Hi, I'm Barbara, if we haven't "met" yet.
If the subject of self harm is hypersensitive for you, you may want to stop reading here.
I think the first time I ever harmed myself, I was around 16 years old, but it wasn't a regular thing. As a matter of fact, it didn't become a "thing" until well into my adulthood, right around the time I was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That wasn't until I was about 30 years old. It became serious when I was around 39. I'm 45 years old now. So you can take out of your head that it's just a "teenage thing" or a "cry for attention." It's neither.
My self harm escalated and peaked as my bipolar disorder was severely uncontrolled and was at it's "peak" I guess you could say. My primary form of self harm has always been cutting, although I've scratched myself raw before, as well. I probably have well over 100 scars on my body, but many of them are faded. Some you can't even see at all anymore. I believe that when people think of cutting, they always look for it on your wrists. That's not always the case. Actually, those of us that self harm are not proud of what we have done, so we tend to hide it with long sleeves or long pants, long shirts even. I've cut all up and down my arms, my thighs and my stomach. In November of 2012, when I survived my suicide attempt by taking a bottle of Lithium, I also had about 20 cuts up the length of my arm. One of the nurses in the emergency room was quite rude and made a big deal about it, saying she'd never seen anything like that and why would I do it? As if I didn't already feel bad enough.
Why? Why do we do it? Believe it or not, we are not trying to kill ourselves when we self harm. For me, and from what I've heard from many, it is a release of pain. A reason for pain. When we feel things so freaking intensely and it doesn't make any sense to hurt so badly, we make that cut to give us a visual for our pain... a "reason" for it. It becomes an addiction, almost. No, not almost. It does. It also isn't for attention. It makes me so angry when people make that statement, because as I said before, we hide our wounds and our scars. Why would we hide them if we are seeking attention from them? We wouldn't.
The reason I am even writing this is because recently someone reported a meme dealing with self harm on the Facebook page that I run and Facebook promptly removed it. It was not overtly graphic nor did it encourage anyone to behave that way. I gave a trigger warning, just as I did for this blog post. I will repeat what I said in my post last night on the page, that if you are sensitive to certain things dealing with mental illness, my page may not be the place for you. It is a safe place where I share things that I know others will relate to, no matter what the subject matter is. Yes, that subject matter will always fall under the categories of mental illness and/or addiction/sobriety, but it isn't always happy. It's simply relatable. Sometimes it's downright sad. Sometimes it's encouraging and meant to make you smile.
Thankfully, it's been quite a while since I have self harmed. I'm pretty stable on my medications; all 4 of them. It doesn't mean I don't have episodes where I think about it, though; and on the occasion in the future where I may slip up, I will move on and forgive myself for harming the encasement of my soul.
If you self harm, I encourage you to seek help. I'm not telling you that you need to run out and see a psychiatrist or go to therapy, though if that is your choice, they are good ones. I'm simply saying reach out to someone who you trust, who you know will listen to you without judging you, who will sit by your side and not say a word if you don't want to talk anymore, who will hold you if all you want to do is cry inside. I do not condone self harm, but I'm not ashamed to tell my story anymore. I hope more people begin to tell their stories so they can be a beacon of hope to the people that think they are all alone in theirs.
Peace out.