Self harm

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It's been a while since I've posted here.
Since then, I've started cutting.
I was scratching at myself and biting the inside of my mouth before, but this is new.
And different.

Now I bite my hand or wrist when I want to feel pain to calm myself.
I cut when I want to see blood.

I know that the bites relieve stress.
I know that the cuts make me feel good, see everything brighter.

I was 'clean for twenty-four days prior to last night. Most stressful three weeks of my life.

I cut and I feel better, see brighter.

I thought I was bipolar, still do. Now I ask the question: What the f**k is wrong with me? Does anyone have similar feelings?

Last edited by g2 on 25 Feb 2013, 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

cutting and self-harm are more likely with borderline issues than bipolar. both borderline and bipolar have emotional deregulation, so easy to confuse.

I'm fairly sure I'm not borderline. Aren't borderline and AS mutually exclusive? And I don't feel like borderline, I've read up on it.

Tell your doctor you are cutting. If you don't get help to stop you may seriously harm yourself. (I'm a recovered self-harmer - once, in a rage, I sliced my hand open just above my thumb. I cut through nerves and to the bone - this was about 15 or so years ago and it still hurts. My use of this hand gets worse with age.)
I did it out of frustration and anger at myself. Now that I'm being treated effectively, my self destructive feelings are much less. But the scars are there and I hate having them.

No they're not mutually exclusive. I have a diagnosis of BPD. I'm not entirely sure that I agree with it, but the more I read - readings recommended by my psychiatrist not just the standard stuff on the internet - the more my stereotypes of BPD are disintegrating and the more likely it seems that it does apply to me. In my case it has been postulated that due to my ASD and the lack of understanding of my family in this respect (I wasn't diagnosed until well into adulthood - see signature) led to me being raised in an unintentionally invalidating environment thus causing BPD.

As for self harm I'm very familiar. Mostly I bang my arms, hit myself with a hammer or scratch/cut using a safety pin. I don't cut deeply (difficult with a safety pin) but enough to see blood run. I cultivated a healthy fear of sharp knives as a teenager because I knew I would cut deeply if I went down that route and still when I see a sharp knife I have urges (this in my house we use cleavers or very short serrated knives with rounded ends, neither of which trigger as much as a pointy knife). I also take overdoses - sometimes seriously so.

I am 6 weeks overdose free which for me is HUGE (I am still hitting and scratching a bit). Since last August until 6 weeks ago, I was in hospital being treated for overdose on average once every two or three weeks. I put this change down to the fact that I was prescribed risperidone 5 weeks ago and it seems to make it a bit easier to resist the urges. The urges are still there and it can be very difficult not to do it and can be very stressful, but the fact is I've managed 6 weeks without even taking a small no-treatment-required overdose.

I've been a cutter for years but I've stopped now. I've been deeply depressed, mostly because of the aspergers that I can't handle. I like the cutting because I can make myself look as bad as I feel inside but I can fix it by stitching it up or putting on a bandaid. I just made a thread about the drug Valdoxan. It's what's saved me.

thats sensory processing disorder. if you were not autistic and was doing this kinda stuff you would be bad off.

when i was in middle school i didnt understand the edgy -uncomfortable-anxiety feeling that dominated my life. however when anything is wrong with me i will try evrything to feel better. and one of the things i found when im -not in synch with my senses- is self harm. i would run through the woods ass naked just to get cut the hell up. however since then i have found other ways to cope and you will too.

The usual strategy to keep self harming behaviour under control, provided you want to decrease frequency or even stop entirely, is to identify the reasons why you do it, and figure out something less harmful to replace it. For example, in my case I self harmed in order to control circular and repetitive intrusive thought patterns (i have OCD) and also occasionally to shock myself out of numb feeling when in extended period of depression. Working with a cognitive behavioural therapist, I was able to add extra steps in my coping mechanisms in order to delay or remove the need to self harm. Some of that was just forcing myself to follow a list of coping items that I must perform before self harm becomes an option. Eg, put in ear plugs, sit in dark room. If that doesn;t work, then vigorous exercise. If that doesn`t work I hold an ice cube in my hand. If that also doesn`t work, I take 0.5mg of Ativan. And finally, if Ativan hasn't done the job either, I self harm.

I will never remove self harm from the list of coping mechanisms. It is there if I need it but I must never skip straight to it without doing the others first. I have not gotten to that point in some months now, so it seems to be working.

There is inexplicable feeling of nostalgia for it that I find perplexing, though. Self harm is a coping mechanism I have for psychological distress, and yet I miss it as though it were something pleasant? Perhaps it is the endorphins i miss? hmm.