Inside the mind of a self harmer

I don't claim to know what goes on in the mind of all people that self harm,the fact being that people self harm for all sorts of reasons,I don't think self harmer's do it because they want to i suspect like myself its a sort of release from reality,and a coping strategy,not a great way to cope with things but a way none the less.

I had tried to pin point when my first encounter of harming myself was but for the life of me i can not say when it started,i suspect i have blocked it out somewhere so deep it knows its better off hiding,i can remember the very last time i put a razor blade to my skin,i can remember many,many times in between but not the first time,I can only say at first it was probably for some kind of attention,god knows i was lacking that in my childhood,but attention it did not bring,I can say that unless you have been in a situation where all u know is to inflict pain upon yourself to believe you are alive is very hard to understand,But to try to help all understand i will proceed.

To see your own blood pour from your body allows the mind to know you exist,to feel the pain allows your mind to believe nothing else can hurt you as much as you can hurt yourself,and to inflict a blade upon yourself allows the mind to believe you are in control,all the symptoms of some one who is lost, alone and knows no other coping strategy.

I never cut myself so that people would see yet i never like some self harmer's cut myself where ever i could.My left arm was the only battleground that i inflicted pain upon i don't know why but i never felt the need to expand to any other parts of the body,many people do as to why i cannot answer,I'm certainly not proud of it and would never recommend it to anyone but for a while if only a short while it worked.For me it would be easy when ever things got so low to pick up a disposable razor and perfectly dismantle it till i was left with the single sharp and very lethal blade and proceed to take all my anger out on myself,To say it hurts when doing it i suppose is true but in a strange kind of way it was also very euphoric to me.

The feeling of invincibility to other pain i was going through,nothing in this world could ever ever hurt me like i could hurt my self,if i was feeling hurt by a person,i would cut myself and believe that person never hurt me at all because i can hurt myself more,the world could treat me like shit,yet with a blade the world could not make me feel more shit then i could by using the blade upon myself.

I would spend much time just staring at the blood and watching it drip all down my arms onto the back of my hand along my fingers and drop to the floor,and with each drop of blood that hit the ground was one less bad feeling in my body,I could control it i would decide if i wanted to cut once twice three times or even fifty times depending on how depressed i felt at the time,i would cut and cut until i felt better.Of course that feel good factor never lasted to long one reason being the pain from all the wounds would really kick in and two the feeling of guilt would rear its ugly head,It is a somewhat nasty circle to be in,feel hurt,cut myself, feel better, feel pain, feel guilt, feel hurt, cut myself, feel better, feel pain, feel guilty........Sadly for many it is all they know all they can be in control of,and the only thing that they may be good at..

I'm 33 now and it was only just a few years ago that i last self harmed and i cant say for surety if i will never do it again,i found something in my life that was to top everything that was love,and all the while i have felt loved i have never felt the need to harm myself,I'm one of the lucky ones ,many people never find a way to control this habit of self harm,and i call it a habit because in a way it is ,when you start it is very hard to stop,like any kind of addiction,but i know that there is more out there for everyone if they don't give up fighting,i bear many many scars and hate going out in the sun because if my arm gets tanned the scars show up even more,my kids know all about it i mean there is no point in lying and they know rather then hurt themselves I'm here for them no matter what ,but even though i deeply regret doing so much self inflicted pain to myself i am what i am and that part of my life has made me stronger and wiser,each scar tells a story of some kind of heartbreak or pain i felt growing up and constantly seeing what i have done to myself only strengthens the passion i have to help anybody never to get to that point.