Aw damn, a keystroke away from disaster, that’s always the way.
professional
Professional
PROFESSIONAL
If you cut yourself or otherwise contemplate self-mutilation you should be talking about it with someone in the medical arts who can maybe help you stop doing that, okay?
And here I was thinking you were recommending going to the last five minutes of a Catholic mass;)
Although I disagreed with the thread closing, I do agree withTubaDiva’s main point. You should be getting some help. Cutting is not a substitute for the incredibly painful but neccesary task of confronting the pain abuse can bring.
Good Luck!
First you get down on your knees / Fiddle with your rosaries . . .
[pedantry]
First five minutes … the last 5 is the recessional. 
[/pedantry]
That’ll teach me not to go to church for … several years.
I knew two guys who cut. Both contribute to my nervousness about knives and blades and anything that cuts. I just couldn’t cope with their method of coping.
The first guy, I was close friends with, around grade 10-11. I liked him a lot, too, which made it hard for me to back away from him when things got a little too crazy. He didn’t quite return the feelings. He was obsessive about someone else, and he would cut and talk about various injuries or ways to kill himself. I tried to be helpful, I tried to listen and be there for him, but in the end, it just ended up hurting me more. He used me, basically. He even showed up at my house once with a knife to his wrist, to make a point. His was definitely an attempt at getting attention. It screwed me up for a long time, because I was too young to know what to do about it, and I DID care a lot for him. That friendship ended over some crazy paranoid accusation by him that I’d betrayed him because I told my best friend something that she pretty much already figured out. I don’t know where he is now (maybe Ottawa) and I don’t know how/what he is doing. The few times I see him, once every 2-3 years in our hometown, I don’t talk to him other than a polite “hi” and maybe through a group conversation that might happen if it’s groups of friends that met up.
The second guy, I had a relationship with. I was still a little screwed up over the first guy, and so it was an on-and-off, never official thing. That guy was a very good friend of mine prior to this relationship. I knew that he had had some problems when he was younger, and he told me about cutting, but that he’d stopped after certain events in his life solved themselves. After a while, our relationship stopped, then started up again a few months later. I was at his place, and I noticed red scratches on his wrist. I didn’t need to be told what they were from. I freaked out, yelled at him, and left. I admit, it was a horrible reaction, but he knew all about the first guy, and he knew that that would be something I’d have trouble coping with. He did say something to the effect that he wanted me to know, because he thought I was a nice enough person to know about that side of him. Well, after that, we didn’t see each other much. As it happened, he had already made plans to move (oddly enough, to Ottawa!) and I was finishing Cegep and going to University in Guelph. That following semester, I met someone new, and now it’s 6 years, and I married him! Guy #2 and I are still friends, though we don’t see each other much. When we both know we are in our home town, we get together. Last year we talked about that fight, when I walked out on him. He apologized for putting me in that position, and I apologized for my reaction. It’s all water under the bridge now. To my knowledge, he doesn’t cut any more. He has a girlfriend, they bought a house together…I think he’s ok. I should email him!
I’m glad some of you have a close friend or family member that can help you and support you. I wish I could have been that person to these two guys. It’s hard, sometimes, to be on the other end of it. It can be very frightening for people who can’t understand it. This thread has put a few of my memories into a different perspective.
I will go out on a limb here and admit that I am also a “recovering” SI (yes, I have had and continue to get professional medical/psychological treatment).
I starting SI when I was a child. I would have moments of pain/rage/frustration so blindly overwhelming that I was compelled to release them on something. Since my self-esteem was so low, I felt I was the only acceptable target.
My methods of SI never involved cutting or burning. I was a biter and a head-banger. I have a knuckle on one hand that is so scarred from repeating bitings (that sometimes came close to going through to the bone) that it is thicker than the other fingers and crooked. I have come close to blacking out from the head banging.
What was particularly difficult was that my mother saw my SI as “attention-seeking” and ignored it, or, even worse, sometimes would assist me in head-banging. That’s one of the reasons I’ve had serious “mother issues.”
I want to add that, while I know for some people talking about SI is treading on thin ice as far as triggering or whatnot, it is not an issue for me (I have to be experiencing a certain kind of personal interaction with someone I trust for that to happen). And I do think that it is good to make people aware that they need to get more education if someone they know or love does this, rather than jump to the wrong conclusions and handle it badly with the SI (Hello, Mom). And people who do SI need friends and confidantes as badly, if not more so, as anyone else - just having a counselor to confide in really isn’t enough (this is for those who stated in the BBQ Pit that people who SI should not discuss it with anyone but a licensed medical/mental health practitioner). That said, I (obviously, as shown by my example) strongly advocate that anyone who engages in SI for any reason seek professional health from a qualified practitioner.
Interesting thread, LunaV.
By coincidence, I was just reading the Wikipedia article on Johnny Depp, and he apparently admits to having self-injured as a child: “Depp has admitted to engaging in self-mutilation as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm.”
I had never heard much of this phenomenon, but it must be at least somewhat widespread.
What do SIs think of providing clean blades?
A resource for SIs.
