Urge To Cut Is Back

[kers]

Of course it's different for everyone, especially depending on age, but for me the piercings I had as a young adult had nothing to do with self-harm. Self-harm had to do with inflicting pain, and for me the piercing was about showing how different I felt. Both were evidence of how much trauma I'd been through, however.

Like your NA folks, I took mine out as I felt safer in the world and had more stability. I still have all my tattoos, though!

Patrick, the nose rings never bothered me. The holes heal up like any other scar, so they don't get irritated, and blowing your nose doesn't affect them.

 

[Jestadud]

Know where you are coming from Patrick. When I was a lad ( yawn ) I wouldn't have my ears pierced because I used to have so many scrapes ( fights ) that it would have been an area of weakness.

Also at school I used to cut patterns and names on my arm with a sharpened steel comb, self harming wasn't particularly known at the time and I thought of it as cheap tattoo's plus letting people know I had a sharpened comb added to any street cred I had. ( Never used it on anyone )

 

[Sethe]

Actually, I don't think cutting is irrational. It's destructive and maladaptive but the reasons I've found that people do it are pretty logical. Physical pain releases a rush of chemicals in the brain that really do make you feel good for a little while. That's why it can be so addictive. It is just like a drug, really.

I wonder if this is why I pull hair...

 

[snugglepuss]

I am glad to see a thread about this.

The first time I cut was the first time I got clean and sober. I was completely overwhelmed by the intensity of emotions, as I had been drinking and using since I was about 12. If I could describe what feeling emotions that first time was like, it would be the sound that a train makes when it is braking while going through an intersection. That horrible metal on metal screeching sound. If that sound could be a feeling, that is how I felt. I guess I felt raw.

That first time wasn't that bad, but I went down the rabbit hole pretty fast with the cutting in a short time. I relapsed after about 6 months clean time, and the cutting didn't stop. It got worse. The first time I cut when I was raging I was not fully aware of what I was doing, and was shocked to all of a sudden see bright red blood literally splashing onto the floor. I was crouched down in the back room of the store I was managing. I had to close it to run to the doctor's office next door so I could get stitched up. After that, unless I needed stitches I didn't count it as cutting. This time 4 years ago, I was in the emergency room at the hospital in Whistler several times over a handful of days, and wound up with over 50 stitches in both my forearms over the course of about 5 or 6 days. It was not pretty.

I read everything I could get my hands on about self injury. I learned that it is an addiction. I was pretty determined to prove that it wasn't when my psychiatrist first said that to me. Then as I learned more about the physiological responses to pain, and the neuro-chemicals and how they worked in the brain and body, it made more sense to me. I wasn't addicted to the cutting, or whatever form of self-injury I was indulging in. It was the chemicals my brain made that I was addicted to.

Bodies Under Siege was the first book I read that really made sense of it all to me. It talks about self injury and body modifications, and the cultural, societal, and psychological reasons behind it. Animals which are kept in isolation will self injure. It is a normal reaction to extreme stress and isolation. Two things I am pretty sure we all know about.

The one thing that I found that really helped me to not get caught up in the downward cycle of cutting then shame and guilt then cutting because of the shame and guilt and on and on and one was to learn to reframe how I thought about self injury. I changed the internal dialogue I had running from one of judgement to one of compassion and understanding. My therapist helped me to see that cutting was nothing more than a coping mechanism. It helped to keep me alive on more than one occassion when the pain was getting to be too much; it was almost like cutting was a safety valve helped to get rid of some of the extra pressure which would have probably led to suicide.

I recently had a year cut free, and relapsed after my landlord flipped out on me. He has been coming into my apartment with no notice, so I confronted him about this. He then stood in my doorway screaming at me, and then when I told him to get out and he refused, I tried to slam the door, and he used his foot to stop it from closing and then used his arm to slam the door back open, which slammed me into the wall. I called the police, and was told that they talked to him, but it seemed like it was just a "landlord-tenant thing"...what the hell does that mean?

Anyways, it was extremely scary for me, and brought me right back to when I was a little kid and the violence that was around me. None of the other coping skills I tried worked for me. It was a last resort thing, done out of desperation and panic.

Do I regret it? Kind of. But kind of not. Because I know that if i hadn't cut, things could have really escalated for me.

If you want someone to chat with, feel free to message me.

 

[Nicolette]

May I dare to say here, that as a Carer, I find reading this, evening seeing the thread title just as horrific as some have mentioned about the picture of Survivors of Suicide on the home page. When I see the title I imagine something along the lines of that picture as I do not comprehend self harm.

My intention is not to stir up trouble or demean your situations but I am just sharing that every time I see a thread title about cutting I find it hard to digest and today I tried to read some of it but cannot comprehend how it is a coping mechanism nor read any post in its entirety. I made myself come here so as not to be hypocritical in my own mind of saying I see nothing wrong with the picture yet struggle to read a thread with the word 'cutting' or 'self harm' in them.

To me this demonstrates how 'far apart' we can be while living in the same world and I sincerely hope all of you here who self harm can find resolution so as not to hurt yourselves further.

 

[snugglepuss]

I suspect that is a big part of the reason then why you don't see that the picture on the survivors of suicide post is such a big deal for some of us. when we ask for help, such as not being intentionally exposed to images that are of a girl who has obviously cut herself, and are told that we have to suck it up and deal with it, it is quite upsetting.

we don't want to cut. we don't want to hurt ourselves. but sometimes the only other option is one that is a lot scarier than re-directing the intense emotions we are feeling by cutting.

