’d run a piece of string through my teeth/gums and kept on until I tasted blood. I can remember now that I was addicted to the feeling of my heart going a mile a minute and endorphins flowing.

At around this time I went into some vague counselling and ‘Anti Bullying’ rubbish to try and control my anger and It worked. Sort of. All it did was meant that my anger was bottled up and I would release it at stupid times at people who didn’t really deserve it, namely my mother and brothers at home. Many times have I COMPLETELY trashed my room in anger.
 
Then at 13/14 I graduated to cutting and began cutting the skin off of the soles of my feet. To be honest, I don’t know why I did it.

I didn’t do that for too long. I was ‘bullied’, mocked and wound up for the rest of my time at secondary school. I was looking forward to going to college and getting my chance at a clean slate where I could reinvent myself.

And I did! I got in with the popular crowd, I was invited out to go shopping and go to parties, and talk to girls (I went to an all boys school so I’m not well versed in that subject ;)) and generally did stuff that I never thought I’d do, but I still wasn’t happy.

At around this time my best friend and the only person from school I kept in contact with began to S/H. I gave it a go with and let’s just say, I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t see the point what so ever. It didn’t help me cope any better at college (funnily enough, there wasn’t anything to cope with, but that’s by the by), I ended up dropping out.

Just after dropping out, I remember me and my mum having an argument. I stormed to my room with thoughts of wrecking it, but for whatever reason a tool was lying around and it caught my eye. Instead of wrecking my bedroom, getting kicked out of the house and having to do the entire begging act to get back inside, I took that tool and I cut myself instead. I used it to release all of the tension and anger that was just about to boil over, and it was great. It then became my coping method for my anger very, very occasionally.

One day I was wearing a short sleeve t shirt around the house and my mum noticed the scars and completely flipped out. I told her that I got them from working on a car, but I know she knows. The only time she brought it up was one day a few years ago, I’m again in short sleeves with hear waiting to collect a pizza, she looks at my arms and said ‘It’s a real shame you had to do THAT to your arms’ which knocked me back a bit, especially seeing how completely random the comment was. She’s never spoken to me about it (which is surprising, I thought she would be quite open minded, even though I don’t want to talk about it). My dad is... well... not a very nice person (that’s the only way I can describe him without breaking the swear filter :p). He knows  too. We were at a pool club when he pulled up the sleeves of my shirt, pointed out the scars and asked ‘What are these? Do you cut yourself’. I remember it being just about the most awkward situation. He’s never brought it up since, but we don’t speak.   Anyway, I’m rambling.

I’ve never been a particularly happy person in my teenage years. I’ve had a couple of rubbish attempts at sui in the period above as well. It’s always the same things. Anger, loneliness and complete and utter self loathing. 

The SUI thoughts have never left and lately, they’ve come back with a vengeance. I can’t remember a day where I haven't had an urge. Yesterday I SH’d for the first time not out of anger, but as a coping mechanism and I’ve followed in the foot steps of my father and taken to drinking maybe a little more than I should.

I certainly hope that this isn’t the beginning of an even darker stage of my life :(.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Faded~Lady on October 16, 2011, 06:32:56 PM
I'm 31 but look a lot younger.  I started selfharming about 15 years ago when my moods first started playing up.   I first got help for my depression when I was 20. Since then I have got through a few different types of antidepressants.  Now on mirtazapine which I am trying to stay on.  I cut on and off for a few years on and off then a scattering in my 20's.  Over the last few years the insomnia and anxiety which accompany my depression peaked big time and its been a horrible year.  I started cognitive behavioural therapy in July.  It doesn't seem to make a lot of difference just yet.  About 5 weeks ago I found myself cutting again a couple of times.  Feel as though I'm back to where I started and even more isolated and alone this time.  I'm not sure whats stopping me but clearly I'm not ready to give up yet, even though I come close at times.  ::-\:

I can only hope
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Broken Wings on November 13, 2011, 01:02:07 PM
 :trig:I started s/h at the age of 15,i was S/a from a really young age,by people that should of loved me not used me.I thought it was the norm it was what people did as love,i disclosed at 15,and was placed into care,told that it would be okay and i would be safe,i wasn't :trig:i took an o/d, s/h,and for that i was locked up,restrained and forceabily medicated,i survived put it all behind me,got a job,flat had my daughter was okay,i did have pnd,but it was to be expected. Last year i had an accident where i was trapped not for long but long enough to bring back memories of that other time and place,physcially i was a mess my daughter took care of me,when i became more able,i slid down in to depression,was put on Ad's they didn't suit me made me suc,was put on different ones which suited me,i began to think yeah maybe it's past,and i will be okay. I lost my grandad in july this year,he was everything to me my mum,dad,friend,i could tell him anything he was always there,life without him seems empty/pointless,each day the pain of his passing gets worse,at first i drank to numb,stop the nightmares that haunted me,one night i felt so bad i got a makeshift tool and cut myself,i felt relief,light,free,then i'd feel gulity and do it again and again to punish myself for being weak,to trust and let others help is such a big deal to me,i have my gp and thearpist who i trust,i post on here,totally new experience for me i'm 39 and no spring chicken,but age isn't a number but a state of mind,i'm still trapped in my head as i was at 15 even though i'm a mother now i still don't feel grown up my life was taken from me and there is no getting it back. That's me :hellokitty:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: howling on December 30, 2011, 02:31:26 PM
i was forcibly moved from my hometown to a new town when i 8 and didnt get on with the new  kids in school. i became bad tempered and aggressive and would frequently hit a wall with my fist and knuckles. was taken to an educational psychologist who i punched and never went back. my mother is a control freak and always brushed everything under the carpet. never wanting to talk. i was a naughty child always getting into fights and skipping school. i smoked when i was 12. i found myself then bashing my knees with heavy objects. ive torn ligaments doin both. i used to also b**n myself with my cigs. while i was at school i was violent and attacked a girl with a pen. it went in my hand and i still have the scar. at 14 i ran away from home because the fights with mother were unbearable. id gon for 2 weeks. living rough i got assaulted. the police found me and took me home. i held a tool to her and threatened to kill her. after that i went to a couple of homes before living on my own. i also took an overdose which landed me in hospital at this time.i had disastrous relationships. with girls and boys cos im bi. wen i was 17 i met a bloke and got engaged. he beat me badly that after 7 years abuse i managed to escape. sadly back to my parents. till i could move out agen. the cuttin started not long after that and has continued on and off till now. im 38, now in a stable marriage with two children. and as you can see here still struggling with depression and sh and od. :trig:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Worried Friend on December 30, 2011, 11:39:40 PM
OK so I've been building up to writing this.

When I was 7 or 8 ish I started having these flashbacks, recurring memories, dreams etc. which i wasn't sure if they were real or not about being abused by my male babysitter when  was 4/5 ish. I never spoke to anyone about them because I was worried that if they weren't real thay I'd look crazy. About this time I also began having these crippling fears about infinity of space and time (I would have what  realise now were panic attacks, at the time I had no idea). These things were fairly prominent for a fairly substantial period and usually happened at night when I was trying to sleep. They dimished for some time but were always niggling in the back of my mind. When I was in year 8 at secondary school my so called friends began to show their true colours. They psychologically bullied me, ignoring me, getting me to do work for them, laughing about me in front of me, teasing me in what they called a "funny" way. Then when I was in year 9 my Nanna died. This brought back all the fears of infinity again. I tried to hold my feelings in. I only cried once when I was at school the day after I found out (I was sent home for the rest of the week) until I saw her coffin being brought into the church. I don't really remember any of the service because I was crying throughout. I refused to stand by the graveside and sat upstairs alone during the wake. After this is when I first began sh'ing. At this point it was mainly superficial and extremely sporadic. My mum saw a cut on my leg once which she asked about and I made up a story to cover up. My main coping strategy at this point was over eating. Towards the end of year 9 I began distancing myself from the girls I knew as friends and my life began to look up. I made good friends, did well in school, got a job, got into university and moved away from home. During my first year of uni I struck up a close friendship with a girl that lived in my dorms and did the same course. One night she was very upset about the death of her grandfather and confessed to sh'ing to cope. I became her support and she eventally confessed to being abused as a young girl by her Aunt's new husband. I helped her to get counselling and to find other ways of coping. During this time I never confessed to her about my own issues which were coming back to the surface due to the similarities in our stories. We struck up a close relationship which in was built on trust initially. We both hurt each other over the next couple of years through denying our feelings for each other (me more than her) and during this time of denial I sh'd, over ate, under ate, anything i could think of to gain a little bit of control. But eventually I accepted my and her feelings and we became a couple. We were extremely happy and moved in together a few months later (we'd lived together for our entire time at university so wasn't a huge step). 8 months after we moved in together she ended it saying we felt more like friends. I was distraught. At this point I resisted the urge to sh and began over eating again. We had to continue living together for 5 months until our lease was up, I then moved into central London alone. She visited my flat once and I think we saw each other twice after that when she texted me saying she couldnt deal with being friends anymore a week after my dog passed away. Again I struggled with my emotions and sh'd again and begain over eating and drinking a lot. After I was promoted just over a year ago I began to turn my life around, got better control of my diet, excersised, got over her and began dating again. This is when i met Martin, we hit it off immediately but he is in the Navy so we were hesitant to start anything serious. Which brings to me to where I am now, alone and sh'ing because I'm missing Martin, have no dea where he is or how he is, saw my ex recently for the first time since the text, my Great Uncle passed away and I'm under a lot fo pressure at work.

