(TW) I'm just struggling tonight

[lokasenna]

I started self harming when I was twelve, mostly via cutting and some burning. I did it consistently until I was about 19 or so, and have continued off and on throughout my twenties. It's the only thing that makes me feel like I have control over something. This is my body. Other people can hurt it, but I can't? That's how it's been throughout my life. When I choose the ways in which I want to hurt myself, people suddenly become diametrically opposed morally. But when other people hurt or control me against my wishes, it's fine.

I realize the healthy thing would be to oppose both harm directed at me from others and harm directed at me from myself, and I've managed that for periods of time before. But it comes back to this, always - it's my way of coping with triggers, I guess. Because it's mine. I have some scars that I made myself. At least I made them.

The intensity of emotion that precedes self harm for me is so intense that lists of ways to distract don't work for me. I can't distract. I have to deal with it, I have to express it, it can't be pushed away. I'm just inside it.

I don't feel it, when I cut. I don't even feel any physical pain. It's like my skin isn't really connected to me, though I guess it never fully has been anyway.

I had a conversation with someone important to me that triggered me. I can't tell if my feelings about our conversation are warranted or not. It's so messed up, because people told me, growing up, that I was irrational when I wasn't, that none of my feelings were real or legitimate or connected to anything based in reality. And now, because of the ways they damaged me through that, I don't know if I actually have become irrational or not. I can't tell. And I can't deal with it, I can't cope with the shame and horror from that. I can't have become what they always saw me as. I didn't used to be, I swear, and if I am that way now, I don't want it to have been my fault.

I'm afraid of close relations with people. There is a huge sense of threat inherent in them, a huge risk to my autonomy. It takes everything in me, sometimes, not to break the heart of the person I'm close to and disappear. I have spent a lifetime leaving every friend I made behind, sometimes even without saying goodbye.

[Snowdrop]

I've read what you've written, and I hear you. Your feelings are real and valid, and I can understand why you feel the way you do. Thank you for posting.

Sitting with you. If it helps, I'll put a soft blanket round your shoulders and offer safe and gentle hugs.

[lokasenna]

I've read what you've written, and I hear you. Your feelings are real and valid, and I can understand why you feel the way you do. Thank you for posting.

Sitting with you. If it helps, I'll put a soft blanket round your shoulders and offer safe and gentle hugs.

It helps. Thank you so much for your kindness and comfort.    

[Snowdrop]

 

[Three Roses]

I empathize with your feeling the need to self harm. I get it that you feel it's a method of control. Actually, you explaining it this way lets me understand it more and relate it to the ways I feel when things get dark. I feel I understand cutting in a way I never have before.

Standing with you today. Sorry you're dealing with that. 

[marta1234]

Lots of hugs for you.
Wishing you the best.

[lokasenna]

Three Roses, I'm glad what I wrote helped you better understand cutting. Thank you for your empathy.

Marta, thank you for the hugs.