Help?

[Christinaa317o8]

It breaks my boyfriend's heart but I don't know if I can just stop. I don't know how. I try the alternatives, sometimes they work sometimes they dont. But its really hard. I feel pathetic. Cutting myself is pointless, I don't understand why I started. I thought I would be able to control it. But I think I might start getting out of control. I'm starting to hurt myself more and more. Day after day. I don't know what to do.

-How am I suppossed to stop when I don't even know why I started?
-How am I suppossed to stop when I don't feel its neccessary. It's not really hurting me physicaly, its just a little blood, isn't it? I don't understand the concept of cutting myself, or trying to stop.
-I feel like I can't stop because I started, I feel like if I DON'T do it I'll be dissapointing somone. I feel like I haven't been struggling long enough to stop. Has anyone felt this way?

[rescueisnotamyth]

To start off, what your boyfriend said was sooo incredibly sweet.

I was recently in this same position with my boyfriend. Before spring break we made a deal about cutting. We both are/were cutters, and we both are/were trying to stop. With his support behind me, I made the decision to stop cutting. I'm not sure why, but part of it was the feeling I got after the relief went away. Once the euphoric feeling of control and calm that I couldn't find any other way faded, I felt horrible. I got stressed about hiding what I had just done. Sometimes I got annoyed because the blood just kept on coming, but the relief didn't. And after every time I cut, I felt like I had let down everyone in my life.

moving on...

your questions:
-try to figure out why you started. Was it one specific event in your life? Or a bunch of small ones that finally brought you to this place? Figure out what the motivation for cutting is. Do you cut when you are upset? or angry? or maybe even happy?
-yes, it is hurting you physically. You are scarring your body. Maybe the scars seem trivial, but when you get older, questions will be asked about them. Your kids will want to know what happened to mommy, and will you lie to your kids about that? So cutting hurts you physically and emotionally sometimes.
-You CAN stop. There are people all around you to help support you. No matter if you have been struggling with cutting for a month, or a day, or 6 months, or 5 years, it's not too soon or too late to stop. You have to start something in order to stop it.

I hope I helped... my thoughts are kind of all over tonight.

hugs.

[Gidig]

Hey Christina-

Self harm is such a hard thing to conquer. At the time, no I don't think I felt like I was doing anything wrong. I wasn't truly hurting myself. At a point, I started saying I couldn't stop because I never actually started. Now everyday it comes up that I see the scars. And I realize that I hurt myself enough to leave marks that could possibly be there forever. That obviously couldn't have been too nice to my body.

But of course, if you don't want to stop it probably won't work. Because it takes a lot of willpower, motivation, and want to be able to quit. Just because someone tells you they love you too much to just let self harm, it's kind of them, but it will not mean you will stop. By any means. Have you tried explaining something like this to your boyfriend? There are multiple sites online that will tell you the exact same thing. I bet there's even something similar in the self-harm articles section. The more knowledge he has about the subject, the more he'll be able to help you.

For now, if you do want to stop, keep using the alternatives and distractions. While they can't possibly replace self harm, they can keep you self harm free that much loner. Try perhaps a hotline or something. Even ask your boyfriend if he can be your hotline, even just to talk about something completely random to get your mind in a different place.

Make sure to assure him just because you self harm does not mean he failed to stop you or anything like that. Many significant others can get extremely insecure about this and blame themselves. Just try to make sure that doesn't happen with your boyfriend.

Do you happen to see a therapist or anything? Perhaps you should. They too can help you stop self harming. And then you could even bring your boyfriend with you a few times to help him understand the whole self harming thing, and where you are in your life with it. And what he can do to help.

Good luck! We're always here for you if you need it. <3
Maria.

[*Jen*]

Hey Christina,

Your boyfriend obviously loves and cares about you lots. It can be so hard for people who care to understand why someone would hurt themselves. You can stop though Christina. It won't be easy but you can do it. Sometimes alternatives don't work but you have to keep trying them and then hopefully they will start to work. Try different ones because there are so many and some might help more than others.

Trying to understand why you self harm can be hard especially when you just don't have an idea why. Perhaps think back to when you started self harming and what was happening at that time and how you were feeling when you first started self harming. Another thing you could try doing is writing a self harm diary and recording what was happening at the time, where you were and how you felt after and just record your feelings. That way you might be able to see a pattern in when you are self harming. Then you might be able to identify a trigger.

You can get through this so keep fighting. Stay strong :-)

[Christinaa317o8]

Thanks guys, I really appriciate it. I actually didn't think anyone would reply.

Kaylyn; eveything you said was very helpful
Maria; You're right about his hurt not being enough for me to stop, but it has opened my eyes.
Jen; I think I'll try to do the Self Harm journal but I don't want it to turn into an encouragement type of thing, you know what I mean? But maybe it wont if I only use it on the days I self-harm, which isn't everyday yet, and I hope it won't ever be.

I made it through today which was a good start. I'm going to try hard even though I'm not sure its what I want. Does eveybody neccisarily feel "good" or "right" when they try to stop for the first serious time?

[*Jen*]

It is great that you are going to try hard Christina! You can do it so don't give up. With the self harm diary if you think it will encourage you to self harm you could just write a diary everyday but when you do self harm you can write that day about your self harm and what was happening and how you were feeling and all of that. Or just do it when you self harm. It is entirely up to you and whatever you feel will help the most. Keep going :-)