Are you someone who lives with PTSD or cPTSD? I can't remember...

For myself, when I stopped self medicating with drugs and alcohol, the horror of what I was remembering and the images I was seeing inside my head for the first time without having the numbing effect of the drugs was too much. Part of the automatic reaction my body had was to dissociate. Another reaction my brain and body had was to go into an absolute state of panic, the likes of which I would never wish on anyone. To literally feel like I am dying, and then realizing that I am not but wanting to so that the pain and the memories and the horrible images inside my head would go away...sometimes cutting is the only thing that could stop it. The pain gave me something to focus on. Often it would stop me from completely dissociating.

Another big factor for me in cutting is to punish myself. It is a common response in people, especially women, who have cPTSD, who were raped, and who grew up in abusive homes. I know that other people I have talked about this with share a lot of the same feelings about themselves that I do, such as feeling dirty, bad, not worthy of anything good. Feeling deep down inside that everything bad that has ever happened in my life is completely my fault. That the things that happened to my family are my fault. So I deserve to have the ugly marks and scars on my body. If something happens now, like someone makes plans with me, and then doesn't even bother to call me, they just don't show up, then that is my fault too.

I wish that self injury was something that could be neatly and tidily put into a pigeon hole, but it is honestly one of the messiest aspects of living with cPTSD. And there are as many ways to self injure as there are people who do it. Some people use food, or drugs, or alcohol. Those are deemed to be more socially acceptable. Another one is over exercise, anorexia, bulimia. Better to be thin, right? Wrong. It is all about control in that respect. Some people self injure as a way of taking back control in thier lives. They are ourwardly showing the world that no one else can hurt them...they are taking back control of their bodies.

Some of us do it as a type of warning as well. For a time, I didn't bother to hide my arms, despite being covered with cuts and stitches. It was kind oflike I was wearing a giant, flashing 'warning' sign on my forehead. I didn't know what way was up or down, if I was coming or going, and I felt so scared of myself, that I didn't want to subject anyone to myself the way I was feeling. If that makes sense.

It was also a way to let people know how hurt I was. Because of the majority of my trauma happening when I was quite young, I apparently don't have the best verbal skills to be able to talk about how I am feeling. I was not allowed to have emotions when I was growing up. I had to be the perfect kid to protect my mum and I, so that he wouldn't hit her, and he wouldn't scare me and yell at me. So I don't know how to express emotions that well.

Anyways, I could ramble on and on and on for hours about self injury. I find it to be quite fascinating, that mammals have this bizarre built in capability which over rides the other built in drive for survival, which will allow them to harm themselves as a means of controlling extreme stress. Short answer I guess is that self injury is a coping mechanism because the alternative is death. Self injury is completely different than attempting suicide. Self injury has this frantic type of energy to it, which I think is the absolute desperation to make it through the situation. For me, when I tried to kill myself a couple of times, there was no sense of urgency to it. It was a sense of absolute resignation.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Nicolette]

Thanks snugglepuss. Anthony is my husband so I live with someone with PTSD, my sister has CPTSD from childhood abuse and I have PTSD from abuse, rape and other events in my life. I have felt out of control but never to the point you describe and I am glad I don't. I am actually very high functioning and I only suffered from PTS until an event with a medical practitioner in a small country town a year or so ago tipped me over the edge along with having to deal with my sister ringing me up suicidal just after the event which was 'sexually' inappropriate.

 

[snugglepuss]

Ugh. That sounds like a typical way for things to go. If it's going to go to shit, it'll happen all at once.

I wish that I never had to feel that out of control. It is honestly the most terrifying feeling for me. I don't see the space around me when I get like that. I completely zone out, and don't really feel like I am in my body for the most part.

I am sorry that those things happened to you. I wish people realized the power they have over others, and used compassion and empathy and general good sense before they acted. I know, wishing on my part...

 

[snugglepuss]

Sethe, that is probably a part of why you pull your hair.

I have some other oddities that I do instead of cutting. I am really bad in terms of "picking", as well as being attached to tweezers. I will tweeze hair on my legs, arms, where ever...

Never admitted that one out loud before. *waiting for people to comment on what a weirdo i am*

 

[curiouser]

I'm surprised that there are people that cut as a form of punishment, I only cut as a form of coping. I usually used the blades from shaving razors and mostly cut on my ankle because I could hide the marks easily. I wasn't trying to kill myself, and I never cut very deep, so there was never a whole lot of gushing blood or anything. The strange thing was it never really felt all that painful, it was just a way to calm myself down, feel a release, a way to feel something in general some days. I think that's why it became so addictive. The more I processed and worked through my trauma, I recognized and dealt with the need and reasons for why I was cutting. I was able to find better coping skills to replace the cutting and haven't needed to cut in several years.

 

[Darkness Shines]

Curiouser, it's both punishment and a way of coping, for me anyway. I cope with the guilt and self-hatred by punishing myself for f-ing everything up. That's why I go for the most painful ways of hurting myself, burning hurts more than cutting.

Ah, I was in such a good place when I first posted to this thread. I was giving advice and now I don't want to take it myself . . .

 

[snugglepuss]

Darkness Shines

struggling right now?