Quote:
Originally Posted by BeBrave483
I now have the opposite problem, I no longer self harm but I haven't learned how to cope without it, so I just take it out on everyone else now instead. An ot I saw briefly said that's better than hurting myself, but I don't really agree with that, I'd still rather hurt myself than people I care about. I guess that's just something I need to work on.
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Exactly. It is an important first step to stop bottling it up and start expressing it. The way I always explained it was that I had spent so long at one extreme that I needed to swing wildly to the other extreme before I could figure out where the balance was.
Keeping it inside. Bottling up the pain until I acted on it against myself....All those actions were acts of lying:
I lied to myself about my worthlessness.
I lied to others about my pain.
As long as I kept lying to myself I would keep lying to the world and that would only repeat the cycle. Breaking free of that cycle meant expressing myself outwardly instead of inwardly.
Sometimes if someone notices the scars and asks I will tell them: "I was sad." That usually sums up the truth if I don't want to explain everything. If I don't feel like talking about it, I just say exactly that.