I was a cutter in the past, and for me, there has always been a direct link between the self injury and having an eating disorder. Both help you to deal with inner pain, one is just quicker then the other. Did you have any experience with this?
I think some do it for attention, while some do it to distract themselves from whatever is troubling them.
One of the things I always heard about cutters was that it was a behavior common among those who had been sexually abused. That could lead to a very intrusive question… umm, rather than ask it that way, I’ll just ask if anyone feels inclined to comment.
I used to cut in high school, possibly for the attention and respect of my goth crowd peers, but it continued in a small way after I left school. I would cut the top of my forearms, my biceps, and on my sides above my beltline. Like LunaV said it was always there, and for me it was hard to pinpoint why I was driven to do it. For me it culminated in a very bad experience involving myself, a prolonged breakup, a fight with a friend, a fresh #11 exacto, a bottle of whiskey, and ~50 sleeping pills.
That was five years ago, 28 cuts, 160 staples and 140 stiches later. I don’t cut anymore, don’t ever want to, I’m left with too many reminders not too. I don’t want my Mom to have to clean up my mess again. I love my Mom.
I’m happy to answer that, but I’m afraid my personl answer (as opposed to what I know of other people) won’t be much help.
I outright don’t know if I was ever molested. This made for a rather interesting conversation back last year when I got tested for HIV/AIDS (if you’ve never been, it’s a pretty good idea to get tested), because one of the questions on the risk-factor sheet is “Have you ever been sexually abused or molested?” or somesuch.
Well, I don’t know. It’s pretty bloody possible that I was, but I remember almost none of my childhood, and those who remember a lot of my posts about this topic know that I spent nontrivial time with a person or two who shouldn’t have been allowed around kids. (Or, frankly, anyone, but maybe that’s bias talking.)
All of this is made moot, however, by the fact that my SI stuff is, as far as I am aware, utterly independent of past exeriences I do or don’t remember. (I think. My father says that one of the things that can cause the onset of psychosis–those thoughts I mentioned before–is the sudden disappearance of some other mental difficulty.)
However, I am aware of at least … two people, if memory serves, who listed among their problems past sexual experience that was unsafe and/or unwanted. It would be inappropriately diagnostic of me to say that either person’s SI activities were caused by this, but lemme say this much: I strongly suspect that one of the people in question hurt herself in part because of that sexual abuse. (The other did so largely because she couldn’t find any other method of catharsis; screaming, throwing stuff, talking, writing, crying … nothing she had tried–and she’d been to more than one therapist for this–worked.)
If you’d like, I’m certainly willing to ask, in the SI community I co-mod, if members are willing to talk with me, in private or in public, about their experiences with SI and sexual abuse and any link they see in their lives. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall anyone specifically saying s/he had been hurt by someone and that that pain led to SI, but the community is more’n a few months old, and I don’t pretend to remember every entry.
Il Giyan II, I must confess to almost utter ignorance on the subject of people who SI and the diseases/infections/etc. that result. The only time I can remember dealing with someone who hurt herself (I use that not as the generic pronoun but because this person is female) more than she meant to was a girl who burned and did so more, one time, than she intended. If memory serves, she did not get any infection/etc. as a result.
Beyond that, the reasons for SI are different enough (those who want to punish themselves, for example, vs. those for whom there is no other known form of release) that I’d be hesitant to agree or disagree with a blanket “(don’t) take away their instruments of choice.” For some, it would make the situation much worse to have nothing there, and for some it would be hell to have the temptation there. And, of course, there are those who SI who would probably find a way to do something unless they were completely restrained–and I mean completely: lips, tongue, everything. It’s not difficult to hurt yourself with everything but your head restrained.
I’ll pass the links on to the folks in the SI community and see what they have to say:)
How do SI’s fare in the world of intimate relationships? What are those dynamics like?
First, I can’t speak from personal experience about the phenomenon of an SO discovering marks before the person who engages in SI tells the SO. The element of being outed, so to speak, basically does not exist for me as it does for most people who engage in SI. If you had an expert on SI search my body for marks resulting from SI, none would be found.
But telling someone–trusting a person enough to talk about it, and having to brace for whatever reaction–is nearly as harrowing without the marks. It’s still something a lot of people know very little about, and that, along with what I’m confident looks to many like a freakishly disturbed act, can lead to people who aren’t prepared for it … well, reacting less than calmly.
My girlfriend knows about it. (Her sister used to engage in SI, so she was already familiar with it before I told her about stuff I had/have done.) She knows that I have done it, she knows that I do it spectacularly infrequently, and she knows that it is not because of a desire to actually hurt or punish myself or do it as a manner of no-other-way catharsis.
If she saw me do it, I imagine she would be concerned, but not so much because I was hurting myself as that it would be rather like catching Santa Claus (if you’ll forgive the slightly misplaced analogy). As far as I am aware, the only time people see me do it is when I choose to tell them about it and have them watch me at a specific time. (It’s extremely rare for this to happen; so far, I think it’s happened twice.)
