i was recently at the hospital......there was this guy there who was a patient and my urges were soooooo high....he left to go to another unit and my urges dropped.....my point is that sometimes people CAN trigger feelings and urges. but that doesn't mean we can;t beat them!!! keep your hands busy and if you slip up that's okay!!!!

After he left the feelings went away, and I didn't want to do it anymore either. I just had never had that happen before, so it was weird. It was like I was back years ago, with those feelings all over again. And I didn't like it very much at all. Alot of it was probably because even still years later I never dealt with those feelings, or any feelings that came after it. Half my life I've been running from feelings with addictions, just going from one to the next, between cutting, drinking, and drugs. Guess it might take a while to work through things, feel again, and get back control of my life and actions. Thank you though, because I thought it wasn't normal, I appriciate it.

I've a self-harmer in recovery (about three years), but I still have struggles and people can definitely trigger them. I am also a recovering rape survivor. Sometimes, I see people who remind me of the man who hurt me. It may be a look, a gesture, or just an indefinable quality about the person but it will remind me of him. Then I get the overwhelming urge to start hurting myself again.

Have you thought about why he triggers you? What about him inspires the feelings to hurt yourself? Maybe it will help you in the future if you identify the specific trigger. When I know what is triggering me, I find it easier to control my urges. I can point to what is bothering me, explain to myself when it bothers me, and then I feel like I can control the trigger and the urge.

That's just my experience, but maybe it can help.

He was the first one who ever found out I was cutting myself, and the only one I ever really shared my feelings with, and he was the one who raped me, and made me do things that really just don't settle while with me. But I've been around him before, and he had never triggered me not once, even after everything, so I'm thinking it's because it's the first time I've seen him when I wasn't altered by anything. See that's my problem, I had so many addictions wrapped into one I can never really tell them apart, and what's causing what, and now it's harder when I'm not doing any of them, I'm just really confused.

You should not be around him! Not at all!

I was around my rapist after it happened (unfortunately, he was a friend). At first I didn't have any problems, mostly because I was still completely numb and in denial about what happened. But after a few months, I would have panic attacks whenever I saw him. This would lead to me drinking, cutting, abusing drugs, and engaging in other self-harm activities.

Personally (and this is just my personal advice) I would stop trying to think of your addictions as separate. I had a drug problem and a self-harm problem - but they were both about hurting myself. He triggers the urge to hurt yourself, no matter what form that self-harm takes.

I know I shouldn't be around him, but it was just him being downstairs for about a half hour, so his mom who's staying with me could meet his girlfriend, who is 6 weeks pregnant with his baby. And I'm kind of the same way, he just scares the hell out of me, I know what he's capable of, I've always tried to not to piss him off, but now I am terrifed to be around him even when people are around. And I really think your right, there not seperate, there mixed together. I just haven't been able to get over actually being able to feel again, it's been 7 or 8 years since I've felt or dealt with anything. It's hard, but it helps knowing that you got through it. So maybe it's not as impossible as it seems to be to me right now. Thank you.