Borderlines Talk About Self-Harm

I can remember the first time I cut.....it was to see how hard it would be to slice my wrists.... it then moved on to experiements with different blades.... finally I took the chance and tried to kill my self....( Feb 1997) the cut was deep and needed stitches...it was an odd sensation...I suddenly felt better..... this rush accually saved me. I didnt finish the suicide.... I tried 2 more times within a month...each of these times getting deeper and more dangerous. Again, I would feel better almost imediatly.....I found that it was like a drug. I hated having to spend the night in the hospital everytime I went in for stitches...so I started cutting less deep.... I found that I could cut and get the same rush with out the stitches.

I cut when I cant stand the pain anymore.....sometimes I get such an overwhelming wave of emotional pain that I feel like my soul will surely shatter completely.....I can feel the pressure building up till I have to do something. Suicide has proven a failure for me, so I resort to cutting, cutting gives me imediate release.... and the pain will subside for a while, giving me enough of a break to pull my Sh*T together temporarally. Stress and rejection, and abandonment (of course) are the main triggers. Its sounds stupid, I know....but even a baby crying at the supermarket is enough to set me off.... I look at my scars....and I look at my cuts..... Did I do this??

How can someone do this?? I have the same doubts that "normal" people do about cutting...it is scary. But when I am in the moment...it is the only thing I can think of.

AMY

For a long time, I didnt know that a lot of the things I do were self-destructive or self-harming. I had never been a cutter and I thought that my wishes to be hurt or really really sick were just attention-getting thoughts. Not that I ever shared them with anyone, so i didnt get attention for having them. But I guess it was drilled into me as a child by my grandmother that I wasnt *allowed* to be sick. She always called me a hypocondriac if I had a cold and didnt feel better by the second day. I never told my grandmother if I was hurt physically, I'm not entirely sure why . I did some pretty stupid things as a kid, so it was natural that I got hurt a time or two. Like when I tried jumping from a stack of boards into a garage of a house that was being built in my neighborhood. I "forgot" or didnt realize that the garage had an overhang and I slammed my forehead into it at full jumping speed..lol. Or the time I stepped on a nail , screamed "Oh Sh*t!", then brought my other foot down onto another nail. I hobbled home with each foot tied up in a sock. But I never told my grandmother about it. So I guess I wasnt really looking for attention. Those are silly examples, I realize, but it illustrates my point I hope that I am not and have never been a hypocondriac.

My grandparents adopted me when I was 9. They stopped being grandparents and became very strict and judgemental parents . I was terrified of my grandmother's displeasure. She never hit me, but she had a tone of voice that could freeze me in my tracks and make me feel 1 inch tall. My grandfather didnt make much of an impression on me as I was growing up. My grandmother was always the focus of attention.

I think that my grandmother is at the root of a lot of my self-destructiveness . I think I felt invalidated by her. She didnt believe me when I was sick. She would tell me how I felt if I did tell her I didnt feel well. "You are feeling better, I can tell" That's what I would hear on the second day of a cold. By the third day, she would tell me I was a hypocondriac. When I was told at 16 that I had to have surgery on my sinuses, I was *thrilled* that a doctor had actually diagnosed something tangible, something that my grandmother couldnt deny. I looked forward to the surgery because it was "real". It meant that I was real, I suppose. Also when I was 16, I stopped eating. It lasted for a whole summer. It was horrible. The thought of food would make me physically sick to my stomach. To this day, I am not sure what sparked it, but it still happens. I'm in that kind of phase right now. I cant eat, and if i do eat , I get sick to my stomach.

It didnt matter what age I was, whether still a child, or after I was married, or even after I was divorced and diagnosed as bi-polar that was the response I got from her, no matter what was wrong. When I started having panic attacks , that was what I heard from her , when I was depressed she would tell me when I was depressed or feeling better. She would tell me to "snap out of it". To this day, that phrase infuriates me, no matter who i hear it from. To this day, my grandmother tries to tell me how I feel

The worst of my self-destructiveness started after my divorce. I used to wish I would get Toxic-Shock syndrome from tampons . I drank while taking different antidepressants, even though I knew it would make me feel worse emotionally . I smoked pot, again, even though I knew I would feel *much* worse afterwards. I constantly wished to be hit by cars, or get into car accidents. I never tried to make that happen, but i wished hard for it. I was sexually active , and though it was always "safe-sex" it was very harmful to my self-esteem at times.

Most of my self-destructiveness was in the form of thoughts until this year. This year, something changed. This year, I started cutting and burning and doing all kinds of things to induce physical pain. Sometimes it was to relieve emotional pain, to control the feelings inside, to bury them. Sometimes, it was to make me feel "real" when I was numb and empty.

When it first started, early in the year, I didnt try to hide it. To me it was a symbol that there was something going very wrong in my life, even if I couldnt identify what the "wrong" was. I felt I needed it to be seen so that my doctor or therapist would *help me*. The more I needed help, it seemed the less available it was. That help still isnt available, no one seems to know how to help me. My psychiatrist told me flat out that he couldnt help me and that I should call my therapist. The two attempts of suicide that I made were cries for help when help didnt seem available. "If there's no help, then let me go". I still get that way sometimes simply out of desperation.