I said I've been bulding up to writing this because I've never put all of this together anywhere other than my head and anyone who reads this will be the only people to know everything, not my parents. best friend, my ex...
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: wild-n-wondaful on January 27, 2012, 04:27:27 PM
 :trig: my story sounds very pathetic compared to alot of people who have been through serious assaults and abuse but here goes...
 :trig:
in the past i took an overdose when i was 15, but it wasnt really to kill myself it was more a cry for help, but on one late afternoon in june 2011 i was sat alone in my room and i was in a very scary place, i felt scared and alone i cant ever describe the feeling, i took several objects and tried to cut but nothing work, i found a tool broke it and drew blood the felling of pain and relief was amazing.

i have some 'family problems' i dont see my dad any more because hes let me down so much and i dont want to be let down again, i feel a tremendous amount of guilt for the pain i have caused to him but i dont think hes aware of how much im hurting.

Im not going in to the specifics comments but i have been told many times ive broken his heart etc and professionals have said that if i was under 18 then what he says to me would be classed as emotional child abuse.

for the past 6 months the harming has spiraled out of control, i have overdosed with the intention of dieing 4 times and both arms wrist to elbow are covered in scars. The longest ive gone is 13 days with out harming and the feeling is amazing, but then you give in and you feel like your right back at the begining again and that youve let your self down

my harming is my big secret only 3 friends, school and one member of my family no parents and all other family are completely oblivious.

although the relief and the creation of physical pain instead of emotional pain is good sh is the biggest regret of my life, the scars are so ugly and because i havent stopped harming there is nothing the doctors will do about them

the only thing that has started to help is driving when im stressed as well as drawing and writing, i also wrote a letter an b**nt it which felt pretty amazing

i need to stop before its to late :'(

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: lulu86 on February 02, 2012, 08:10:46 AM
 :trig:

I started to SH when I was about 15 at school. I was bullied throughout my childhood and spent all my time with my "best friend" who was a manipulative B**** and would put me down and get me into trouble a lot. I started to put myself down and would people please a lot to get people to like me. When I was about 13 this "friend" I had been so close to and had spent all my childhood years with made a new best friend in another group of girls from our form, I felt rejected and wondered what was wrong with me. In the group there were some really nasty girls who were always in trouble, I got involved in doing some terrible things with them in an attempt to get their approval. One day everything turned against me, I went into school and no one would speak to me. My group of friends had conspired against me, making up stories about me, One of the girls started shouting at me and chased me out of the classroom. I was distraught, whats wrong with me I thought? I spent the next few years alone with no social group of friends I would sit and cry during play time and when I got home I just went to bed. In my final year I became friendly with a girl who self harmed, and I guess that's where it started. I loved the rush cutting gave me and the relief from all my inner turmoil. It wasn't until a few years later at University that my self harm began to get progressively worse. I struggled again to maintain friendships in my first year at uni and would people please which got my into difficult situations. As I struggled to fit in and make friends my flatmates began to reject me and dislike me I felt like I was re living my earlier days at school and couldn't understand what was wrong with me. I also started craving affection and attention from other supportive people around me. My self harming became progressively bad. I lost a family friend to Cancer who was also my best friends dad, She couldn't cope with my destructive behaviour and all the attention I demanded from her and told me we couldn't be friends any more, I put a tool through my leg and things began to fall apart around me. As the years went by things began to improve for me, I started a relationship with a guy I had met at Uni and I started to build up new friendships with girls on my course. But as always SH still played a big part in my life, it had become my coping strategy. After 4 years away from home I was forced to return to my parents as I fell deep into mental health problems and struggled to live a normal life. The last few years have been a real struggle for me I have had many admissions to hospital and attempted suicide more than once. I am now 25 I have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which explains my unusual behaviour toward other people and difficulties maintain relationships. After a very difficult Christmas when I was Sh on a daily basis spending almost every night in A and E I am finally starting to turn a corner. I am getting the help I need from the NHS Crisis team and am being referred to the community mental health team for a CPN. I also got the good news yesterday that the PCT has decided to fund me for DBT treatment. I see a CBT therapist with the crisis team who wants me to go into a therapeutic community to do this. I haven't self harmed for a week now and this is really positive. I am looking forward and feeling a little more hopeful about the future.

I have found it really intresting reading everyones stories, and hope to continue to use the forum to help me cope with my on going struggles 
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: inspectorsoph on June 04, 2012, 06:06:46 AM
Been abused by friends and taken over 15 over doses been resuscitated couple times nearly intensive care once. Now been hospital for over year. On high risk suicide ward
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: amelia_xo on July 26, 2012, 08:54:11 AM
Just in case.. :trig:

Well...where to start...I am 13 and i have been SH'ing for about 6/7 months now. i can't really remember how or why i started, i don't think i had never heard of SH'ing before and i don't think i really knew that i was SH'ing as such, i knew what i was doing but i didn't know much about SH'ing back then. I know that the first time i did it, was because i had an argument with my best friend. i got very upset as she was basically my only friend and so i started SH'ing. That wasn't the only reason why i was SH'ing. I SH'ed because of family problems too. They wern't major problems, just arguments with my mum and 2 brothers as such. They made me really upset and so i SH'ed. At first i wasn't cutting as such, just scrapes and scratches. But over the months things got worse so therefore did my SH'ing.

The thing is i had never been able to talk to anyone about it as i didn't have many friends at school, and the ones i did still wern't very nice to me. I only told my 'friend'... although she was in fact one of my worst 'friends'. Anyway..and my mum isn't someone i talk to alot....well to be honest i don't tell her anything. I just don't feel that she'll listen as i don't see my mum as someone i'm comfortable tallking to. I know that may seem odd because she's my mum. But that's just the way it is.

Anyway a few weeks ago my 'friend' told my form teacher about my SH'ing. she sent me down to reception and i had a talk with one of the lady's who were there. she asked me if i wanted to have a few sessions with the school counselor and i said yes, i'll give it a try. So i had a session with the counselor but only one. i didn't go to any other sessions and it was hard because it was the last week of school before the summer holidays.

Anyway...the counselling didn't help and so i carried on SH'ing. This is where it got really bad. i don't know why but i started cutting...properly now.

Well...about a week ago a friend i knew from primary and I started talking. This was nice for me as she had been through the same as me. Well after we got talking she told me that i should talk to my mum about it. i said i can't it's too hard. Then she told me how she told her mum. Through a letter. i thought that was a great idea and so i did that too. i wrote a letter to my mum explaining everything. it was one of the hardest things i've done. I put the letter in her bag one day before school. I was worried sick about it all day through school. i couldn't stop thinking about it. Anyway, when i got home my mum and i had a chat. it went better than i thought it would. i s'pose i just over-thought it.

Well...after that my mum spoke to my older sister who lives in London. Now...My sister is definitely someone i can talk to. it wasn't until she spoke to me that i realized i should have spoke to her. Anyway i'm going up to see my sister this weekend to have a chat. i'm looking forward to it but nervous aswell. my mum asked me how i knew about SH'ing i told her i didn't know back then...when i started. she said that i must have heard or seen it somewhere. but i hadn't. All i know is i know ALOT of people who do it now. in my form..school. I have got closer to people who have SH'ed and they have been really nice and supportive to me. We may not have been through exactly the same but we know that it is..rougly:)

Anyway...that's my story. you might have noticed i put this in passed tense(i think..haha ::P:)... well its not it the past yet...i haven't done it for 2 weeks or so but that's only because my mum told me to stop and i know that if i carry on she will see the cuts. But i feel freeer now as the worst part of it all was hiding the cuts from my mum. i'm glad that's over now. all i have to do is make sure i don't cut anymore. This will be very hard for me as i don't know how i'm going to do that. My mum is trying to get help for me and hopefully that will help me stop SH'ing.

But after reading some of your other stories about why you SH i feel pretty lucky compare to you. And i think, sometimes... wow. things are much worse with them. i shouldn't be SH'ing. My problems arn't too big. They have major reasons why they do it. But i s'pose it's not all about that. Things just happen and we can't stop it.

I think this site is really good and i know i'll be back to update this and tell you all what happens next...

Thanks for reading :)
See ya:)
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: amelia_xo on July 26, 2012, 08:59:41 AM
Oh and my mum asked me how i knew about SH'ing i told her i didn't know back then...when i started. she said that i must have heard or seen it somewhere. but i hadn't. All i know is i know ALOT of people who do it now. in my form..school. I have got closer to people who have SH'ed and they have been really nice and supportive to me. We may not have been through exactly the same but we know we've both SH'ed.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: nosda on August 20, 2012, 12:45:27 PM
 :trig:

I am 24, and discovered the other day that I have been cutting for half of my life now. I started harming (head banging and biting) when I was 6. There have been points where I have not harmed at all, and points where I have harmed every single day. This was a major issue for me when I was a teenager, but in recent years it has become very sporadic. Although in the last few months it has become alot more frequent than it has been for a while. My coping methods have developed over time, sometimes they work and sometime they don't. One method I have found that can work sometimes, is to draw on my arm with a red pen, using enough pressure for me to feel it, but not enough to break the skin. Every day brings a new challenge for me, but knowing that I managed to stop the daily habit of harming, has in a way made me realise that even though I don't feel like it, I must have strength hidden in there somewhere.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: unheard-scream on August 23, 2012, 03:13:32 PM
 :trig:
My story....
I guess everything went downhill when I turned 10, my aunt and uncle had just got divorced so I felt crushed, then my dad had a stroke, I was terrified. My mum was screaming at me to get the phone but wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with my dad…..

After that things got worse, my “dad” would make comments at my weight, or the grades I got in school. He didn’t care that I started seeing a counsellor at school, or that I was skipping 2 days a week, and loads of classes on the days I actually turned up….

And the days I turned up to school, I just got bullied a lot, then abused by numerous boyfriends and friends I trusted. I avoided being raped twice, which was the final straw for me, at 14 I got depression and self harmed for the first time. I was once a happy smily girl, but she was gone and in her place was this shell that lived in a black hoodie, headphones to drown everyone out and eyeliner. I wanted the world to leave me alone. I’d cut my friends out of my life, they all desperately wanted the old me back but she was buried under a sea of hate, depression and self loathing….

When I turned 15, things just escalated quickly, my best friend had had a boyfriend for a year now, and both were coming to me for every little problem rather than talk to each other, I’d had enough, I didn’t bother going to school for a month, I just said I was ill with the flu……but when I came back they still came to me, so I took myself out of school again for 3 weeks, I came back even more depressed. I’d attempted suicide in those 3 weeks, I tried to choke myself with my tie :/ My best friend finally saw that by coming to me for every little problem, she made me leave school for a bit…. she stopped but everyone else started questioning me about my absences, so guess what, I disappeared again but only for 2 weeks (I was running out of sick excuses)

When I came back the counsellor wanted to see me, I’d missed my last 5 appointments with her, she knew something was wrong, I showed her my scars and she stopped seeing me - great the first person to reject helping me….I started getting back into my lessons after missing so much, but in one lesson I was stuck on a table with my ex boyfriend and his 2 mates (we ended so badly), when the teacher left the room, the 2 friends grabbed me, one held my arms, the other covered my mouth. My ex came up to me with a sinister look in his eyes, picked up a piece of fresh sand paper and went to town on my arm. The teacher came back and the friends said I’d had an accident on the belt sander, I just went along with it, I got my arm cleaned up and was sent home for 2 weeks (fantastic!!)….

I was 16 when I stopped self harming, I’d just left school and all those people behind. Now to college…. my dad recovered from his stroke and started being a dad again. I got into the college I wanted and was on the course I wanted as well…. I met my class mates, and started seeing a guy on my course. We broke up after he dumped me for a dare, my depression returned. I carved my arm up again….

I made some good friends in Dan and Paige, they both went out with people on our course so I was left alone, when my tutor pulled me out to ask if I was ok (the blood had come through my jacket) I broke down and told him everything…. he got me a counsellor who wouldn’t turn their back on me, I saw her everyday till I got to once a week. Then Dan broke up with his girlfriend and Paige split up with her boyfriend, so we all grew closer, I told them about my self harming…. they agreed to help me because I was there for them (finally I had true friends)

When I turned 17 things got better for me, my counsellor had left college tho so I was being moved to another one - great I had to make a new relationship…. I got into a abusive relationship, so I went back to the tool, this time I cut deeper…. Dan found me and helped me clean up and recover….

Christmas time, I was on winter break, I missed my friends and they were the only people who could help me, I downed a bottle on pills, Dan phoned me and talked me out of it, he convinced me to throw them up….

A month before I turned 18 (April) I was at rock bottom. 3 people close to me had died…. I’d been to 7 funerals by the time I reached 17. I was depressed, so I sliced my arm up, I caught a vein and bleed a lot. Dan’s current girlfriend found me this time, she helped me and continues to help me….

I felt like I was getting better after I turned 18, I’d been to a few parties and had fun. Then I lost someone else, and my best friend turned her back on me, I couldn’t take it anymore I emptied another bottle of pills….

Then I met Marina [] I spoke to her until 2 in the morning, she talked me into throwing up my pills, I owe her everything I have. I love her to bits. We still talk now, she is my lifeline and I help her. We’ve both reached 100+ days self harm free…  ;D ::D:

:icon_arrow: edited out references to other website as per forum rules concerning links to graphic images and method sharing
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: mowglieanne on September 23, 2012, 12:59:55 PM
Hey I'm new to this site and aint quite sure What to say but here goes.

i have been self harming for the past 6 years, i started when i was 14.
when i first started i didn't know anything about it and just thought that i must have been weird or some thing but now i know that it is more common than i thought.

i think the reason why i started was because i preferred to take the anger i was feeling out on my self than anyone else.

when i was 8 years old i had to grow up fast because my mum was abusive towards my step dad and i would have to split up the fights  and look after my brother. When my mum and stepdad split up i thought that thing would be better now but they weren't mum turned her anger towards me, she has always been one for emotional blackmail .
that was when i started self harming and i have only stopped once since which was in February this year when my nan the closest person to me died of cancer i stopped because  from when i found out she had cancer to 2 weeks after her funeral i was drinking alcohol though out the day everyday but as soon as i sobered up all the emotions shut out and the self harming came back again and is getting worse.


i am trying to stop and haven't done it in 5 days its been reali hard but i have a great friend how helps also i have made an appointment to see my GP hopefully i can take back the control in my life rather than the urges being in control.

sorry about the rant
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: LeahG on October 12, 2012, 12:05:15 AM
I’ve visited this site several times in the past, just looking and reading when I’m having a bad day. I’m on my own this week and I initially started to type looking for support but as I’ve sat here trying to type over the last hour or so, I realised for the first time that my story is one of survival and moving on. I don’t think I’ll ever come to a stage in my life where I’ll never think of SH again but I suppose I can now deal with it- even if it is difficult at times.
As I’ve read other stories and posts I’ve also realised I’m probably quite a bit older than many of the people on here (but not all). I turned 30 this year and despite what I am writing about I am genuinely happy and have a great life- not perfect but still great. I simply hope that anyone who is finding life very difficult with SH can read this and know that many of us do go on to not only survive but have a great life.
Yes I still have times when I think about SH and sometimes trying not to SH can be as stressful as actually doing it. But I’ve not cut for almost 3 years now and I’ve not relied on SH regularly for nearly 5 years.
SH was my way of coping and having control for nearly 10 years. I spent much of that time feeling very guilty as I never really had anything terrible happen to me that caused it, I just suffered from depression and found life very difficult at times. I’ve never shared my SH with my family and the only person who really knows about it is my now fiancé. 10 years ago I had no idea why I did it or that so many others did too. I now understand my SH, I know my triggers and when I may potentially  find it difficult. This understanding and simply building a life for myself with people and things I love are what worked for me. Even although I occasionally have difficult times it doesn’t mean I’ll SH, I let myself think about it then move on. With time I have eventually thought about it less.
I eventually finished university and now work as a teacher, I have a home with someone I love and we are getting married in a few months and the best part of my life is my 2 year old daughter, being a mum has made me the best version of myself.
So I know I haven’t given any mind blowing advice on how to stop SHing but if reading this can give just one person the hope they need then I’m glad I finally wrote it.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
Post by: Mutley on October 28, 2012, 10:53:01 PM
Hi everyone, am new to this site and was puzzled why a mental health professional had sent me here!  I suppose once I realized my past history of self abuse and reading self harm stories on here I now understand why.

 :trig: :trig: *OD, SH, SA*

My story is probably less severe than some - maybe I am more lucky and actually appreciate I am - my Dad was an alcoholic who left me when I was 2 years old, he used to severely beat my Mother and she feared for her life and that of myself and my older bro.  She kicked my Father out but then she became addicted to prescribed tranquilisers.  I love my Mother dearly but cannot tolerate her behaviour any longer and feel more at peace at the moment for not seeing her - this does not mean I don't care for her or love her still.  I find I cannot find anything positive in knowing her at this moment in time.  My school days were lonely and isolated - I hated school and remember being taunted for "not having a Dad", "being poor", and was told day in and day out I was "fat and ugly".  The bullying started at the age of 5 when I remember a girl punched me in the stomach - her sister pushed me down a steep slope into a ditch and things never improved much from there.  I did eventually become friends with the girl who punched me - she must have had issues to contend with.  I tended to befriend kids from minority groups such as disabled, gay or black.  In my eyes we were all struggling with bullies and had to stick together to retain "our sanity".  When I was 5 years old a family friend, who was around 16 or 17 lured me into his house promising me books - he had a big family and lots of unwanted books - and being a friend I wholeheartedly trusted him.  Once inside his house he pushed me physically upstairs and then pushed me forcefully on his bed, then he closed his bright, orange, satin curtains and forced his passionate kisses on me.  He did not get any further than that thankfully as my Grandmother sensed I was in danger and hammered her fists on his front door, threatening to call the Police if he did not release me.  Later on in years, I found he was sent to prison for sexual offences.  Oh, by the way, on leaving his house he scooped up a load of books and sent me on my way.  Even to this day I still panic if someone corners me and I feel "out of control" of a situation.  The bullying continued at school and at  home I felt like a "puppet" being controlled with my Mother and my Brother both pulling my strings. I spent so many years feeling desperate, isolated and felt like I didn't fit in.  At the age of 16 I took an overdose of painkillers and ended up wired up to a heart machine in intensive care for over a week.  I know my Mum felt destroyed by this but she still never seemed to understand how I felt.  I fell in love at the age of 19 and thought life would be great - but it didn't happen.  I felt insecure and jealous and felt I was going to be abandoned all over again.  I suddenly became the nasty bully - putting my partner down because of my lack of confidence.  I loved him with all my heart but could not show it in the correct way.  He left me for another.  I then had a breakdown as I felt so gutted he had left me.  This then led to a year when I had a complete breakdown.  My Mother wanted me sectioned which I fought against with the support of my fantastic Doctor.  I went to anger management, self esteem groups everything I was told to do as I had now fallen in love with a very kind man who 21 years later, is still my friend - we had 11 turbulent years together but he is my rock and I am his - we support each other emotionally - I even sorted out my jealousy problem enough to attend his wedding day a few years ago.  I was really moved and happy he had found the right woman for him and tried to hold back the tears on that day.  After I left him, for a man I met on the internet who was totally inappropriate and who held me down and forced a sex act on me - I was torn apart but thought I was so disgusting I deserved it and was being punished.  Ha Ha, nasty B**** karma has bitten you big time.  Then I met a lovely african man who I could not believe would love me - I was fat and ugly and old - 40 years old at this point and felt ugly and respulsive - after all why would a handsome, tall, beautiful man want me except for a British passport. I made it clear you love me for me and not a passport. I never gave in to his request for this.  He is now happy and living in Birmingham with "leave to remain".  After going from one night stands and bad relationships I found my "dream man" - an englishman man whose parents were born in Jamaica and he was stunning.  He was seriously ill and was having multiple epileptic fits which rendered him unconscious.  When I saw him he was upbeat, confident and motivated me from my black moods.  I felt beautiful when I was with him, he gave me confidence and I felt life was worth living and I did not relize he was so ill.  Then suddenly, on a Thursday afternoon I got the call that he had died.  An epileptic fit had led to a heart attack.  the emergency services could not revive him.  He had died at home with his Mother whom he loved dearly.  I did not know his family.  The stress of going to his funeral and seeing him lying dead in his coffin was nearly too much for me.  I had to cope with this alone and had no backup from my family.  I was told I was ridiculous for thinking I was in love with him after only 7 months - even after 7 seconds with him I knew I was in love.  I had communicated with him for over a year online but felt I was not "good enough for him".  I always felt beautiful when we were together.  When he died I felt half of me had been torn from me.  I felt suicidal for so many months.  I kept cutting my hair - I wanted to take drugs to end it all - my Doctor would not prescribe me medication to cope as I was self medicating with several bottles of vodka a week.  Four years down the line, the last time I wanted to take my life a year ago, I live near a well known suicide spot and wanted to visit it.  This time it was because I had a gay male friend I absolutely was focusing on.  This guy was my motivation to live but then he told me he had epilepsy and when he drank and took drugs I feared losing him.  Apart from all this my best friend from school died from a hit and run accident when she was 19, another school friend I loved dearly died when we were 39 and I lost family friends and family members whom I loved dearly.Also, I lost pet who I looked on as my children during my lifetime.  

