Why do we self harm?

[safetyinnumbers]

When I was a teenager, and was facing my worst trauma, I started to pull out my eyelashes and eyebrows. I don't really know why I started but once I started, it was very hard to stop.
I have struggled to stop doing this on and off into my adulthood and can go for ages not doing it but then start again.
Why do we self harm? It has never been associated with SI although I've experienced SI as well over the years.

[Eyessoblue]

Hi i started this aged 11, and now mutilate my feet and pull strands of hair out, it's about releasing the inner pain we are feeling the release is the pulling out, it's quite common in cptsd and many other conditions. Mindfulness is supposed to hope in being grounded and sensing what we're doing, try to find a different place in your head to be in, look at the here and now what you can see, hear, smell etc this will bring you back to 'reality' and hopefully help in stopping you doing it.

[Blueberry]

I pull out the hair on my head and my eyelashes. Once in inpatient therapy I kept a log of it. I pulled out hair for every conceivable reason under the sun. After feeling any emotion from anger to joy. To calm myself and go into a sort of relaxed mode or even semi-dissociated. To bring myself back out of dissociation. To punish myself.

I started in childhood, pre-teen, maybe as far back as 9 years old. I know that before I started pulling my hair out, I used just to pull the hair out of the elastics holding my pony tails or braids. I think that was a nervous thing. My FOO was always criticising me, especially my appearance and I got very self-conscience at a very young age.

Later on, in my teens probably but up on into adulthood, there was a kind of suicide ideation (SI) effect to it. One less hair on my head meant there was less of me. I remember thinking that regularly. In my FOO Blueberry wasn't meant to exist.

I've never managed to stop for a significant length of time. A few days maybe, mostly in inpatient therapy or on healing retreats. I try to keep it to a reduced level or stop when I notice I'm doing it.

If you haven't already done so, check this thread http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=8734.0 There's useful info on it too.

[woodsgnome]

How well I know what that was like. I don't know when or how it started, I just recall long episodes of strenuously rubbing my eyes, over and over. I surmise it was a reaction to what I saw around me, and the state of insane anger and grief so much of my life left me in.

The why is actually pretty easy--I didn't want to, ever again, see the things I witnessed and experienced; although I didn't consciously notice this, I just rubbed away. So I instinctively reached for the eyes, in desperation maybe more than anything, i suppose. Disbelief, and it was like asking myself...do I ever want to see if this is what I must endure? Please, no. then the sadness poured in, and the rubbing progressed.

The rest of the story--I had severe glaucoma set in 10-12 years ago. Surgery saved my sight, but I still have blurry effects that limit my mobility, especially for driving (living in an isolated area requires driving to get anyplace--no public transport out here either). Of course there may have been other factors, but that incessant rubbing as a kid probably helped further a good amount of nerve damage.

I tried other mutilations, like scratching my face with throwing darts in an attempt to lessen how 'cute' they told me I was; it only seemed to encourage them. I did other acts of self-sabotage of a similar sort. Bottom line--I hated what life was, and in my immaturity started on a devastating course of self-harm that I'm still trying to tame.

So I think the why is a process showing how we internalize what we learn on the outside. Slowly my inside journey has sought to incorporate enough self-compassion and--dare I say--self-love to find a means to at least live with myself. 

[Sceal]

I think the question of why will change with each person, and I also believe that it doesn't have one set of firm answers. And sometimes the answer to the question will elude us for a very long time.

I find this question hard to answer, because I feel judged whenever someone asks me (that usually doesn't happen anymore though, that people ask). But also because I know that at various times in my life it had various purpose. But the general line for me was self-preservation. It was affirming my beliefs about myself, when the world became to chaotic, too confusing and the outer world didn't coincide with my inner world it created so much fear.
When I would get so overwhelmed by an emotion or by something happening I would resort to SI in order to calm down, regain control. When I didn't feel anything, nothing made an impression on me, nothing mattered I SI in order to check if I was still alive. And sometimes, oftentimes, there was a hallucinatory voice for me - demanding, pleading, manipulating me into SI.

But my reasons, were mine. They were my reasons on how to handle my inner and outer reality. Your reasons are yours, and although they might be similar - they can also be quite different.

[Blueberry]

Sceal, I just want to check. You mean you resort to SH don't you? Self-harm (not self-injury). SI = Suicide Ideation. I used to confuse the two before I realised people say 'self-harm' in English.

I hope you're not feeling judged. 

[Sceal]

To me, Blueberry, the effects and reasons behind self-harm and self-injury is the same. I don't differentiate because to me they have always represented the same intent.

Also, no - not feeling judged today

[Sadie48]

I too have done some form of SH throughout my life. Either picking at hang nails until they bled or picking at skin on my feet.  Now I'm obsessed with skin on my ear!  I've read it is either a way to dissociate -- to leave the current situation -- or a way to feel when we have become used to being numbed out.  I'm not sure what is true for me.  I get some satisfaction out of it.  It might be worth accepting it and knowing you are doing it as a result of what happened to cause your cptsd. 

[Libby183]

That's interesting Sadie.  My sort of self harm is just like yours. It was the ear reference that struck me,  in particular.  This started with me at about eighteen,  when I was very distressed at starting nursing training,  which I hated. I am over fifty and still do it. I scratch the skin inside my right ear, and the pain travels right down the side of my body to my right foot,  which then sort of spasms. It's an odd feeling but still,  I do it. I hadn't really thought of it as SH, but it clearly is. I think I do it to dissociate.

My other form of SH,  which I don't do now, was to deprive myself of warmth when I it's very cold. This was a direct throwback to childhood,  where my needs were always denied. "I'm cold". "No you're not". I didn't think I deserved to be warm and wouldn't turn on the heating until my children came home.

[Blueberry]

I've read it is either a way to dissociate -- to leave the current situation -- or a way to feel when we have become used to being numbed out.  I'm not sure what is true for me. 

Could be both, depending on the circumstance? That's the way it is for me.

I get some satisfaction out of it. 

I do too some of the time. I try to differentiate between destructive satisfaction and less destructive. 'Destructive' is when I feel something like "oh good, there's less of me now" because that's going along with FOO's messages, for one thing, or when it really hurts. I cut that thought out at least and stop really hurtful pulling. 'Less destructive' is when it's calming and/or doesn't really hurt.

It might be worth accepting it and knowing you are doing it as a result of what happened to cause your cptsd.

There's somethign in that! There are ways I or you or all of us might reduce this type of SH but it might not ever go away. Years ago I was told in inpatient T that the first hair is like the first sip of alcohol for alcoholics but I don't agree anymore. I was also told I would never heal till I overcame my SH but it hasn't worked that way. I am healing and while expending so much energy on attempting to keep my addictions and compulsive behaviour in check, I had next to no energy for moving forwards.

I've also read that the types of SH we're talking about on here are different in how they initially arise from more overt types that are done with tools. But I'm no professional expert so Idk if it's really true.