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pliepla · Apr 15, 2022, 05:41 AM

I have alway been doing sports. A lot. And very intensively. It has always been my ticket out of depressions. That is, until two years ago when I was diagnosed with arrhythmia. In the course of a year, I had lost my job, gotten divorced and I had just been living on the streets for a few months. Needless to say, I needed my bike more than ever.

Through previous depressions, I've had a history of self-harm although I have no noticable scars. Most of it happened when I felt overwhelmed by strong emotions, people yelling at me or when feeling uncomfortably numb. None of it had even a hint of deliberateness.

Possible trigger:

For years, I have been cutting and tearing away the skin around my fingernails. I have little feeling left in the tips of my fingers but to most it looks as if I am just biting my nails. But I know better; tearing away skin still hurts and I do get the occasional infection as a bonus. This has been going on for years. Even when I feel better, but I do it more often when I'm feeling down.

I've also been hitting myself. Mostly in situations of very acute stress and I had been off this for over ten years. It happened again for the first time in August last year, due to something that happened during therapy and caused me to relive a traumatic situation. I have been fighting the urge more or less successfully since then. I slipped once, if I recall it well, that was in January.

People have been pusing me to get back on my bike and accept that I would have to do sports at lower intensities. I know - experienced it - that I need this high intensity. I can't go walking, jogging or cycling with the elderly because it gives me too much room to ruminate and even throws me back to truamatic situations. Yesterday, I gave in. The weather was nice and I had to go to the bike store (+/- 5 km from my door). Instead of the bus (and a book), I took my bicycle. All went reasonably well but on the way back, it started ... the guy running the store is somebody I know from my mtb-racing days and it brought back memories. It also made me feel cut off from live altogether and I started thinking about everything that brought me to this place. At 2 km from my door, I decided I would hurt myself the moment I came home. Never before had I deliberatly made this choice.

Possible trigger:

I came home and calmly put my bike away. I put my glasses on the table and started hitting myself. Not four times, six times of whatever small number I was used to but for like a minute. My face was all red and swollen. I cried briefly and went upstairs to lay on my bed for a while.

In a way, I have never felt as calm as I have since it happened yesterday (almost 24 hours ago). I slept well and this too is like a miracle.
At the same time, I am upset: it took me like forever to get home from the point where I decided I would hit myself (feeling this bad has always drained me from all physical strenght). I had the chance to not do it, but I still did because I knew it would soothe me.
I am scared because I know this will lead to worse (there is a reason I don't have bandages in the house) and I realise I am going to long for this calmness for the rest of my life.
I am terified to tell my therapist because I will probably be committed again.

I am starting to believe I found a substitute for sports and that maybe I should just accept what happened yesterday as a precious gift and embrace self-harm as a coping strategy that will make my life easier. There is no other way to shut my demons up for so long after all.