Thankfully, my gay friend is still alive - he suffers depression and I am there for him whenever he needs me - he has turned up at my door at gone 2 in the morning and stayed until 6 in the morning - I am still self medicating but do not feel as much pain emotionally as I used to.  My turning point was when I sent a text saying "good bye" to my gay friend, he was mortified thinking I had died as I had not turned up for work the next day - somehow I found the strength to go to the Doctor and "ask for help".  I did not realize the absolute panic and distress I had caused.  He would not speak to me for a few weeks after that incident as he was so angry with me.  We are closer than ever now and though I still have a jealousy problem when any woman gets near him I am seeking help for that - I have no problem around his boyfriend - just feel a woman may steal him away.  I am on a road to "self improvement" this year.  I am 47 and giving myself permission at last to enjoy my life.  I still have alcohol issues but have had two lots of counselling and attend a therapy art group regularly and also tried flower arranging as a hobby this year.  I love to make jewellery and making greetings cards along with other hobbies such as knitting and sewing and renovating dolls houses.  Life is hard, it is a daily struggle but now instead of burying my head in the sand like an ostrich I am seeking solutions to my problems.  It is better to fight than to resign yourself to a living death.  My Grandmother suffered alzheimers and died in a care home - I now work in a care home on Reception where I am the "friendly face" that greets and empathises with families.  My own mental health problems help me to help others.  I still have times when I want to harm myself - and  want to overdose or even hurt my face because I feel I am so ugly that it wont make any difference to my looks.  Then I recall good comments made at work that I motivate other people when they are down and the Service Users like me and their families compliment me.  Then I know I am doing "just fine".  Being "just fine" is good for me right now and I appreciate very simple things such as having a coffee with friends.  Oh my God, I should be packaged as a "sleep aid".  After reading through this again, I actually feel like I have the right to call myself a "survivor".  Love to all - we can survive and "will survive".

 :icon_arrow: Edit, removed a few details of harming methods to keep the post within the rules of the site - Gerard
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Stillgoing on August 23, 2013, 11:51:23 PM
:trig: *SH SA OD*

I am hoping that creating this timeline will help to integrate to two lives that I feel I have had.

Between the ages of 9 and 12 I was SAed regularly by a sporting trainer, however, at this time I did not self harm. Despite being petrified and in constant fear I took comfort in the fact that I was doing exceptionally well at my horse riding and I think almost convinced myself that the SA was a price I had to pay. As a child I couldn't actually see that I had a real talent for horses, I thought the perpetrator was responsible for my success. When he moved country and the abuse stopped everything fell apart. I lost confidence and began to feel worthless and unwanted. At 12 the SH began to take over my life and my ability to ride fluctuated with my mood. No one knew for a couple of years but by 13 my school became very suspicious as I suddenly fell from top of the class to near enough bottom and my behaviour significantly deteriorated.

At 14 I confided in a teacher at school about my SH and she became one of the most positive and inspirational relationships I have had. She supported me as much as she could: referred me to CAMHS, gave me space to express myself and my feelings constructively at school, cared about my feelings and most of all had faith that I could get back to the A* student I knew I could be. Don't get me wrong I gave her hell and I thank her massively for sticking by me, even after I left school at 16.

CAMHS was really helpful when it came to the SH and the reduction programme I engaged with worked really well. After two years with my therapist I finally felt able to disclose my SA and my treatment then began to focus on PTSD rather than anxiety, depression and SH. After I initially disclosed the SA my SH was relentless and I was even hospitalised after a failed attempt on my life. Revealing my experiences made me feel out of control and it was something that took a lot to work through. I remained at CAMHS until I was 18 and although I never stopped the SH in this time, the amount that I SHed and the severity reduced dramatically by the time I left. I had not finished my treatment for PTSD and CAMHS requested an instant referral to adult psychological services for further therapeutic work. This did not happen and once CAMHS were completely out of the picture and the transition was complete, the adult mental health services referred me to a psychiatrist who simply gave me labels and medication rather the support and therapy that had been working so well.

Needless to say my SH increased again, my academic work (A-Levels) continued to be dramatically affected and I lost all chances of getting into university. Medication wasn't working and I once again felt out of control after opening the SA box and not being supported properly to put it away in a constructive and manageable way. I tried many medications and only became meds free 5 years later. After failing my A-Levels and having no chance of gaining a place at university that year, with the support of my old school teacher, I re-enrolled for the following year to retake my exams and also started private psychological therapy (as recommended by CAMHS). This worked well and within that year (age 18-19) I managed to stop my SH and begin to manage my emotions a little better. I was still, and am still, tainted with my memories and the subsequent anxiety and depression that plagues my life but I realised that these things do not need to define my life. I passed my A-levels that year (not nearly what I should have achieved, but enough with an appeal to get into a good university).

My life changed at university and I find it so hard to look back and think that the pre-age 19 person is the same person that then went on to complete her degree. I remained SH free ever since starting university and the whole experience was very empowering especially considering I finally I achieved the top grades which I should have been achieving in my GCSE's and A-Levels. I completed my degree last year and spent this past year qualifying as a teacher (I guess my teacher in school had a HUGE impact on not only my life but my career choices as well; it's nice to know she is still there for me now and that I have made her very proud. I am now a fully qualified teacher - although it hasn't really sunk in and I feel like the last four years have been a bit of a blurr. I am still plagued with horrible thoughts at times and depression is something which I feel I will need to live with and manage for the rest of my life. I am determined to remain SH free despite the fact that I regularly have thoughts about it and have many times nearly fallen back on my old coping mechanisms. PTSD is difficult to live with but I have realised that not all days are bad and it has ultimately made me a stronger and more determined person. It's funny - I'm kind of at a time in my life where I think for the first time I can say I wouldn't change what happened to me because it has made me the person I am. I certainly don't think I would have chosen to teach had it not been for education saving my life and taking me away from SH, drugs and alcohol. Education made me understand a little better what happened to me and I'm sure that by helping other students to overcome  their own difficulties I will continue to have the same positive outlook on life despite everything.

This has been really helpful but I have found that there is no way you can capture an entire timeline in one post. I hope this story can show others that there is light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. 
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Hettie-D on October 31, 2013, 10:25:56 PM
 :trig:




I cant remember exactly when the first time I sh'd was b :13886:ut I remember that it was just before when my little sister was rushed into hospital with a kidney problem called HSP. It was around about christmas and we were putting up the tree but em (my sister) couldn't help because she'd recently gotten a virus that attacked her immune system leaving her in so much pain that she couldn't stand up for long because of the pain; this was the day I first hurt myself. I thought that I'd caused her to be ill -a few years before we were fighting in the car and she fell out of the door (it wasn't moving, don't worry) and ended up in hospital for 2 weeks having tests done and nothing was discovered so she was sent home- and so I started scratching my thighs. This went on for a few months until we found out that she had gotten HSP- this was caused by the virus that attacked her immune system by making her kidneys work too hard so that they tired themselves out and made her ill.

