She’d been coming into my bedroom brandishing a baseball bat and feinting to strike me with it every 10-15 minutes for around 4-5 hours. Like I said, I didn’t hit her, but I’d kinda like to know what other word you feel would be more appropriate.
My Dad was only home on weekends, and my step-mother was in complete denial that her oldest daughter was a little monster. (My step-mother liked to pretend she and her family were pretty much perfect. As a random aside on that note, she eventually nagged my Dad into buying her a mink coat, which she used to wear each and every day, including on trips to the supermarket)
I had a lot of sympathy for my other step-sister, D. D was 9 years old, and had to share a double bed with the horrible older one (A). I’d be surprised if D didn’t end up becoming a self-harmer after all the endless conflict and the emotional abuse she suffered daily from A.
(Sorry it took me so long to respond, I only visit this forum a couple of times a week)
She’d been coming into my bedroom brandishing a baseball bat and feinting to strike me with it every 10-15 minutes for around 4-5 hours. Like I said, I didn’t hit her, but I’d kinda like to know what other word you feel would be more appropriate.
Ok, I’ll concede that the word was ok to use. But why didn’t you simply take the bat from her the first time she came at you brandishing it? That seems like a much more logical and reasonable move than putting up with it for hours to the point where you are resisting punching this girl in the face.
I was a cutter when I was younger. Even one event on this very board (nobody but the most insensitive crass asshole would try to dig up said cite and post it, though…) but I’m better now. I haven’t cut myself in AGES and can’t imagine ever doing so again. That said, I do have scars.
I’m convinced that teenage male daredevilry is the same as female self-harm. Just because the former needs an audience and the latter is done in shamed secrecy does not matter.
Yeah. It’s like what someone said - it calms you down and brings your emotional state into focus…well, except the femoral artery cut. That one just landed me in the hospital.
I think it gives you something VISIBLE to feel hurt about and focus on. I think it also is attention-getting, and sometimes when you’re in that place that’s what you really need, is for someone to notice how hurting you are.
I cut myself once when I was in my mid-twenties. I was very drunk, and very depressed. I decided it was an extremely bad idea, and never gave any thought to doing it again.
Because I didn’t desire conflict as much as she obviously did. I just wanted her to go the fuck away. Trying to take the bat off her would have resulted in her legitimately trying to hit me with it.
Look, I’m not proud of the way I broke my hand by punching a steel pole in order to avoid knocking out a 11yo girl when I was a 15yo boy who probably weighed twice as much as her, but I suspect that if you were subjected to having the most vile person you’ve met before or since (and my Dad, her former step-father, fully agrees with me that she was a truly despicable piece of work) coming into your bedroom, armed with a weapon, with an almost ecstatic “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” Jack-Nicholson-from-The-Shining look on their face every 10-15 minutes for hours on end when you were 15 then you also might not have wanted to escalate the conflict in any way. But you may have gotten so angry that you had to hit something. In my case I punched a steel pole instead of her.
In her defence she (A) and her younger sister (D) had apparently seen their father beat up their mother in front of them. They were the children of their mother’s first marriage, just as I was the product of my father’s first marriage. My Dad and their mother ‘R’ were both on their third marriages by that stage.
Sheesh, I can’t be bothered explaining this more, and I don’t want to take this thread more off-topic than I already have. Suffice it to say that even at 11 years of age this was already by far the most awful person I personally have met, the horrors she had seen notwithstanding.
Who am I to complain, anyway? I only had to deal with her for a year back in the late-1980s. Like I said earlier, I’m almost sure this individual has caused her little sister and other persons to self-harm and/or think of suicide in the 20+ years I’ve been blessed enough to not have had to deal with her.
Sorry for the distraction everybody, please disregard and continue your discussion.
For me, it was never something I thought of like, “Hmm, I’m depressed, I think I’ll cut myself to avoid thinking about it.” It was more like an urge that would come over me, usually when I was very clinically depressed, and I couldn’t fight it off. I’d be feeling at my very worst, maybe even sobbing and shit, but almost as soon as I’d start dragging that blade across my arm a calm would wash over me. It was honestly like taking a sedative or something, how relaxed and better I’d feel.
I don’t know if that’s how it makes others feel, but I think it probably does.
Sure, I’m not saying that everyone does it for attention, and some go to great pains to hide it; but it’s a visible injury, and much more likely to be noticed by someone than your “inner pain” is.
Sometimes (not as often as I used to) I have panic attacks when I’m really stressed out about something. Digging my nails into my arms until I bleed or pulling my hair switches my thinking from the stressful event to the physical pain. When I concentrate on the physical pain, my breathing slows and I can come down from the attack before I hyperventilate. I was on meds for a while, but when I’m not on the meds it seems as if the physical pain helps.
I guess I have (chose ‘I used to’) but never as dramatically as most self-harmers I’ve met. I had severe enough trichotillomania when I was 10 or 11 that I was balding for a while. I also used to give myself giant blisters (which can be done nearly painlessly through friction, though it does leave a raw mark afterwards) and scratch my arms and stomach enough to bleed a bit, when I was bored in school as a kid.
When I was older and depressed I sometimes used to scratch myself or burn myself (mostly cause I was constantly playing with fire) but never caused any serious injuries or pain. I do have a higher pain tolerance than average. No one ever knew that my scratches and little burns were intentional (I also had plenty that weren’t).
I had several friends growing up who were hardcore cutters and burners who still have bad scars from it. I never understood their mindset or had the desire to cause myself that kind of pain. But, smaller amounts of pain and more so the repetative motions (rubbing to cause blistering, scratching lightly over and over, pulling hairs by the roots) were useful for me in taking the edge off my anxiety.