Author Topic: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*  (Read 138637 times)

0 Members and 9 Guests are viewing this topic.

aj

  • Guest
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #80 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.

Offline DawnArcher

  • 18+
  • Usually here
  • ***
  • Posts: 1087
  • Nil Desperandum
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #81 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.
Last cut: 22/11/2013
Last SH: 22/11/2013.

Nighty night oh novely one. :hug2:

Offline Blu

  • 18+
  • Gold Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 448
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #82 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                         
"Damn tomorrow, live for today" - Orsini from Donizetti's 'Lucrezia Borgia'
----------------------------------------------------------------
"these are councillors/that feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity" - Act II Scene I, The Duke, As You Like It, William Shakespeare

Offline worriedteen18

  • 18+
  • Gold Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 378
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #83 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
s/h 28/1/2013
o/d 30/01/2013
sui thought 30/01/2013
sui attempt 1/05/2013

Offline kc

  • 18+
  • Usually here
  • ***
  • Posts: 724
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #84 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.
 :>:(:
Don't feel sorry for me. my life is my own personal hell but I'll see the exit to it soon.

Offline rainbow

  • 18+
  • Usually here
  • ***
  • Posts: 3897
  • This Too Shall Pass!
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #85 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
With Love. x
Justice For Giraffes
How's it going today wee Mary? :;):
"I’ve been to the year 3000….. Not much has changed but Freddo's are £40.

Baracuda

  • Guest
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #86 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

Offline brighteyes

  • 18+
  • Usually here
  • ***
  • Posts: 3842
  • to die would be the next great adventure
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #87 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
behind closed doors, all is not what it seems,
you only have to realise with one look at me.
to see things that you didnt first see,
like the person i once was-i use to be.
behind closed doors is where it will remain,
now her sanity is gone she is no longer sane.

last od 5/11/11

Offline HattieJane

  • 18+
  • Bronze Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 81
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #88 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
-♥-No one can make you feel inferior without your consent (Eleanor Roosevelt)-♥-

Offline smile

  • 18+
  • Usually here
  • ***
  • Posts: 1487
  • boo!
Re: Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2
« Reply #89 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?
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. - Goerge Bernard Shaw
 
http://www.girleffect.org/

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. - Marie Curie