Self harm and you - your stories. Part 2 *posts may trigger*

[Nightowl]

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.

[Le Loup]

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.

[Hannah xx]

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 
  xXx

[adriana]

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.

[skipscop]

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    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 

  Edited out tool names

[hugaholic]

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

[babysmith]

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.

[lulu30]

 :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.

Edited - Amount and type of tablets removed

[Yoda111]

 :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.

[ThatRadFreak]

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.