A few years later, when I was in year 8, there was a boy the year above me and we started talking and started meeting up and eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend. After a few weeks he started acting strange and trying to push me into things. At this point I was really close to my cousin who was 4 years older and I knew that she'd gone further than just kissing her boyfriend so I thought it would be okay and did the same thing with my boyfriend. At this point I was only 12, I thought I was in love and didn't think that it was wrong. It went on for another week and then like kids do, I dumped him. This was when all of the rumours started to fly around and school found out and told my parents. Like most parents would be, they were angry with me and I thought that they hated me. This was the second time I started self harming and I gave myself a bad friction b**n on my hand, using a coin. I did this twice and I still have the scars as vivid as ever, nearly 3 years later. If anyone asks I say that they're burns from an oven.

The next time that I self harmed was when I started to get bullied by a girl who was older than me and scary and I let her get to me. After this I hurt my self on and off for several other reasons that I don't want to go into detail about.

The last time I sh's was when I was doing really badly at school and my parents were upset with me. I thought I was letting them down and on top of that I was having a really bad time with my best friend, he had recently moved to america and we were drifting away after years of being inseparable. I started using a tool. He moved back and we aren't as close as before but I know that I can always talk to him even though he never knew that I hurt myself.

I haven't hurt myself since but I think I've found ways of copping on my own through art and performing arts. If anyone ever needs help please message me, i don't want anyone to suffer anymore.  :1027:   :1059:   :1017:   :tiny doggie:
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Aj on April 18, 2014, 09:10:52 PM
I've come back to the forum after a long time away because I've recently began to feel bad again. I hope not to SH this time- it's been about a year since I last did.

 :trig:
So I really don't know why I first SH but I do know what led up to the point when I did.

I used to work a very stressful job where I would witness people die and suffer the most atrocious, life changing injuries. I was quite senior in my position and so I took on a lot of responsibility. You know, sometimes people don't realise how long they're running on empty until they've nothing left. I was crying at work, not sleeping and drinking heavily. A senior colleague told me to go to the GP and as I described my physical symptoms and was asked how long this had been going on, it slowly dawned on me that I'd been like this for 5 months- not the few weeks I'd thought.
AD did nothing and my colleague gently told me that I needed to go off work sick- I wasn't safe.
Things just got worse- I wasn't eating, sleeping, washing, or even taking care of my kids. I had to stop driving as I couldn't trust myself.  I don't remember much of this time...... My friends and colleagues were with me all day and most nights as they've since told me they thought 'I'd gone' and maybe I had.
I don't remember the first time I did it but I do remember one time after a friend had just left in the early hours being in the kitchen with a tool slashing at myself, the dog watching me with pity on her face. It was the blood I wanted and it just was something I could do to distract myself from my suicidal thoughts. It became my coping mechanism and if I felt myself slipping, I'd be crying as I sharpened that tool knowing I was about to mutilate myself.

This forum, my psychiatrist, friends, family and some pills got me through all that. I'm glad I found this place because if I feel myself slipping I can come here and know that others have been at the same place.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Noodle93 on July 07, 2015, 11:05:52 AM
Okay, I'm pretty new here and I'm not quite sure how it all works so I'll post this guy in just in case   :trig:

I'm also a little nervous  :blushing:  AND there's a hell of a lot to say so please excuse the essay coming your way.

I'm 22 and have been self harming for about.. 6 years now when I was 16.

To be honest, I'm not totally sure why I actually started but I know that due to a domino effect of things going on in my life at that point, I carried on. It was during this time that my granddad got very ill and shortly after passed away. He lived abroad and for 3 months, my dad and uncle travelled back and forth to visit him and spend the last days with him. He eventually passed and a week before my 15th birthday my mum and I flew out for his funeral. I did not have to go but I have two younger siblings and small cousins and felt that I should go for all of us. Anyway, it was beautiful and we flew back and I tried to celebrate my birthday. My friends and boyfriend made a huge effort but there was just a hole. I went back to school a day after and this is where it started i guess.

I was doing my GCSE's at the time, and like anyone, I wanted to do well.. I've never been particularly academic, I never really struggled with the work, I just got bored really easily and gave up listening to the teachers after about 20 minutes. I also had 'personality clashes' with some of the teachers at my school. The real issue was that they did not like me, I had a real problem with an art teacher who used to hold up my work and tell the class that I hadn't worked hard enough on it, (when we did our homework she always said she wanted quality over quantity, so naturally I spent a hefty amount of time working hard on a smaller, more detailed piece rather than a large piece of not very good work). She would then take my work out of my book and rip it up, again in front of the class. Obviously, that caused some issues between me and her, and instead of her explaining what I was doing wrong, she left me to keep doing it wrong.
She also believed that I was a disruption within the class and sat me on my own and anyone who spoke to me was told off, if I said anything to anyone else, I had an automatic hours detention. Even if it was quiet chatting to my friends or asking to borrow pens/pencils/paints - anything. Whilst I had been away I had misplaced my art book, I explained to my art teacher it was probably at home and I would bring it to the next art lesson and she huffed and puffed and shouted that just because I had had a family issue, that was no reason to forget my art book. She then wandered around each classroom and announced to the classes that my grandad had passed and that I had lost my art book, if anyone should find it - place it in her office. It was embarrassing and I felt so sick because of it.

I keep side tracking (sorry!) This carried on for the remainder of my GCSE's - and I fell behind on other subjects too, the teachers having to have meetings with my parents and I got moved around sets because of my concentration. It was around this time that I stopped eating, I don't know why I did, I loved food - my family have roots in India and Italy, two cultures where big family meals are a huge deal. I just physically couldn't eat. Everything had no taste and it was an effort to force myself to eat something - I used to either throw it away or give it to my boyfriend. My mum started to notice and phoned the school and I was under watch by the dinnerladies every lunch time. It was horrible - the school then referred me to a dietary nurse who I had to have meetings with, who encouraged us to eat in healthy ways. They then put me on a programme because I was having issues with the teachers which they thought was my fault.

This is when I started self- harming. Things were just going from bad to worse and they got so much worse -  :trig:

I now not only felt horrible because I wasn't doing well at school, and my family was disappearing at an alarming rate, but now I had huge body issues and hated the way I looked, I've never been slim, but I wasn't big either - I never really used to mind my weight, but something happened inside me and I hated myself. I was fed up of constantly being hurt, that I started to cut deeper, and anywhere on my body that wouldn't be seen by my friends/family/ sisters/ teachers - my thigh was a particular favourite. Then one day my mum found out from somewhere - I still have no idea how - that I had been cutting myself. I came home from school and she made me strip down to my underwear and show her what I had done. She cried more than I've ever seen her cry and she told me how sad she was that I had done it. That was my turning point. I said to myself I wouldn't do it again.

I lasted a few months and went off to college - a fresh start - new people, new place and it was amazing. Then my other grandad passed away a year after my other grandad and my grandad's partner a month after that. My gran passed away the year after and my Nonna the year after that. It just seemed.. never-ending, I hated everything, lost interest in things I loved and stopped eating once again. I didn't want to go to university as I did not feel good enough to go, but my college teachers encouraged me to apply, I applied and got offers from all my choices. At last, I felt like things were looking up - I secured a place at university and studied there for the past 3 years - with a truck load of ups and downs but my boyfriend (at a different university) supported me through everything.

 :trig: I have recently felt, that things are turning sour again. I frequently have bad days, but it's not just a bad day, it's like a huge monster is constantly on my back - just dragging me down. Like I'm not allowed to be happy. I hadn't harmed for a good 8 months, but yeah.. recently it's just getting too much. I cut myself a few days ago because I feel like I'm a let down. I could explain but it would take up more of everyone's time ha. My boyfriend, who's stuck by me for the last 8 years is starting to struggle with my need to cut/ starve/ harm myself. I used to talk to him about it because he would always make me feel better, but rightly so, it's getting on his nerves and he doesn't understand why I do it.

That's why I joined this site. He said something the other night which has fuelled me to stop. And i really want to.. I just don't know if I can. I now hate going on holiday or anything like that because of the scars on my legs and hips, I managed to get my other scars tattooed over with a Marilyn Monroe quote because they were not that deep. I just want to be okay.

Thank you for listening everyone, I hope I haven't bored you with it.


Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: DanB1980 on December 09, 2017, 12:42:52 AM
So I am 37 years old and a father of 1 tremendous 7 year old boy and I have a loving Fiancee too.

A few years ago, maybe when I was 20, I self harmed for the first time and I only did it the once. I remember it well but don't remember why I actually did it. We move on 17 years and the summer this year I self harmed again but the reason for this was because my family was away on holiday and I was worried they would be killed in a plane crash. That is something that is way out of my control. That was August this year and then nothing.......until now.

A couple of weeks ago, I went into a depressive state of mind where I felt really down and that I couldn't be bothered with anything. I mean I do shift work so would go to bed early, but I was in bed at 1930 everyday simply because I had no get up and go. I have stopped Karate and also photography too. I was annoyed, stressed and highly agitated ALL the time and now this week, I have had a couple of panic/anxiety episodes on the way to work and also at work. This week, my mind is messed up and I have resorted to self harm. Why, well the reason is because it is the only thing I feel in control over and when I do it, my mind is focused and free at the same time, It is a release. Now that I have done it, my agitations seems to dissipate along with my annoyance (it's still there but not as much). It now seems to have gotten that bit addictive and I am sure within the next few days, my Fiancee will find out and ask questions and that scares me something chronic. I mean what will she say? Will she be angry? Will she be sad or disappointed? I have no idea what the reaction will be. I know she knows I am in a depressive state but she doesn't really know how to help and I don't blame her for that. I have never felt this down, even when I was a Prison Officer and I had therapy for anger and stress. I saw first hand the issues of self harm and never thought I would be one who is crying out for help. How things change. I was once looking after victims and now I am one.

