11 years old. Moved from a relatively mild weathered city where I had friends and lived with my grandparents to a town of less than 10,000 with my single mother, snowed 9 months of the year and temps would go down to -50. Had 0 friends. Used razors, was suicidal the entire 3 years I was there.

I have also self harmed in the past, although I don't now, I think several people on this board are also on the Self Injury baord

I do *not* self harm

Like Voltaire64, I started young as well. It has been a struggle for me to stop, but I have. Seems the periods between are longer now. I started that before even being told I had Bipolar.

I do get some people without BP, who misunderstand BP who think we *all* self harm IRL.. So I guess that is why I feel the need to differenciate that I don't, and it is not at all on the diagnostic criteria for BP. So sorry for how I may have came across. There are quite a few here though who do it.

I hope you can overcome this. :hugs:

I started young too, 8 when i started burning myself and 11 when i started cutting.

I started at 15 and continued for a while. I stopped for years and then "relapsed" and self injured recently. I'm working on letting go of the guilt and moving on, if I went years without doing it before I can do it again. There is a good self injury board if you are interested.

Though i do self harm, i agree with Chanel... Misconceptions of the outside world are huge pet peeves of mine.

I started 'punishing' myself when i was really little in school, but it wasn't totally damaging. Other more damaging stuff started when i was in High school.

I was only diagnosed a little over a year ago, so i've been doing it way before my diagnosis.

Oh and i wasn't connecting the two, i was just wondering. I completely know they are not connected, i wanted to know how common it is.

Oh and thanks for letting me know about the self injury board, i joined.

I am a self injurer too, seems like my episodes have gotten worse with age. Befor eI used to make a cut or two now a days I can make 80+ slices, just like I have an angry spell on myself. This is not something I am proud of and I don't wish this on my worse enemy. You are so young I wish that you could get over your self harm before you get ot be my age. Good luck

When I was a little kid - like five years old, I would peel the skin off of my big toes - like dig into it and make these places where I could peel pieces of skin from there. I also used to chew the sides of my mouth a lot. so it started early.


I am wondering what that was about by now. I think that is totally weird. I wonder if it was some form of something or something.

I engaged in cutting as a teen and then later on self-harmed in response to emotional abuse and trauma.

Oh yeah i chew my mouth a lot too, leaves mouth blisters.

I had a form of self harm where I would go up the street and shake this big tree around that had a bee hive in it and get stung multiple times. I did it twice before I figured out it wasn't worth it.

I chew the corners of my mouth too, and occasionally bit my lip hard enough to draw blood...