Self Harm and You

[xmbts]

Nowadays my anxiety attacks usually just leave me nearing tears and needing to remove myself from crowds more than anything.

Rhetorical question: how bereft of your heart your chest feels, as though it beats at nothing... :/

Yeah... happens a lot when I'm at the nadir (or not even that) of a depressive episode... reason? FUCK REASONS!

Mostly happens when I'm at work, so I have to force it down and pretend I'm not about to have a complete breakdown because my bosses will at best demand to know why if they even give a shit.

Saying "It's personal" doesn't get far with them.

 

[Alcamonic]

Does smoking for the purpose of self-harm count? Usually makes me feel better when I am feeling down.

25ish maleish bish.

 

[SanguiniusMagnificum]

Seeing as how my life is all sunshine and rainbows (well, most of the time) me harming myself during periods of stress, anger or grief amounts to watching the "Transformers" trilogy in a short period of time. It really helps to know that even though I have some issues, I'm not even close to being the human heap of volatile garbage that goes by the name of Michael Bay.

Straight, 17 year old male.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Other than retarded teenage manliness competitions, no.

Too old for this shit, male, straight.

Also, hope whatever it is that's bothering you gets sorted out quickly.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Unfortunately, not. No, really, I mean that. I think it?d be a good release for me because I feel so goddamn empty all the time, but I hate that level of pain far too much to try anything further than a sharp scratch (plus, I wouldn?t want to get infected). When I was a bit younger, though, I used to slap myself in the face when I got really angry with myself. As for suicide, I?m too pussy to do that and potentially fail, or cause any emotional pain for my immediate family. It?d be much better if I was never born in this shithole of a world in the first place, but as I lack a time machine, I?m royally fucked.

Since it?s apparently impossible for me to cry unless I watch Grave of the Fireflies, I mostly ?deal? with my OCD, anxiety and depression mainly by browsing the internet, writing lists, doing Sudoku, for some reason. Of course, only a temporary fixture, and sometimes they aren?t enough to distract me from my horrible brain overdrive in the darkest parts of the mind when I?m bored, so there are times where I just lie down and sleep. Indeed, I have a therapist doing CBT with me who previously put me on Fluoxetine (which worked for a while) and now on Sertraline (which, frankly, is doing fuck all), but I don?t know when I?ll get better, if ever. My brain might just be wired wrongly.

I?m 18, male, and predominantly straight.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I went to a psychologist and told her that I thought I was depressed. She asked me if I ever self harmed. I said no, and she told me that she didn't think I was depressed. So I figured, hey, if they want me to cut myself, I'll cut myself. And so I did.

True story.

 

[sky14kemea]

22, gender-fluid/gender-confused (But let's say Female biologically), asexual.

I never know if this counts or not, but I used to scratch my arms with the sharp end of scissors a few years ago. I'm pretty bad with pain, so I was never brave enough to attempt anything with a blade at that time.

Anyway, earlier this year I did finally use a penknife, and still couldnt bring myself to do more than a few scratches that healed quickly. Except for one cut, that did go pretty deep.

After that I kinda panicked and ran around trying to fix it, which I did. It wasn't all that bad, actually. Bad enough to leave a little scar though.

No one IRL has noticed it, so I figure maybe it's time to come clean on here, since there's a surprising amount of people in the same boat(ish). I wish there wasn't so many of you. =[

 

[The White Hunter]

22, gender-fluid/gender-confused (But let's say Female biologically), asexual.

I never know if this counts or not, but I used to scratch my arms with the sharp end of scissors a few years ago. I'm pretty bad with pain, so I was never brave enough to attempt anything with a blade at that time.

Anyway, earlier this year I did finally use a penknife, and still couldnt bring myself to do more than a few scratches that healed quickly. Except for one cut, that did go pretty deep.

After that I kinda panicked and ran around trying to fix it, which I did. It wasn't all that bad, actually. Bad enough to leave a little scar though.

No one IRL has noticed it, so I figure maybe it's time to come clean on here, since there's a surprising amount of people in the same boat(ish). I wish there wasn't so many of you. =[

I believe there's a correlation, if not necessarily a causal link, between being the kind of personw ho engages with a lot of games, RPG's and anime and the like and actively discusses those things online and being the kind of person who would not necessarily be quite so socially accepted, which in turn likely causes feelings of unwantedness that can spiral out of control.

