i think that is already pretty obvious but people only think of cutting when mentioned SH, which, makes sense yeah im sure most people who label it as SH cut usually. But people dont realise self harm is not about permanently scarring yourself w burning/cutting.

i had my friend say they hit themselves when angry and i know i would be more worried if it was cutting, it is such a harmful way of thinking. i personally cut and bite but i know no one freaks out to biting as much as they do to cutting.

i hate that they donr care about us harming ourselves but they only care about us cutting ourselves. idk if it make full sense i just wanted to say something about it.

For years I struggled with SH but for the past 3 years (until 3 weeks ago) I was clean. I've never made myself bleed before, no matter what I did I could never bleed. Somehow I still have past scars though. But now, when I did it I managed to make myself bleed and I can't help but want to do more. Is that normal?

I am in an abusive household where everything is seen as transactional. Nothing that I own is truly mine, not my clothes, not my underwear, not my period pads, not even my gifts. They all “belong” to my mother, because she says she paid for them with time, effort and money.

She says the same extent about my body. She was disgusted when she found out I was harming myself and tried to claim that it harmed her more than me because “she gave birth to me, and I’ll never understand that unless I become a parent.” She claims it is disrespectful to the sacrifices and hardships she had to go through to give birth to me, as my self-harm is a destruction of it all.

She dares claim that my body belongs to her. She was appalled and horrified when I mentioned wanting to medically transition because I’m “destroying the body” and argued that doing that is worse than me cutting myself and leaving permanent scars on my body.

She’s the kind of person who uses blood as a way to connect family. Even if I forsake her or go no contact, I will always be her “daughter” because my blood comes from her.

I view self-harm as a way for me to claim my own body for myself. Even if it hurts, even if the marks I leave on my body are ugly and disgusting, at least it’s proof that my body is mine and nobody else’s. Seeing blood when I cut is both cathartic and a cruel reminder to me: it’s like seeing all proof of my mother’s blood leaving me and that thought fills me with joy but at the same time I hate it because I can never truly distance myself from her, as there would always be her blood within me.

She recently took away the only other safe haven I had, my journal, by reading it behind my back and taunting me with my private thoughts. Not even my own writing is mine anymore. I feel like self-harm is the only thing I have left that belongs to me and I can’t even do that anymore unless I want her to kick me out when she’ll inevitably do another strip check.

just like the title says, 17 and I've started cutting at my thighs due to stress from hs and i dont know if i should tell her

Everytime i look at my scars or cuts, i just think theyre not deep or bad enough. But when other people see Them, they wince and say i ruined my skin and whatnot

This is just going to be a bit of a rant and in a way, a storytime

I have been severely relapsing on self harm the last few weeks, i have become totally dependant on it to function, i study law, actually on one of the more prestigious universities in my coutry, my life since i started uni ad moved away from my house is pretty much consists of going from episode to episode, being geniuenly delirious from mental turmoil and blood loss. im probably suffering from borderline personality disorder and it makes me emotionally dependant on my friend, no matter what i do, if she feels bad, i feel horrible, im severely depressed, i cannot get out of bed most days, i sleep for upwards of 16 hours a day. i feel that im deteriorating, i dont remember what i did yesterday, i dont remember what day it is some days, i confuse where i am sometimes, i dont know. im rich, i can buy almost anything i wish, i could get therapy tommorow, but i just dont want to,i funded therapy for my friend, i furnishec a part of er room and still i feel like a horrible person, i feel like i dont have any self worth, i always come back to self harm just to keep myself together some days and my relapses are getting worse and wwarse and worse. i almost had to go to an er and i dont think i can keep myself out of a psych ward in the near future. i lived through too much i saw too much i felt too mucg i dont know what to do i dont kknow how to live

im sorry if this post is barely readvke ut i think i may be delirious sorry

I'm so truly fucked up that regularly cutting is my best option for harm reduction right now because if I don't cut I start scratching myself till I have large (like 15 centimeter lenght) bleeding wounds all over my body (which are a bitch to keep clean and dry so they are a massive infection risk) or hitting myself hard enough to actually do damage, on the bad days I start dislocating my own fingers and on the really really dark days I dislocate my own fucking shoulders just to feel something.

So at this point it's actually the healthiest option for me to keep and use blades because then I set a couple surface level cuts on my tighs that heal in a week or so and don't do anything that either takes weeks or months to heal or will have permanent consequences. And the annoying thing is, everything I need for the "bad" selfharm (yes all selfharm is bad but not the point) is my own body while responsible cutting needs infrastructure (a clean blade, something to disinfect the skin, woundcare products...) and spoons I could really use for other things.