I am worried that the self harm is a downward spiral which I won't be able to get out of. If you look at the internet, there is plenty of help for people below 25 but over that and certainly over 30 and people who are self harming parents, there seems to be little or no support available which is frightening. Gone are the days of the stereotypical self harmer.

I have a GP appointment next week (Wednesday) so that is one of the first steps. "A journey of a 100 miles begins with a first step". I don't know what to say to the GP or even what support they can offer. I know every case is taken on merit and is different but all of this scares me. On the outside I appear fine but inwards, I am scared and don't have massive confidence in my abilities.

So that is my story, plain and simple. For those who read this, I thank you very much. I feel all your pain.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: Mihashi on April 05, 2019, 09:26:43 AM
:trig: SH, SUI

I think I started Self-harming when I was around 9, as I said before. I really can't remember now since I'm in my mid 20s and it's just been so long, and I've been doing it on and off. It's always been as a form of punishment, though. The main reason for this is that, now looking back, my mother did physically and verbally abuse myself and my siblings, but once the 2nd child came, a lot less of it was toward me, so I felt that I needed to keep myself in check if things were going to be fair. Our house has been notoriously a loud and rather off-putting one due to how much screaming there is. I've never been a fan of it, but I'll be the last to say that abuse was anyone's intention at all. Things have gotten better since. For a long while, I thought that maybe it was a good idea to commit suicide at some point because, hey, all the kids in the neighborhood seemed to want me to anyway, and why not make them happy? The main reason why I still live is that the same voice telling me to harm myself gives a reminder that doing so would be an easy way out, and I wouldn't be living up to responsibility. I've also learned over the years that I like living, so both of those keep me going.

Over the years, it started off very simply, but like a constantly upgrading machine, I found more and more creative ways to do it. I'll get back to that later. The reasons for it always changed too, from guilt of hurting someone emotionally on accident, to letting people toy with me too much, to grades (they've about never been good, especially at the start of all this), to sometimes out of generally feeling that I'm worthless and therefore need punishment.

I've found 2 ways that this comes on.
1 - I can feel it coming like an oncoming train. Sometimes I can get rid of it before it arrives.
2 - There's this short, very short moment where I feel the imbalance in my head go wild. It happens between the incident itself, and my self-harm, whichever way it manifests.

I can't really pinpoint any patterns on what circumstances lead to either, though. What is a pattern though is what happens after. It seems all the emotions that I try to suppress (sadness, hope - strangely, mostly sadness though) come at me like a typhoon and I end up in tears within minutes.

I said I'd come back to the multiple ways that this manifested. Well, in the middle of a particularly rough patch, and nearly killed myself with a glass milk jug. My sister (number 2 mentioned previously) thankfully called emergency and it turned out that night that the majority of the injuries were on my hands and not head, and I got stitches in both of them.

I went to therapy for about a couple months after that, doing CBT. That helped me gain a more positive voice to drown out the one plaguing me for so many years. I also stopped loathing myself (I think I'm... okay. Not that great, but okay-ish). And for 2 or so years, that seemed to do the trick.

Until one time I managed to get the car stuck at the grocery store, upon which I had a flash of self-harm. Since then, it's been a somewhat gradual, but also exponentially faster spiral into more dangerous territory. A couple weeks ago, I'm sure I sprained my thumb harming it. I hadn't even noticed I hit there, where my focus was on a couple seemingly larger spots.

The thing here is that every time I start self-harming again, it comes back stronger. And the voice I developed in CBT has been crumbling, with the more rather negative voice coming back with "I don't care" with every rebuttal I give it. I've gotten again to the point where there's no actual reason for the self-harm as punishment, but it seems that in that moment, it's needed anyway. I'm terrified that what happened on the night with the milk jug will happen again, but far, far worse. Because I didn't even realize I might have died then until after getting stitches, I'm almost certain if it does happen again, that it'll be through a harder form that does kill me quicker.

I have a fiance right now, and for the month at least, I'll stick with him. He's very good to me, too good really. I have a lot of thoughts where I don't deserve something, but he truly is someone I don't.

So that's why I'm here. I'll probably edit this post here later because there's still more to add, but those are the details for now.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: kiraziyal on April 28, 2019, 03:17:18 PM
:trig: maybe somewhere, probably - just in case.

I started SH when I was either 23 or 24 in 2003 / 2004.  I'm 38 now.  It was at it's worst when I first started so 15 or 16 years ago.  It was just cutting my upper left arm.  I didn't realise it at the time and, I've never actually said this to anyone (so apologies for dumping it on everyone here), but I think it's because I'm bisexual.  I've only recently admitted it to myself.  I always just thought the SH happened was because I had no confidence or wasn't enjoying my job or university or whatever.  There were lots of cuts on my arm but I always covered them up.

Then the SH happened again in 2009 and again just last month.  Both of these last two occasions have only been one cut each time.  Having this time frame has made me realise the one thing which was there in all 3.  There was someone I liked (a different person each time) and I could never tell them.  Mind you, I shouldn't be surprised, I don't tend to tell anyone anything.

But I told one of my lecturers about the SH last month (also the relevant person mentioned above in the last paragraph). 

There's probably a lot more to this but I'm being my usual self in thinking I shouldn't be wasting people's time so don't bother in case they are too polite to tell me to shut up or go away.  Ramble over.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: greenie on June 03, 2019, 09:13:20 PM
Okay, this is the first time I've actually written all of this down, so let's see how this goes.
(I'm currently 16 by the way.)
 :trig:

I first started SH when I was ten. I didn't know what I was really doing. At the time, my sister had gotten drastically ill and was in the hospital every day. My grandmother was ill as well, and my parents got really depressed because of it. My little sister was too young to understand what was going on, but it was all enough to make her non-verbal at school. My dad had to work a lot more to make sure we could afford the necessary things for my family, and my mum was always at the hospital, so I didn't see a lot of them. I was really depressed, but I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. I had panic attacks at school a lot, and things were looking really bad social wise for 10 year old me, my anxiety never helped with anything. My friends didn't understand what to do or how to help me, so they just went along with whatever was happening and kind of ignored it, because what were they supposed to do really?

Two months before my tenth birthday, I was having a panic attack alone in my room. I remember feeling really numb, and feeling like I was past sadness, and I kind of just did it? It stopped me from crying, and that was the only thing I took away from that experience at first, so I started using. I didn't know it was an issue, or that it was bad. I saw it as a good thing? I would SH to stop myself from crying and that was that. I thought my friends knew, but that they just didn't say anything because what would they say, and they'd never really said anything about the panic attacks before. So this went on like this until I was about 12.

That year, it had got to a point where I knew my friends understood what was going on, but they just didn't think I was worth helping. I thought that no one cared, and panic attacks became a daily thing, with my friends still leaving me alone to deal with them. I would SH a lot, and everything got worse with my sisters' health, she got taken away by an ambulance in the middle of the night, and then my grandmother died, and my aunt got cancer, and my dog died. It really wasn't the best year, and this heavily affected my mental health.

It got to a point where I asked my mum for therapy because I thought I was depressed. I still didn't fully understand the SH, but at that point, that still wasn't an issue for me. We talked about t, and she said I was too young to be depressed and didn't let me.

In school, I was kind of known as the person who had anxiety attacks and panic attacks a lot. I had a lot of girls who used to bully me. They'd be rude about the death of my grandmother and would generally be very mean and make my life a nightmare. When they taught us about mental health in school, they brought in these people who did a play on mental health and drug abuse and they explained it all. I was so, so scared when they talked about SH. I didn't know really what I was doing before that, and it terrified me so much that I had an anxiety attack and a memory blackout for the rest of the play. I didn't know what to do. I thought I must really mean nothing if my friends knew about what SHing actually was (which they all seemed to) and didn't do anything about it. This brought me to the darkest place I got to in my life, and I stayed there for about two years until I was 15.

It got so bad that sometimes I would bang my head against a wall until I felt I wasn't alive or wasn't there and felt really dizzy.

The next year, I decided to open up to one of my closest friends who had experienced the impact of illnesses on families first hand and I was telling her about my SH, and she said she didn't know. I was so confused, because I SH'd in front of people a lot, but she really didn't seem to know. She then told me that no one knew, and I realized that maybe that was true and had a panic attack. She asked me if anyone knew, and I said, my parents and my therapist (I didn't have one and my parents had no clue), and she said she wouldn't tell anyone.

A couple of weeks later, I was talking to her about it and my other really close friend overheard. She was the only person who actually knew, but she had a lot of mental issues going on. She told me she knew, and I completely freaked out. I thought that everyone knew, then no one, and I didn't know how to feel. So I emailed friend 1 to ask for advice. But, that email got flagged, and that's how my parents found out about the whole thing. I was traumatized by that conversation, as I've always been very closed with my emotions.

In January of that year, there was a new girl in our class. I thought she was the most beautiful person I've ever seen (and I still do), and this led to my realizing I was gay. I fell in love with her, but she was in as bad a place as I was. We started talking, and I told her about all this ^^. She was the first person to ask me to stop cutting. That really meant something to me. We became best friends, and it was really painful and hard being in love with her, and I didn't tell anyone for a year. That summer was a very bad summer for me, and I had multiple attempts to end my life. I would've too if it hadn't been for her and my sister.

So I had an attempt and didn't see this girl for a week afterward. When she saw my wrist she genuinely sobbed. I promised her I wouldn't try again and I never did. (we later came out to each other and I've never been happier then I am dating her).

