I haven't cut in two years, and the urge to is overwhelming...I cant seem to get past it. I know it wont help but ive exhasted my coping skills and I am just mently exhausted from stress and anxiety...i just really need to know some how im not alone.
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((hugs))
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You are SO not alone! There are a tragically large number of people in your position, and we really feel for you. Hang in there.
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Hey, I am new here. I was feeling exactly what you wrote. I have not cut for 3 years. Lately I have been getting triggered and then overwhelmed which always leads to an intense, all consuming urge to self harm. I fight it with all my might because I know the regret I feel after is worse then the urge. I do not want my past three years of success to go to waste and mean nothing. I know it would not because it’s still longer than the last time I cut.
I thought I was alone. I did not think anyone understood what it is like to be recovered but to feel like I just barely get to use that word because of how intense these urges are. I did not know anyone else struggled with them. So thank you for sharing, I’m sorry you are struggling, I really hate that for you. Though it is comforting to know I too am not alone.
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@TCVK Welcome to sg.
We are so glad to have you here.
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Yeah I’m in the same boat. I’m thinking about self harming sometimes. I don’t know i don’t get the urges. I want it back? I tell myself do i really want to return? The answer tells me, “Yes”. It yells at me. I feel alone in this discussion on my own. I probably won’t get high. But I would be thinking it may help to stop if i tried to begin prehaps seeing as it did not work and that’s all forks like.
It’s been many years and tonight is my anniversary. My pharmacist seems to make me feel down sometimes and the newer pharmacist is not happy. So i tell myself, “why not tonight?” Worst case scenario, it happens and if nothing else then i will keep what i have. It’s been a long time
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I used to be suicidal. I was able to lessen the pain that caused this when I figured out that I was running from a pain that was worse than death, and that other things I was doing in my life, my relationships especially, were destructive as well. I would cross my eyes till they ached and burned, drink water until my stomach ached. As a child, night terrors were constant, complete with fears and hallucinations (bugs, crabs in my bed). The hallucinations eventually stopped, but the self-harm didn’t (cutting myself on purpose when I was four years old; and throughout my teen and early adult years, not letting my eczema clear up by picking at it, making it hurt when it wasn’t itching or aching. I had to decide one day to get well. Self-destruction, I learned, was a way to avoid facing myself and all the things I did to make myself feel so bad that one day I might really succeed at killing myself. I found that my misery distracted me from taking a good look at myself, and not just at my insecurities, but also my monstrosities, the things that made me, in my pain, not a very nice person. First comes the pain, then the inevitable insecurity and self-loathing, and finally the little monster comes out, and we justify it by blaming it on our pain. You have to take responsibility for your pain because you are the only person you can control. If you make it the fault of anything or anyone else, you lose, because you can’t change them. But you CAN change yourself, but you have to face the ways in which you participate in your own demise, and then set up a program of recovery which you could carry out even if you had no help. this is extremely difficult to do, but it works. It’s a start. You will begin to forgive, accept, tolerate, like, then love yourself. I promise.
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That is a very powerful first-person statement - thank you! I am glad to hear you have found a way to work through your fears and hangups to a better life. It would be wonderful if everyone could do this, but not every problem is soluble in this fashion, and not everyone has the strength to do it. Nice going!
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I can say, based on my experience, that you are very different from most people and you need to live in your own unique way, which many would not understand. But you are being sabotaged by your own fear of who you are. You’re not a "status quo kind of person; you hear a beat separate from most other beats. I’m not a cutter, but I learned twenty years ago that my scratching and picking at my eczema, not letting it heal, was a form of self-mutilation, though it may not be as serious as yours. I stayed broken out, from head to toe until I learned a few things about myself. First, I realized that I hurt myself because I didn’t feel safe. And so, my chronic breakouts, and my insistence on making an already critical situation worse was my way of pretending to be unafraid. The world isn’t a safe place, but you will care less and less about that if you make yourself safe from YOU. I had to figure out what I was getting out of mutilating myself and keeping myself sick. What change did I need to make inside me that I wanted to avoid at all cost? Your soul is in a great deal of distress, as was mine. I had to look at every situation where I was conflicted and figure out how to release myself from it. As I progressed with this plan, I realized I was not the person I thought that I was, and in many ways I was bringing suffering onto myself. I wanted to change the people around me to suit what I thought was best; I rarely did good things for others if I wasn’t going to get anything in return. I picked relationships that were bad for me because the only way I could feel good about myself was to be able to feel superior to others who were even more self-destructive than I was. I learned that I could heal myself only by removing the obstacles in my character and behavior that kept me from being the person I wanted others to be. Concentrate less on the “cutting” and more on how you treat yourself, and others, day to day. You will find that you have other self-destructive traits that push you to “cut.” Get to know them, so that you can catch yourself before you give in to them, and STOP! Abstain long enough to really think about why you’re doing it. Then no matter what you decide to do, you will have amassed useful information about yourself. In time, however, all those “STOPS” will reach a critical mass of self-information that won’t allow you to move on as easily to the self-destructive act. This is how you slowly build a level of self protective love energy. The “stops” represent moments in time that you are loving yourself. You will start to feel better, and because you’ll want that feeling to continue, you will take steps to change your behavior. Once you have grown stronger through this, you will know yourself better, like yourself more, and you won’t be so afraid to be what you are. In fact, you will fiercely protect the person in you that is emerging, not allowing anyone to shape that person but yourself. If you want it, this would be a good time to consult an advocate, mentor, or couselor to help you build on the progress you’ve made. Just be careful not to let your old desire to be what others want be triggered by anyone, counselor or otherwise, Your only real protection is being who you really are, and carrying out that destiny. Anything less will have you sick for the rest of your life.
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