I have a recent cut healing, and it's been going well but it's not dounzheoring to a point where it's full skin. Tomorrow I have to go to a doctor who will be able to see the scars. Includinh that cut I have fairly noticeable scars.

My other doctor never gave a damn about my previous visible scars, but this is a different doctor I've never seen before, and including that I have a fresh cut healing that might be a challenging visit. My dad might also be there. So that's not something I'm happy about. I use a plaster but exploring a plaster would be challenging as of it's an area that basically has never seen any real damage,mostly superficial

I hit myself with a belt buckle a handful of times and I have a pretty big spot on my calf. It’s really hot, so I can pretty much only wear shorts. It is known amongst my peers that I live with my parents, and I’m 18 and physically larger and stronger than both of them. Would people think my parents are abusing me? As much as I hate them for being manipulative, I don’t feel that they deserve a false DV arrest. I could wear a calf sleeve when I go out. How should I proceed?

This started recently, before I could keep myself sleep deprived starve and that would work but now that I've started to c u t, it's more like I forget why I even started do it and the only thought I have in my mind is that I want to see my blood.

Like sometimes you're pissed off, have a bad day or urge so you do it, but when I am doing it it all slips away from my mind and the only thing I can think of is that I want to see my own blood because I feel like if it doesn't bl e e d, it won't 'register' as a cut. Not like I go around telling people about it but that's just how it is. Also does anyone else feel like sh is evil? Idk why I randomly started to feel like it's evil even though ik it's related to mental health and stuff and is sensitive.

i don’t know what to do if i don’t want to stop cutting. i wish someone would notice

I got many advice saying 'let you emotion out' 'hold it in make it worse' when I asked them how to hold it. It's true but I hate to have anyone saw me getting mad or upset.

Parents and everyone around me always want me to be a good kid who is cheerful and kind no matter what. I tried to be but failed so many time. I got lots of problem, my health and study not going well at all. It not big deals but it definitely drag my life to the worst, to the point that I come back to cut myself again. It goes deeper every time.

I failed to meet people's expectation and myself. At least I want to hold all disappointment and this feeling in. Sometimes, I feel forlorn or furious. I would hate to cry in front of anyone or got mad at anyone for anything. I always hate the stress or uncomfortable feeling I felt at the moment, I never got the solution but sh help me a lot except right now. It barely help compare to before.

It's getting harder about whatever it is. I tried a lot of things but it didn't get better. It hurts every time I take a shower as it reminds me what I have done.

I can't afford therapist and the cheapest I can find didn't help me much but I think it's just therapist's style of talking.

Does anyone do sh when you feel too much and want to hold it in too? If you are then what helps you stop cutting or make you feel better?

Any advice are appreciate, I might not answer every comments but I definitely read every single one.

Thank you for reading this.

its so hard its really hard, i cant help but feel useless, i dont wanna tell anybody about it because everyone is going through a tough time too, i feel like nobody will listen anyway

my troubles arent deep and its all caused by me so its natural that it should be me solving it all

i dont like looking weak so when i am weak i disappear, i mask everything i feel, i try to look great and i try to speak normal

i feel like im way too old to be doing this, ive become an academic failure too, everyone is going to college i want to go too.. i want to go.. if only i didnt fail how could i always fail this bad

ive become so pathetic that im sounding my voice on the internet, crazy just crazy never in a million years i thought id be here
maybe because the internet isnt real, no one knows me on the internet and i feel great

i wish i could stop this
maybe i wish i could be braver and severe it

if i told someone im cutting would they call me a poser? would they understand? they would think im pathetic, shouldve smoke it away or drink it away

It’s hard to not do it when I am the tool I use to harm myself. I have been doing it a lot more lately, and I really don’t want to. I’m also worried it will escalate if I continue.

i feel like a jerk for this but what does it mean if im doing self harm for attention… i know it seems like i’m an attention seeker but i just need help mentally i am not okay and i just want someone to notice me and help me get through this and it seems like the only way for somebody to notice is if i do self harm which i do feel like an asshole doing it for attention but i just need help

i hit a month clean today for the first time in a long time. i’m proud of myself for making it this far but i want to relapse so bad. today has been rough and something about hitting a milestone is triggering me. i’ve been thinking about relapsing all day. i’m trying so hard to keep myself busy and try and not think about it.