Being gay also made me more nervous and anxious, and all throughout I SHd and spiraled. I felt really uncomfortable saying I love you to people, but I made new friends who helped me through it, and I got better over time. I feel a lot happier now, but I can't seem to stop SHing. I don't know why, I just don't have any other coping mechanisms besides banging my head and cutting.

I feel like I could stop, and I should, but it's been so long that I don't really know who I am without it, but I think I'm getting better on all other fronts of my mental health, so that's good. But now I suffer a lot from body issues and hating my scars, but I never feel comfortable talking about it with everyone. And my derealization have gotten a lot worse and I still get a lot of panic attacks.
(Maybe I'm not doing as well as I think but at least I don't want to die anymore so getting a bit better?)

I used to have therapy, but I never could really open up, so there wasn't really any use in it for me. And my anxiety is still really strong. I think I've had to give myself four pep talks to write this. But again, I think I'm getting better on that front. My main problem is I don't know how to not be sad and I think I like it that way, even though I feel happy more now.

(I'm sorry this is so vague I have a lot more things to say but I'm very tired and this is a mess I'm sorry)
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: J82T on June 12, 2019, 11:19:10 PM
 :maytrigger:

I started to SH using 'tools' somewhere around age 17 or 18 I think, although I can remember using fingernails as young as maybe 9 or 10.  In any case, it was always done in total secret.

By my early twenties I was hurting myself regularly in places where the cuts could be easily hidden.  I've never been diagnosed with anything like depression or anxiety but whenever I did feel down, SH took the edge off those feelings.  Having a secret also appealed to me, as though knowing something that no one else knew made me somehow less inadequate than I already felt.

I stopped SH altogether when I met my wife-to-be.  I wanted to be able to tell her that it was an old habit, not a current one so I made myself stop and never hurt myself again while we were together.  The day she left after over ten years of marriage, I started again almost immediately.

I wanted to hurt myself so many times and didn't, because I'd promised her that I wouldn't.  I was proud that I'd stopped, and I'm ashamed to have gone back to it after so long but I've lost my reason not to.  In an attempt to get the habit under control I've started counselling this week and have also seen my GP.  I really want to beat this habit again.
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: DavidJ on September 07, 2019, 06:49:52 PM
Self-harm Mind-body Treatment

https://selfharmmindbodyhelp.jimdofree.com
http://selfharmmindbodyhelp.simplesite.com

Hello. This article is about my own successful resolution of a personal mental health issue, namely the presence of a specific self-harming thought. I would like to share my personal experience of successfully resolving an event triggered self-harming mental thought through an effortless mind-body health solution that simply, spontaneously arose in my mind one day whilst observing in my awareness the distressing self-harming thought.

The same self-harming thought would come into my mind daily or so continually for about a few months from its initial unwelcome onset late in my life until it was spontaneously resolved, eliminated by this simple mind-body awareness process I will explain in some depth here in this article. The negative thought to self-harm appeared in my awareness each time as a result of the same physical trigger event associated with the specific self-harming thought impulse or urge. More specifically, when holding a tool such as a cutlery or kitchen tool in preparation for a kitchen chore or eating, I would have a strong thought or urge to put the tool into my left eye. Of course, put the tool down you say but the self-harm was more present and the thought to put it down mostly did not initially arise in my mind, although when it did gain entry to my thinking I would do that. Eventually, the thought would lessen in intensity and leave my mind until the next thought impulse triggering event.

To help give you more idea of what was happening in my experience of this thought to self-harm, have you ever stood on the edge of a cliff and wondered about going closer to the edge and what it would be like to fall off? Imagine this curiosity being stronger turning more into an urge creating fear and distress so you quickly move away from harm as you feel somewhat out of control of this mental compulsion. My event experience trigger was somewhat like that, but stronger and more common as there are many times and occasions in daily life to use a tool than to approach the edge of a cliff.

If I had acted on the self-harming thought, which always took the same form as above, it may have resulted in serious injury or worse. Of course I have never physically acted on the thought as otherwise I would probably not be writing this article if I had. Nevertheless, I was somewhat concerned, worried about the negativity of the thought and that the urge could get stronger. So my story is not about actual self-harming but rather the thought or urge to do so and how I successfully dealt with it. Fortunately, the issue was resolved before it could have turned physical if it ever did.

This self-harming thought did not appear to be related or linked to coping with or reacting to stressful events that I was aware of in the present or past or guilt over such. I was not aware that it was an urge to create or result in some kind of relief of stress. Rather the self-harming thought had a simple physical event trigger, as indicated above. Generally my life, and I am in my seventies now, has been quite balanced both from a physical and mental health viewpoint. However, the fact that this thought was coming into my conscious mind and its somewhat disturbing nature made me think I needed to address it, whether psychologically, emotionally, physically, or whatever and especially if it appeared to get stronger.

I also appear to have periodically in my life mild tics or habits (undiagnosed Tourettes) and perhaps some limited degree of undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) type behaviour, but these symptoms have not been medically diagnosed and were more frequent in my childhood than adulthood. They are mild and not problematic for my life. I am unsure if these above termed psychoneurological conditions are related, although medical research suggests they are. The unconscious and the conscious minds are constantly changing the physical activity of the body for better or worse. Conscious and unconscious negative thoughts, emotions and experiences can cause various problematic symptoms in our life experiences through compulsive behaviour.

So what is this insight, this subjective mind-body help or treatment for the thought, urge to self-harm and how is it achieved? It is somewhat vague and difficult to explain to those who have not experienced it, as it is like describing what is spontaneously happening in the individual awareness rather than giving instruction on how to create it. It is the spontaneous simplicity of the process in our awareness that makes you wonder what you have just done to remove the thought and distress. It is an eye opening, transforming, eureka-like experience albeit subtle. It is the simplicity, spontaneity and present immediacy of the experience of wonder. A kind of instant wonder difficult to describe, but the experience although subjective is very real. You are left wondering what you have just done to bring about this change in thought awareness. Nevertheless, in my opinion and from a layman's experience and limited point of view, I can try to explain what is happening in this subtle mind-body process, and awareness of that may be able to precipitate the subjective experience of the momentary transformation in the mind-body experience. So here goes.

It is a psychological process of subtle change in awareness and effortless transformation of our thinking. It is a present, simple, effortless thought to remove a present self-harming thought in a moment of quiet observation. It is a subtle change from a self harming, strained, unnatural emotional thought to an effortless, quiet state with the absence of the self-harming thought in the mind's awareness. Thinking which replaces thinking, a new thought or experience of absence replacing another previous thought of self-harm but in an effortless, watchful, quiet manner with no emotion present in that moment of experience, such as fear. There is no strain in this subtle change in the thinking, awareness process. Simple awareness in the present moment is enough to create the change in thinking, to release the self-harming thought. A thought whether conscious or unconscious precedes our action. Action can be started or removed by a thought, a simple command if you like. The simpler, frictionless, innocent, effortless, relaxed, emotion free, unstrained and unforced the thought is the greater the power, strength, effectiveness and positive the result will be. It is a quiet moment of subjective observation in the mind that precipitates the experience.

How to do this? How can you in a moment of time transform your thought of self-harm to a thought of no self-harm which will actually work to stop in an instant the self-harming thought before it takes hold of the mind? By letting go of the thought of the particular act of self-harm. By taking away your attention from it in the present moment. No conscious self-harm can come without first a conscious thought of self-harm. A conscious thought precedes a conscious action. No conscious experience of a self-harming thought can occur without a thought of self-harm arising in the conscious mind. No action can occur in the body without first a thought, an impulse of intelligence, whether in the conscious or subconscious mind.

Thoughts are powerful and the quiet mind gives strength to the thought to fulfill its purpose through conscious or subconscious action. Simple, effortless intention in a state of calm mind can work wonders. Resistance, strain replaced by effortlessness, tension replaced by relaxation, failure replaced by success, unhappiness replaced by happiness, fear replaced by peace, complexity replaced by simplicity, harm replaced by harmlessness, hate replaced by love.

Rather than thinking, simply be. Be aware in the present moment. It is a process of quiet observation, relaxing, and a consequent subtle change of thought in the present moment. There is no judgement, no resistance, no strain. Be aware of yourself. Moving gently from the thought to awareness of yourself in the moment you are in. Moving gently in your quietly observing mind from a thought of self-harm to a simple state of awareness which does not allow the thought of self-harm through a delicate, simple shift in awareness of thought. A releasing, a letting go of the negative thought of self-harm. It is the experience of a natural, delicate shift in mind-body self awareness, of thought, of attitude; a subtle process of release in the mind. A spontaneous process that takes seconds. When it happens a sense of wonder arises as to the simplicity and effortlessness of the natural mind when it is allowed to function in the state of simple awareness.

Being natural, simple, effortless, delicate, subtle and effective the process does not go well with strain or effort. It is best used and applied sitting or lying quietly in safe, comfortable surroundings. It is a subtle process of effortlessly letting go. When a fearful thought comes into your mind to self-harm, and it does not matter how that thought is created, simply be aware of it and immediately, effortlessly change it in thought and feeling to a new thought and feeling of the absence of it. Be no longer fearful of it. In your subjective observation of it, let it go. This is a very subtle change in thought and feeling. A change from fear to joy, to love.

Every thought, an impulse of intelligence, has a meaning and feeling attached to it. The thought healing process is a simple shift in thinking and feeling in your awareness in a quiet moment. It is a subtle experience of letting go, of relaxation of the mind-body. Be aware of your thought, desire and feeling to self-harm and especially any resistance to that self-harming thought. It is fear, resistance and struggle that can lock the mind into the self-harming thought. Whatever we resist we attract and through fear, resistance and struggle with the thought create conflict in our mind. In the process of observation, release the self-harming thought by simply removing resistance to it.