I started hearing from my family that I "wear it as a badge" . Again, like I am a hypocondriac. I started hiding it from everyone but my therapist. It scares me terribly, but when the urge hits me, it's so hard to keep myself from doing it. At first, I had no control of it at all. If the thought entered my head, I had to cut or burn or whatever. I've been gradually gaining some control over it, but only when the urges start slow. I can fight them when the thoughts come one at a time, I can put off doing what I want to do. Eventually, the urges fade and it's like they were never there, until the next time. It's when the thoughts/urges come on out of nowhere, fast and furious, that I have a hard time controlling my actions. It's like I dont have time to prepare myself. I dont even want to "not want to", if that makes any sense.

I've asked my therapist many times over the years, "How do I make myself want to stop wanting to be self-destructive"? As of yet, I havent gotten a good answer for this question . The best my therapist has come up with is that "Cutting just isnt an option for you". That doesnt help me at all . Mainly because when the desire to hurt is there, it *seems* to be the only option. It's like saying "Just say no". Easier said than done.

Beth

The other night I was engaging in my most frequent (and embarrassing and shameful) sort of self-injury, which involves picking at, peeling back and generally removing my toenails. What starts as an unconscious 'picking-at' with my fingers always winds up a full-blown effort with scissors and blades. That particular night I managed to completely mangle my left "bigtoe" and two other lesser toes. Because I do this so frequently, there isn't much 'nail' left to remove, so it's just another blood-letting.

For some reason, clear evidence of this doesn't seem to disturb people hardly at all when compared to cutting. (Burns, which can be written off as accidental, are rarely noticed, but are saved for more important emotional turmoil :) When I lived alone, I would do extensive cutting and biting on my forearms. Now that I live with my mom, I can't do that anymore without a scene ensuing.

Some people on the list talk about husbands/parents checking them over for evidence of fresh injury, and this is something I actually aspire to. I wish I had someone who cared to do that. Rather, I discreetly cut my breasts and upper arms (arms only in the winter) and it remains a secret between me and my clothes. My mom has written off my often bloody toes as something akin to nailbiting. Whatever... Biting leaves an injury that, since I bite the same places over and over, are very hard to recognize as such: a bit of torn skin and a pale bruise.

I do deliberate cutting with a razor blade usually only when I'm depressed. I do biting usually only when I'm enraged. I do burning usually only when I am near suicidal (the pain with that is the greatest - the most punishment perhaps?), and I tear at my toenails all other times.

I guess explaining it is where I get stuck. I can write an explanation right now for why I desire to cut *right now*, but it won't explain last Saturday night's need to express a little blood, nor will it explain tomorrow's. Sometimes it is in response to loneliness, other times in response to "circuit overload" (too many people, too much stimuli). Sometimes I suspect that a person who I care deeply about is growing away from me, and other times I'm just plain angry at him. There have been times when I've actually been *too depressed* to self-injure, while there have been times when I've been too damned angry also. There have been days which I would consider above average mood-wise, and yet they end with self-injury. (To be honest, I prefer the term "self mutilation" as it is more graphic.)

I want to be rescued, and there is a fantasy of someone seeing my mutilation and wanting to effect that rescue. But a fact I've come to know well is that the only person who can rescue me IS me, but that has yet to clear the desire to self-mutilate. You see, although I have no real reason to continue to do this, neither do I have a good enough reason to stop. I still don't see it as being a very big deal, and in fact, I do more damage with my constant smoking than I would ever do with a razor blade, my teeth or a pair of scissors. For the most part, I don't smoke to injure myself (although not trying to quit does having something to do with that).

Today I had a pretty good day, was productive and not depressed. One of my toes is bleeding. It started earlier with picking-at and ended with me using scissors. I really don't think endorphins have anything to do with it, because with this sort of injury the pain isn't present until 12 to 24 hours later. I can't explain it, because I don't have a good enough reason even for myself.

PJ

I do not self-harm anymore, but, when I did, self-harm was my way of trying to get feelings that I was very dissociated from....out. I was unable to cry, I was not in touch with my own feelings and I hated myself. I felt damaged, no good and unworthy....so, I would cut, which was both self-harm, a way of punishing myself and a way of trying to soothe and take care of myself.

Watching myself bleed was the release that my emotions so needed... but instead of actually releasing the emotions I cut myself, bled, and then I would have to "take care of, or nurture myself" while I tended to the wounds that did not require hospital treatment. For any cuts that did require hospital treatment, I then in some way felt, "nurtured" or "cared for" by the doctors and nurses that had to take care of my wounds.

While I was cutting I had no idea that this is what I was doing. All I knew then was that I was doing what I had strong urges and impulses to do...because, at the time, I did not know, at all, what else to do.

When I was still harming myself, I not only cut, but, I also would often drive my fists repeatedly into concrete and or brick walls. I would also punch myself, and hit myself with things as well. It was very much me 'acting out' or replaying a lot of the abuse that I had suffered in my past. Sometimes, when we have been abused, and we then get away from the original abuser, we end up either finding another abuser, or abusing ourselves...simply and tragically because it is all we know.

If you are interested in trying to stop any self-harming behaviour please read my account of how and why I stopped self-harming.

A.J. (soul)

  • How and Why I Stopped Self-Harming Sept 2/97

  • Suicide Attempts/Ideation
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