I really wanna do it less regularely and am looking for ways to distract myself even just for a little bit.

So id like to know if you guys have any advice or tips that have helped you that isnt just the rubber bands or ice cubes like common advice thrown around.

I specifically struggle with wanting scars and feeling unsatisfied when the wounds arent deep enough in my eyes.

So yeah im hoping anyone has something helpfull to share <3

(Im not asking for life changing advice, but just for tips that ad even just a few hours to my clean streak)

Im going through the hardest week of my life right now. My stalker of 2 years somehow has gotten information on me and has been swatting and doxxing me and my family these past couple days and its causing me to feel so anxious. Ive been clean from self harm for about 7 months now and everything in my head is screaming to relapse and let the build up go through cutting. Im driving myself crazy and the death threats and defamatory messages ive been getting makes me want to go back to hurting myself So unbearably bad .

Been years (prob 3 idk I don’t keep track). Relapsed last Wednesday and again tonight. My life is so different now than from when I used to do it consistently (haven’t been consistent since middle/high school) and tbh I could just use someone to talk to there’s so much going through my head idk.

I have been struggling with self-harm for the past ten years. Recently, I have been engaging in the act more than ever before. I have recently retired the blade and started burning. For some reason, it hooked me right away. I have been doing it every day for the past week, and I feel out of control. I don’t understand what makes this method different than the other. I understand burning is dangerous, but I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know if my increased marijuana usage is the reason, or if not taking my antidepressants is. Either way: I’m scared about this escalating.

Anyone else out there struggling with the same thing? I finally let someone in my life and I they ended up breaking things off with me last night. It was super confusing and I just feel so numb and also everything all at once?? I just keep thinking about reaching for that blade. Opened up to my siblings about it a bit because I’m just so tired.

For a really really long time my self harm was relegated to me just using my own body against itself. It’s not that I had never thought to do anything else or never tried. I just never took it any further until today. Really early this morning, it went from biting/hair pulling/hitting to burning. And then a few hours ago I finally cut myself and drew blood. It was nothing deep. I didn’t even notice I was bleeding until after it had already started scabbing over. And the burning isn’t anything that needs medical attention either. I don’t want to do any of this. But it feels like I need to

Anonymously posting here since I have nowhere else to do so, I (M) and my now ex (F) just broke up. To sum it up, I fucked up almost everything. I got manipulative at certain points and I constantly hurt her (emotionally, not physically, though I did forcefully hug her a few times). I know I could have done so much better. I really thought she was the one, as you do in relationships, but she was my best friend before partner, too. I let myself be controlling, and every time I try a relationship, I always fucking hurt my partners. I've taken breaks from dating before, multiple months at a time, in order to fix myself. But I just can't. So, after a year and about two weeks, today, I was in the shower, and I grabbed my razor and thought for a while about how maybe there wouldn't be that much blood if I just tested the waters. That it didn't matter if I did it. I had already lost someone so dear to me and it was entirely my fault, so why would it matter if I lost a year and some change? And after a bit of time, I just cut. And cut again, and again, and after a while of cutting, I thought,"Why am I continuing to do this? What the fuck is wrong with me?" And then I kept going even after that. I don't even feel that much pain in my thighs. It hurt the most when the water hit it. I barely feel bad for doing it. It was just another way to take my mind off of something that painful. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can't I ever fix myself, even after working at it for months? Why do I always fall back into a cycle of manipulating a person after I fall in love? I cared about her more than anybody else and I got way too fucking possessive after getting into the relationship. I would have been completely fine if we never dated, because at least then I could care for her still. I lost her completely. She doesn't even want to talk to me anymore, which honestly is deserved. I try to learn my lessons and I always fuck things up, I seriously can't take this shit anymore. I'm almost ready to give up relationships entirely. I'm probably taking a few months of a break from relationships again. I'll try to talk to her next month just to see if I can at least mend a friendship back together, since I still want to care for her. But at this point, I doubt it will happen. What the fuck do I even do?

I cut to fat yesterday. Well I feel better. I got butterfly bandages closed it and I'm feeling my mood has slightly improved. I shouldn't have cut but sometimes it's only release that helps

Recently some stuff happened and I relapsed, hard. And I'm scared of what I might do next to myself. I'm scared of the lack of control I have over myself. I know there's therapy to help with this stuff, but I don't think it will work. It's only a matter of time before the need comes again and I don't know what I'll do in the moment and I'm so scared of myself because of that

Sorry if this is entirely the wrong flair or wrong place for this