Or something like that.

Most of my cuts aren't too deep, there's nothing arund here practical for it so I mostly break up a safety razor or something, deliberately keep weapons out of my house.

 

[JoJo]

I've never really self-harmed, well, sometimes I've done a few minor things like holding onto a hot saucepan to see how much it hurt but that was more just curiosity since I've come to understand I have a relatively high pain tolerance rather than a deliberate attempt to inflict harm on myself. I don't really have much to add to this conversation, other than reading some of the posts here has helped me understand further why some people self-harm, which I've never been able to really understand in the past, so thanks for that.

Oh and if it matters, I'm male, 21, 50% gay, 50% straight and 75% badger.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Anger is a very toxic part of depression, possibly topping sadness as the most self-destructive emotion when left unchecked. The "wrinkles" on my knuckles are mostly scars from punching concrete walls and other hard things, and I have quite a few other scars that show up from various incidents. While I never actually went out and cut myself deliberately, I did hurt myself in fits of anger by explosive force only later realizing what had occurred as blood streamed down my forearms.
However I'm unsure how I never broke any bones in my hand until I was 27 and accidentally fell on it snapping two metacarpals in the process.
Aside from that I'm also unsure just how I never ended up in the hospital after being in various fights in my late teens/early 20's. I don't even know for sure just how much damage I did to others either.
Thankfully I learned how to control anger and depression, though its a very personal thing and isn't something I could teach folks.

33, Male, Straight

 

[Chris Moses]

I have tried to kill myself 8 times. I suffer from borderline personality disorder and major depression. My stomach had been pumped 3 times, once while I was too out of it to give consent. I have been genuinely surprised to wake up at least 2 of those attempts. Fortunately, I am never in full control of my faculties when I am in these suicidal states. Because now that I know that most drugs are safe to overdose on (well at least for all 250-280 lbs of me), I will not try that again in favor of a technique that would be less prone to failure. Also I am fortunate that I've escaped any major physical damage from these attempts. However, I am overweight and smoke. 2 things I might remedy if I didn't have to deal with frequent suicidal ideation.

I haven't had an attempt for over 11 years now. To that degree I have learned to better control my emotions. I have come close in those 11 years, but not yet to the point of actually attempting suicide again.

I don't find suicide humor all that funny, but I don't see the need of getting in anyone's face over it, or figuratively beating my chest in outrage over it.

I don't see cutting as something only teenage girls do. If you'd like to know what stereotypes I do feel better fit teenage girls, try these:

vapid

self-centered and self absorbed

overly concerned/interested in the affairs of others

horribly entitled, especially when it comes to their emotional state/reactions. ie. "I feel this way about something and you MUST validate my ALWAYS justified emotional state and cater to me/it in the way I see fit until I am satisfied/calmed down.)

38, male, bi

(still a virgin to women probably because of the above listed preconceptions and because I don't feel that all of them are limited to just teenage girls and because I started my 17 year long gay relationship when I was 21 and in my prime "girl getting" form.)

 

[Zoe Castillo]

-removed for privacy reasons-

 

[SonofaJohannes]

I once punched myself in the groin, twice, because I felt I deserved it. I had done it to someone else who in retrospect probably didn't, so I just punched myself on impulse. The guy wasn't even there to witness it.
Other than that, never. I've never cut myself on purpose, nor have I done anything else to harm myself. Sure I've felt a bit down at times, but never enough that I felt the need to drown my emotional pain in physical pain. I don't suffer from any depression or other psychological thingies, and my childhood was in my opinion great.
So other than the nut punching as some sort of weird self-inflicted retribution on behalf of someone else, my body remains untouched.

19, male, straight.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I have before. But it didn't help, the pain barely even registered to me so I stopped after trying it a few times.
So instead of physically attacking myself I just mentally attacked myself and then went out, got drunk, and got into a lot of fights.

Now when I'm depressed I kind of just sit around doing nothing until it passes. But it happens a lot.
Sometimes its really bad.
I think about suicide often but only tried twice. And I have no plans to ever try again.

20 year old, straight male.

 

[Whispering Cynic]

I've never done it since I never found a single rational reason to do so or some benefit it would bring me. Now, I won't pretend I haven't encountered depression, but I've learned fairly quickly to efficiently deal with it (mainly because I couldn't properly function while depressed). Haven't experienced depression for more than ten years now.

I can understand that some people may find fulfillment this way, given the wide variety of people's personalities and preferences, but for me the act of self harm is completely meaningless.

26, male, straight.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Nope, never. Or at least, never to alleviate depression or something like that. For a dare, maybe . I figured there are enough things out there that could potentially harm me that I shouldn't start doing it to myself. I appreciate pain for what it is, but I don't like it and I certainly don't like to inflict it on myself.

26, male, straight.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

I never have. I always found it preferable to inflict harm upon others rather than on myself, though not from a place of sadism. I suppose I was lucky that most of the sources of my discomfort were always other people who could be A) clearly seen as the root cause, B) clearly deserving of said harm, and C) easily (though not always so, as some of them were better fighters than me) dissuaded, through violence, from dicking with me any further. Also, most of this was in a high school small enough that once you beat the shit out of about 3 people, word has gotten around that you are not to be fucked with.

However, please don't misunderstand. I would never take out my aggression on someone who didn't have it coming for pleasure or sport. Anyway, I could never picture inflicting self-harm unless I were Captain Ginyu or something. I think about how pissed off it makes me when I get a papercut, and I come to the conclusion that hurting myself would only make me feel worse.

23, Male, Straight

EDIT: Off-Topic to SkarKrow: I'm down to take out that Heracross if you're down for a battle. Hopefully Pokemon Bank will be up by the time my hitch offshore ends (about two and a half weeks from now). Once I get my Diamond party squared away on X I'd love to kick off my first Gen >4 battle.

 

[FPLOON]

I'm just like my father...

I go in to a rage-fit and cause a tornado of destruction within the area that I'm in... I then apologize (if someone was in the room at the time), clean up to the best of my ability, and then calm down enough to handle the previous conversation I was mostly involved in before my anger got the best of me... There was also a time where I would use my anger in a "lawful neutral" way, where I would beat the crap out of bullies for being bullies while also being a bully myself... I don't do that anymore, mind you, but when I say I'm just like my father I also mean that I have the habit of lying to those around me and even believing those lies to be true... (I guess the only difference in this situation is that my lies are rarely traced back to me unless it's to someone that knows me as much as I know them like my mother, my grandma, and my [only] best friend since kindergarten...)

Do I regret those parts of my past and my current present? Never crossed my mind... Do I care if I don't become a better person over time? ...I honestly can't say without it being a lie in some way, shape, or form...

(This is all coming from a 21-year-old male who says he's straight, though a couple of bisexuals [and someone who PM'ed him a while ago] have told him he might just be more bisexual [or pansexual] than straight, given his stance on relationships...)

 

[Headsprouter]

I'm too mellow to have done anything serious like self-harm...I suppose the closest thing you'd ever get is some thigh-bashing until bruises were left thanks to general frustration. All my self-destructive behaviour has been mental and verbal. Hard to go through a night without a cringe a twitch and a swearword or something aggressive.

I never did any of the verbal bashing when I was in the thigh-thumping stage...I suppose you could say I've maybe grown enough to resent my confused younger self, so there's no point in physically beating my current self.

Oh, yeah, I'm hardly statistically relevant, but I'm 18 (19 in January...) and male.

 

[EeveeElectro]

For a short while during my early teens because school and home life was more or less unbearable.
I didn't do enough damage because I finally got some help with my problems when people realised.
For me it was a cry for help. I had approached people at school about how badly bullied I was and they just said in so many words, "Well, stop being so weird and people won't bully you."
I thought if they realised it was making me want to physically harm myself (I had a strange obsession with reading up about self harm at the time) they would finally do something.
Secondly, I felt I deserved to be punished because everyone hated me so I must have been bad, I did sometimes fantasise about hitting an artery or a vein and killing myself.

My brother used to self harm, hopefully he no longer does but he has been left with some horrible scars and I've walked in on him to find blood all over the walls and floor which has greatly put me off.

I haven't hurt myself in years, mainly because I have a huge phobia of pain. I do things knowing how much they hurt me emotionally and keep doing them, like thinking about certain people or memories for example.

21, female, bi.