It is a simple, effortless, instant change in attitude. From resistance and struggle to acceptance and effortlessness. Simply aware with no strain or resistance. From mental strain to relaxation. By simply being aware in a quiet reflective mind of the thought and associated feeling we change it.

Through the process of observation the observer affects the observed. Our mind-body system functions quantum mechanically. It deals with infinities. There are trillions of living cells in the human body and every cell knows what every other cell is doing. It is a mind-body system. This is quantum mechanical functioning on the level of mind-body intelligence. Note the three propagation, maintenance and destruction operators in quantum physics. Compare in ancient Indian Vedic philosophy where in sanskrit they are termed rishi, devata and chandas. The subject, process of observation and the object. The three in one. The observer affects that which is observed through the process of observation. Nothing can exist without the presence of all three. As the quantum physicist Prigogine pointed out, if there is one photon of light in a closed box it cannot be said to exist unless it is observed, experienced.

Utilising this three in one mind-body process, in this simple, unstrained state of mind we are replacing the twisted unnatural thought of harm with the natural, frictionless thought, experience of acceptance, release, love. The self-harming thought and feeling melts away. It is just an effortless shift in thought and feeling in an instant. We do not resist the self-harming thought, we accept it and in that moment of acceptance we simply are aware that it is not necessary. We do not need that thought. Instantly you feel a change, a very subtle change in your mind and feeling. Simply by that alone you have changed destruction to creation, self loathing to self love, conflict to peace, strain to effortlessness. Observe innocently and release innocently. Simple, effortless, no strain. Simply choosing a different thought, a different attitude. Love instead of non love. I choose love here. I choose love here. I choose love here. In this way we simply, effortlessly remove the problem. Just the experience of this once may stop the self-harming thought ever coming into your mind again. I remember watching a movie once where an actor spoke some very upsetting ungodly words. Immediately, spontaneously with a very alert focused, determined mind I prayed to God to remove those thoughts from my mind. To this day, from that moment I cannot remember them even if I tried. However, if the self-harming thought comes again, repeat the effortless process.

When in a moment of insight this experience first happened to me, spontaneously and immediately, all fear of and resistance to the self-harm thought disappeared. The obsessive self-harming thought melted away. I was thrilled with this self insight, a moment of clarity, with a sense of wonder on how such a simple effortless switch in awareness, thinking and associated feeling could produce such an immediate transformation in my mind. I have tried to explain this as best I can, but only the direct and self experience of the effortless mental process would bring true self understanding and fulfilment. Understanding is one thing and direct experience is another. Both are important.

Repeatedly doing this simple mental technique using thought and its associated feeling whenever the instant the serious self-harming thought came into my mind has resulted in a cure. By which I mean the self harming thought no longer comes into my mind. The distress has gone. Mostly by far from the time of the first experience. The simple healing process may help with other similar psychoneurological conditions: the coprolalias, obsessive compulsive disorders, Tourettes for example, perhaps depending on causative factors. However, I do not like putting labels on symptoms and my experience is somewhat limited in such mind body or psychoneurological disorders. Perhaps this simple technique could possibly be used experientially in many mind-body disorders, and there may be variations of it already being used therapeutically. I cannot possibly be the only one to have subjectively discovered this simple mind-body healing process. The most natural insights can happen in an instant. Those who have made wonderful breakthroughs in life giving innovations for mankind will agree with that. Where there is a will there is a way. I am just expressing and writing about my experience. Not making any claims as to treatments and cures.

As said earlier, there are trillions of living cells in the human body. Every one of those cells knows what every other cell is doing. Communication of intelligence is instant. This is the unified field of creative intelligence at work. This is quantum mechanical functioning on the level of consciousness, intelligence. This is simplicity, innocence, love, God, the unified field, pure consciousness, pure awareness, the soul, samadhi, harmony, natural law, life, or whatever else you want to call it that indicates its nature, at work. A simple desire, this direction instead of that direction. A simple awareness of a thought and its associated feeling, a subtle tweaking, and this may change the biochemistry in the mind-body relationship from destructive to creative, from imbalance to balance, from suffering and strain in our present moment of experience to joy and effortlessness in our present moment of experience.

This is my experience. By repeating the healing, transforming thought awareness process over a few days whenever the need arose, which after the initial first experience was almost nil, I now consider myself cured. I hope others can replicate my healing experience and results from this simple, subtle, delicate, directed thought feeling technique. I do not presently have anything to add, although I may do so in the future. Perhaps if it works for you, you can share your experience. It is good to share. I thought I would put it all in words to you in the hope it will help you. I wish you well. Feel free to share it with others if you find it also works for you. God bless.

I choose love here. I choose love here. I choose love here.

David J

https://selfharmmindbodyhelp.jimdofree.com
http://selfharmmindbodyhelp.simplesite.com

---

NOTE. For those adults and young people with thoughts of self-harming see your health practitioner as self-harm can be a sign of other disorders that you need help with such as depression or anxiety and other psychoneurological conditions including the coprolalias, Tourettes and OCD. Medical doctors can refer you to the right people for treatment including mental health services so you can have an assessment for the right treatment for you.

---

Helpful websites:
Self-harm - Young Minds
https://youngminds.org.uk › find-help
Feedback

---

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: bluebell.x on April 20, 2020, 11:27:01 PM
Here goes nothing..

First time I self harmed I was 13. I remember what day it was and what I was wearing - I can't remember all the individual times i did it but this one always seems to stick out.

I never meant for it to become this big addiction, I thought I would do it a couple times then in a few weeks time I would do it again as a pick-me-up. At the time I had been in the closet as a bisexual for 2 years and it made me feel very lonely. I think that's what kicked off my depression. I also hated my body and everything about myself. I was obsessed about what people thought about me. It often makes me very angry, if the people that laughed at me knew the pain I'm going through and the pain they've caused me, would they take it all back? Anyway, I very quickly became addicted to self harm and the cuts rapidly got very deep. This period of self harm only lasted a week but I cut myself more than 10 times. My parents found out and sent me to councsling. I didn't open up to her, I wasn't comfortable talking about it, it was all so new and overwhelming, she also kept advising me to tell my friends but i was so scared of being judged, at the time me and my friends never talked about mental health.

So, a year went by and school started again in year 10 when I was 14. My depression and anxiety hadn't gone away but I hadn't cut myself since. When school started it really triggered me. The urges were so strong, I had to give into them. I cut myself regulary over a period of 6 weeks. It was awful. The cuts were so deep, I hated being alive, i had no where to turn to. I would sleep all day. My friend saw the cuts. She got her mum to tell my parents. It was horrible. I understand she was concerned about me but we had been friends for 10 years I thought she could have at least given me a heads up. We have still never spoken about it.

The week after my parents found out was the hardest. I had become so addicted to self harm I relied on it.I didn't know how else to cope. It was difficult my urges were so intense. I would spend all day thinking about ways to harm myself, and about ways to end my life. I managed to go a week clean, then two weeks. Eventually I was clean for 5 months (149 days to be exact). When I broke it I was so dissapointed by myself. I then cut myself two weeks after that, and then two more times in the next few weeks. I have managed to talk to some friends, some conversations go better than others. I always feel annoying when I open up.

I guess that brings me up to pretty much present day. I've asked my parents if i can go to therapy so currently waiting for lock down to be over. I've been trying to manage my suicidal thoughts, they have been very overpowering. I sometimes wonder if i could've been spared all this pain if the first time i cut myself, i just decided not to, who knows.

Although there is some good news I'm now out of the closet!  :yahoo:

Well done if you made it this far and thanks for reading :)
Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: LGBTQIA+ User01 on October 15, 2021, 06:58:44 PM
Defo :trig: so may as well point that out.  :smilie_blue:

Hi. I'm Bayden and I'm 14. I'm an agender asexual demi-panromantic pile of person :1027: (haha) and I use they/them pronouns. I started self-haring 5 months ago when the flashbacks to my primary school experiences really started to get the better of me . I'm not gonna name everything over here but if you'd really want me to, we can do so over email as I don't think they're monitored. What's happening now is also not helpful. They are:


I'm starting to worry about my mental pain so I wanted to turn it into physical because the mental pain isn't healable, but the physical is healable. I've started using various methods and mechanisms to hurt myself but I'm able to recover from the injury  :hide:. I'm getting sick of being alone here so I've come here.

Please talk to me as I'm also quite lonely.

Bayden

Title: Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*
Post by: onlybeescansavemenow on December 06, 2021, 10:04:19 PM
Dear You,

I think there is too much stigma and misunderstanding that surrounds SH.

A lot of people, including myself pre-cutting, never understand how a person could do this to themselves and that, the only possible explanation for it was that these people wanted to die so badly; they recreated pain in the closest way that they knew how.

Although this may be true for some people, I genuinely believe that there is a closer correlation between depression and SH than there is between suicide and SH.

From my own, and a few people I know‘s experience, it is just a means of distraction.

Initially, I was asked by my GP “What do you think could have triggered this?” And I never felt more ridiculous than when I told her “Well, my best friend is leaving and he’s the only family I have left.” What I meant by this was that, in order to forget that he was leaving and to stop the panic attacks from taking over cOmPleteLy, I just had to do it. It was just another thing to do. I don’t see it any differently than when I watch the same film, listen to the same songs, read the same books.

It isn’t a good hobby, but it’s a hobby that is partaken in daily - the same way everyone is watching TV and scrolling through TikTok.

Thanks for listening anyway,
Bee 🐝