For those who have marks they wish to hide (my girlfriend’s sister does not habitually hide her marks; I’ve actually never seen her arms covered, but I’ve also only seen her in warm weather), my understanding is that the experience is different. One of the people in my SI community has cut around her breasts, so I imagine that might create some intimacy issues if she were afraid of how a potential/actual SO might react. Another friend of mine has cut scars in various areas on her body, including those areas not covered by, for example, a string bikini. I have no specific information on what effect that, and nothing else, has had on her love life; she has a basket full of issues, and confounding really gets in the way when trying to ascribe one thing or another to SI or anything else.
Beyond that, I’m not sure what I know that I can tell you, though if there are any elements of your question that I missed, let me know:) Also, perhaps mnemosyne will go into more detail on specifics as she wishes to share them.
Sex:
I don’t bring cutting into sex, not recently anyway, what I did do in the bedroom was a very occasional way to make things different, and only minor things at that. I can’t really imagine integrating cutting into sexual play as a constant thing. It was much more of a personal thing for me, and I would guess that sex cutting is not something that’s common.
As for dating:
My scars are pretty visible, and they leave little to the imagination as to my intent that night. I was worried that women would find them a deal-breaker but much to my suprise I slowly learned that many women are willing to look past things like that if they are interested in the inner person not superficialities. I was much more successful casual dating than I thought possible given the obvious issue, the women didn’t seem to be turned off at all, and I didn’t even have the best attitude. They didn’t dwell upon the SI nor was it completly ignored, it just was. Now that I found a serious relationship. I am super lucky that I’m with a wonderful woman who understands, accepts, and loves me. She even thinks I’m sexy.
Really? I never knew that. The only celebrity I knew of that had any self-harming tendencies was Angelina Jolie.
I don’t think nurses should be handing clean blades out to cutters. It’s nice that they understand that some cutters will continue and they’re trying to help in they only way they can, but this is wrong to me. I know cutting isn’t a good method of coping and to have someone give me clean blades while at the same time telling me what I’m doing isn’t right would confuse the hell out of me.
My more recent self-harming has been a result of stress over weight gain and anger at how ‘fat’ I feel.
When I was younger, I was very skinny. At 5’5’', I averaged 107 lbs. When I wanted to, I could get below 100, but I never went over 110. I wasn’t anorexic, as it wasn’t something that consumed me day in and day out. I didn’t count every single calorie and agonize over an extra cookie…I just liked being skinny and I stayed that way. But my body got older and it became harder to keep that weight. One day, I weighed myself before taking a shower. I’d hit 125. The average person would think 125 is perfect. But for me, 125 is this HUGE number, this giant flashing sign that I’m out of control and failing. I cut for the first time in 4 years that day.
Every time I’ve cut since then, it’s been because of my weight. I get worked up and upset over a few pounds and the only way to deal is cutting. That’s not an eating disorder, per se, but it’s not a healthy outlook either.
Like **iampunha ** said, my personal answer is just that: mine. It isn’t indicative of self-harmers everywhere. I haven’t been sexually abused.
I’ve only felt close enough to one boyfriend and two close friends to admit to my cutting. They all dealt very well with it and treated the subject with respect. I didn’t feel like they suddenly look at me as ‘the crazy one.’
Thanks for this thread.
I haven’t hurt myself in ages, but I used to do it. I mostly did it out of rage and it usually began with punching (pounding on my thighs), which I used to do even as a kid. I still remember the first time I cut - I was 15 and having a fight with my abusive boyfriend at the time, yelling, screaming and pushing and I grabbed a nearby Scotch tape dispenser and ran the tape cutter down my arm. I didn’t understand why, but I felt very relieved and calm right afterward, and I just sat down and said “Whoa.”
It’s just always been something with me… when I’m enraged, I hit things. Sometimes the thing is myself. I’ve always had a bad temper.
Never cut since that one and only time, really - only punching and scratching, so I don’t have any scars. It typically went like this: if I was in a rage and had a sharp thing handy, I’d scratch whatever skin I got my hands on, usually forearms, and then have to hide them for a few days. If I didn’t, I punched my thighs. Sometimes, if I wanted something to really keep me busy, I’d take a tiny pin and prick myself repeatedly in a pattern or a picture or a word which gave me something secret to admire for a few days. I’d get so engrossed in making it look nice (er, nice to me, that is) that I’d calm down. I also rationalised that it was forcing me to calm down - as if I wasn’t calm enough, I’d hurt myself severely, and since these are only small pinpricks, I must still be in control! They were in places people didn’t see - stomach, thighs, ankles.
I have gotten help and the thought actually rarely crosses my mind anymore. I still punch, but it’s pillows now. The last time I was really enraged, though, I went out that day and got a piercing. Instant cheer-up. (I got a septum piercing, so that the piercing is visible, but if I decide to take it out, nobody will ever know I had a piercing because the scar won’t be. Plus, I can flip the piercing up to hide it if need be, for jobs and interviews and whatnot.) I don’t recommend this for everyone, of course!
My reasons for being so angry were always different - always being sick, always being in pain, having crappy jobs, getting screwed over.
I still really think I should probably look into anger management for the rest of my life, though.
I don’t know why I felt compelled to share this, but maybe someone will find it educational. It’s a chapter of my life that I would like to think is closed and I haven’t told anyone in years.