****This post might be a trigger***







Hello.

I was thinking about a thread in this section, about triggers for self-injury and it made me think about the reasons why I injure myself. I cut myself for many reasons such as self-hate (feeling I deserve it) or a distraction when flashbacks become overwhelming or a distraction when I feel flooded by thoughts and feelings of hopelessness or because I have a problem feeling anger towards anyone and so I turn the anger inward toward myself. I also realized that I cut myself to indicate a physical manifestation of what I am feeling.

Throughout my childhood I was abused and in the times I tried to get help from a parent I was usually not believed or if there was some evidence of what happened I was often told that I had somehow instigated whatever happened to me. But not being believed was one of the worst parts for me. In the times that I didn't have a mark on my body to show that something had happened I was typically dismissed. Partly because of these responses to my attempts to get help I began to doubt myself. I began to question myself so much that I convinced myself that nothing bad had happened to me-I was just being too sensitive.

No one in my life knows about the cutting so I'm not trying to "prove" my pain in this way to other people but I think that I am trying to "prove" it to myself. I don't know if this makes any sense. Maybe this is just me being insane. I just wondered if anyone else can relate to this at all. I have never been able to talk about self-injury to anyone, other than doctors and therapists, and I am feeling grateful and anxious and hopeful to write this post. Thank you for reading.