I already wrote an extended verson of my reason for stopping in the thread "reason for stopping" started by Rapunzel so I will give a shortened reason here.

It is simple. I want to be happy. Self injury prevents that from happening. I have relied on it to help me cope for 24 years. It made things bearable but it never made anything better. I got tired of life being intollerable and limping along hurting myself just to make it through the day. Yeah, I could continue to live that way. That is how I survived for over 2 decades. I just am not willing to waste any more of my life in a half existance based soley on surviving the current crisis. Instead I have decided to face the stuff that I have hidden from all these years. I decided that even if it means my world will be destroyed and I have to be destroyed in the process so be it. In fact I nearly was destroyed. Now I look at self Injury is something that holds me to those things that I have worked so hard to free myself from. As long as I hurt myself I will be chained to the demons who ravage my spirit and I will never be free.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft