Cutting Community Group
for those people who use self harm to hide their emotions and to scar their bodies with memories of their past pain.
i cut yet again , Its someting i cant stop doing for me its better then doing what i wanted bc thats wores , no one needs to know i tell myself everytime i do it , but as think to myself later that night why did i do that there are better ways right? i try to not do it but after 1 cut its 2 then3 then to the point where i being to loses sight why do i do this to myself . is it words ? what people say ? sticks and stones may brake my bones but words.. will brake my confadice words will tare me down till i cant get back up
is it the backflases of that he did to me ? its a bit of eveything i guess im told to stop cuting they say its not that hard.. but to them its not to me im told i need to give it up but i tried that and it only made things wores i think the reson i cut is because its the only pain i know i can contorle and its the only pain i know will heal but how can it heal if oppen it up again i have tried doing all the tricks i knew i tried to distract myself but in never helped . this sound dumb i know
i have reached the point where im done with my life but i dont want to end it its so hard because i want to get ride of all this pain but it only makes it wores and i know if i do end myself someone somwhere will get all y pain because of me
so what do i do someone please help me...
I haven't done it in a very long time and i know it allows for a moments respit from the pain but your hurting yourself even though you don't realize it. Inside you are scaring yourself more than wherever you are cutting.
Talk to us about what is causing your need to cut so we can try to work with you to help with the core issues that make you want to self harm.
I want you to understand that you are worth not harming yourself. You are worth the fight that it takes to get through this. Let us help you Ashanty before this gets worse than it is.
It may sound odd that a stranger says that you are worth something but I know that Jesus loves you more than you can imagine. If you are not religious or Christian i won't push but i will mention it.
I know you are eternally loved and here there are many people that may never meet you but we will value you as we know the struggle against the darkness. We know about pain that others never seem to even realize exist.
When i say you are worth it you are. We just need to get you to the point you can say it to yourself when you think about self harm.
You are valued Ashanty, you are on a path many on hear have or are walking. Let us help you find that you are worth that fight.
At the top of your screen there is a link for Crisis. If you ever think about the self harm there are people you can call to talk to if you need immediate assistance. Please do not let it evolve into suicide as it many times does.
The problem with cutting is that it is like doing a drug. You get used to the dosage so you increase the dosage to get the same effect.
Many people that cut eventually devolve into cutting for suicide because they got used to the pain so they stop worrying about it and it suppresses the fight or flight mechanism in our mind. The want for self preservation gets less and less until the individual actually goes through with suicide.
We need to find and work on the issues that cause you to want to do that in the first place and find something to replace it with.
I find that when i am stressed i work with my hands to help lessen my stress. I am glad my dad taught me to work on things (drywall, home electric, auto repair, etc) so i have plenty of things that i can turn to.
have you ever tried wood carving? You can take the knife and carve a chunk of wood as a stop gap and maybe turn that into carving figurines using better tools than a knife. It's an option but just a suggestion.
You mentioned, you wont do what you want to, I suspect you are speaking about suicide. I was suicidal from the age of 4, until I was 36 and have only sunk back into that mindset once for about 9 months after another severe trauma. ( nine months out of the past 23 years, and i did not self harm during that time but i did use the national suicide hotline several times)
My first suicide attempt i was 12. I tried to cut my head off. Wound up missing my neck and hitting my face, which opened a 4 inch laceration under my eye, and I lied so no one knew. Second attempt was when I was 19, and there was no hiding it. I did keep trying to get help, but did not actually find help until I was 35, and working with a good therapist I was able to stop most of my addictions including what I called, "suicidal fantasy" When I was very young, I did not think of ways, i just prayed God would make me disappear, as i got older, i would spend alot of time considering different ways to end my life.
Both of these "addictions" along with alot of acting out sexually, began when I was 4. (I acted out with children my own age things my abuser did to me or forced me to do sexually)
My life was dark and harsh and i felt hopeless and helpless and completely fake. If i felt bad i hurt myself so i didnt feel bad, if i felt good i hurt myself because i did not deserve to feel good.
Here is what i can tell you. It can get better but it is not easy. You have some advantages over me. I did not face my own self injury until i was in my 30's. You do not have to suffer as long as I did. You do need a therapist or others to help you. (you dont have to do this alone)
When I was 14 i took a class in high school called "lifesaving." Our school had an indoor pool. I took this course because I was terrified of water. I had been terrified of water as long as i could remember and, back then I did not know why. (I had traumatic memory loss) I used to read alot, and i had read somewhere that it was healthy to "face your fears." I managed to pass the class, but it was a struggle. It did not help me overcome that fear much.
One of the ways my babysitter tortured me was by holding my head underwater. I know she held my head underwater until I passed out many many times. I suspect she actually drowned and revived me several times. Today i can put water on my face, and i can put my face in water but it is never comfortable. I still react very badly and often even violently if anyone touches the back of my neck (the way she did)
Even when I had no conscious memory of what she had done to me, water always traumatized me. 55 years later...it does not control my life anymore, but it did for over half that time. What i am saying is, it takes work to get better. It is not fair, but that is the reality. You will need to find someone you can trust, a therapist or someone, whom you can share the details with, and it may help you if you write down what you remember also. (you can write it down then burn or throw away what you wrote)
When I first read a post from you, (in ptsd) Most children have no idea what ptsd is, and often people think they have a problem they do not have. so, i looked at your other posts. Abuse almost always leads to ptsd, and you are quite correct that this is part of what you are continuing to suffer.
Please keep coming back here. One thing i used to do when i was working to end my self injury was I would procrastinate. I would just try to put it off. But it is not enough to just try to stop, you must substitute something else. Most of us who self harmed did so because of emotional trauma, it is a form of escapism...trying to change how we are feeling or, forcing ourselves to feel something we had control over. In some ways, it is a tool that has helped you, but it is a broken tool that causes as much harm as it resolves temporary emotional struggles.
So the goal is, to find healthy ways of working through what you are feeling especially when you are overwhelmed. I write, I talk and I pray. and i walk among other things. I have developed a group of peers, (most are others who have endured similar abuse) with whom i can talk about how i am feeling and why if i know why (often i still dont.) Exercise is also a very good substitute, as it can be used to wear your body out and exhaust you physically though it doesnt help resolve the underlying problems, it is far better than causing your body harm and, your body releases the same endorphins when you exercise as it does when you self injure.
anyway, i hope some of this helps. If you keep working at getting better you will get better. Try to be gentle with yourself physically and emotionally. Don't be down about giving in, focus on the months you were able to abstain, and find more tools to help you overcome the damage others have inflicted on you.