Have you ever been hurting so bad, or so angry that you wanted to 'see it'? That is where I am. I want to SEE the anger, the pain, the hurt. So what am I turning to? Smashing my hand with a hammer until it turns black and blue! It hurts like hell, but feels good at the same time. I am tired of feeling this pain 'inside'. I want to see what it really looks like.

Visually seeing bruises on my hand makes me feel validated. The bruises will go away, so I am not really 'hurting' myself. No scars will be left. I know this sounds insane and I cannot believe I am doing this.

I told my therapist that I did not want to go to this part of myself in therapy. I knew what was down there. She didn't push me to this at all. It just kinda happened as we were progressing through therapy.

She has an idea that something is going on, but I am sure she doesn't really know what drastic measures I am taking. Why? Because I am that intelligent, educated, nice, Christian lady that no one would ever suspect would do something so ignorant as this!

I feel like a stupid, insane, crazy ***** right now!

[WePow]

Yes. I have. But the rush from self-harm passes.
The pain is anger which has not been heard.

Can you somehow put that anger and rage into a color or two? Take those colors and hit the paper with them!

I am not even sure what the anger is!

[SpiritRunner]

Today my T gave me some special modeling clay that she actually bought for me! She mentioned it last week - something about stabbing it with a (plastic, to be safe) knife - and part of the reason she talked about stabbing it I think is because I have had this terrible urge that I want to stab myself .....so stab the clay instead! Or pound it, smash it, or whatever.....or squeeze or make things with it and smush them.....or whatever! But anything to divert the anger away from me, turn the urge to self-punish into something else. Or even just play with it with the kids.....
My husband hasn't a clue of this anger or this urge to hurt myself.....and if he did, I think he WOULD think I was a crazy b####! But my T, bless her heart, does not think I am crazy......just hurting very badly.

[Sweetlove]

I know exactly what your talking about when you say you need to "see" it. I've SI'ed on and off for about 7 years and its been "on" for the last 2 months or so. I need to see the pain..the scars...because it reminds me of what I went through and it puts a physical pain on what I'm feeling emotionally.

I hope I didn't say too much, I just wanted to let you know your not crazy for feeling like this...many people feel this way. Hope you start to feel better

[elliemay]

Well, I have a slightly different take on this. I think you are hurting yourself. Yes bruises fade, but you still smashed your hand badly enough for it to bruise.

Let's turn this around a little. What if you were doing this to another person? You wouldn't even think of it right? It would be mortifying to even consider.

Yet, you give yourself permission to do it to yourself. THAT is the issue that needs to be addressed and solved in my opinion.

I know the hurt, anger and pain, and your T is right. You are not crazy. But this compulsion very much is IMO.

You've got to work with your T, I say every single day if necessary to wrangle these emotions and actions to a manageable level.

If you need additional support, then go to your church. Talk to your pastor. Get some help.

THis not okay.

One last thing - (again) I love DBT. It works. If nothing else, it gives you something positive to focus on.

Originally Posted by elliemay

Yet, you give yourself permission to do it to yourself. THAT is the issue that needs to be addressed and solved in my opinion.

I think you are right on that. I am not sure why I don't 'love' myself. When I am in my 'right' mind, I do feel very confident and have it altogether. But when that other side comes out, I am a totally different person. Probably part of being bipolar.

Until a few months ago, I was the lead singer on our Praise and Worship Team at church. I felt like such a hypocrit every time I got up to sing! I knew something was wrong. I did talk with someone there, but I don't think they had any idea just how messed up I really am.

They just kept encouraging me to keep on singing, keep the faith, pray, seek God, etc....but it got to the point that praying was just not working. I needed more than that. I needed a LOT of help! Much more than anyone realized. I ended up leaving that church because it was just too much for me to handle. I knew that I could not continue in a leadership position when I was fighting such a battle.

Fortunately, I was able to find a christian therapist in my area. I can tell her anything and not fear that it will get all through the church! What I talk with her about is confidential.

[sugahorse1]

I do that to myself too sometimes - wanting to make the pain real; visible. Or feel it physically in some way.
I hate hurting myself - but I can't help myself

I've definitely used physical pain to try to bring all of the swirly, free-form emotional pain to a more concrete place. And yeah, it helps, for a minute, and then I'm left with the aftermath of facing what I did...

The first time I SI after starting therapy, and I told T, he was so gentle. When I told him what I did, he said "wow, things hurt THAT much, huh?"

I haven't had to do that in a long time, but part of the process of unlearning was being really really honest with T so he could help me through it, and help me deal with the big, hard feelings that were coming up.

Call T. Let her help you. You don't deserve to be hurt.

[sugahorse1]

Thanks for that Tree - it really is sound advice. For me, my biggest problem, is that these urges usually come late at night, and I'd feel about phoning T...
And I really don't like talking on the phone anyway

[SpiritRunner]

Originally Posted by elliemay

Well, I have a slightly different take on this. I think you are hurting yourself. Yes bruises fade, but you still smashed your hand badly enough for it to bruise.

Let's turn this around a little. What if you were doing this to another person? You wouldn't even think of it right? It would be mortifying to even consider.

Yet, you give yourself permission to do it to yourself. THAT is the issue that needs to be addressed and solved in my opinion.

I know the hurt, anger and pain, and your T is right. You are not crazy. But this compulsion very much is IMO.

You've got to work with your T, I say every single day if necessary to wrangle these emotions and actions to a manageable level.

I do agree with what you say here! What I have done to myself I wouldn't do to my children or anyone at all w/out feeling tremendous guilt, sorrow, regret for the pain caused - but I have justified doing it to myself by saying it's better to do it to me than others! And I know that's like deceiving myself really - it's no more OK to do it to me than anyone else. And the aftermath, as others have said, is not peace - but more shame. So doing myself physical harm adds to the emotional/spiritual harm.......but despite knowing this, the compulsion is powerful, and the effort to deal with it can be so tiring.
My T says that instead of thinking of it as self-harm, I think of it as self-punishing, something that's deserved and therefore justified, to discipline myself. She's not allowing me to use that to justify it though - she said, you do not deserve to be beaten, I don't want you feeling like do you and I don't want you doing that to yourself. On my safety contract, it mentions actions of self-harm; she added 'self-punishing' so it doesn't leave me that space to justify behavior that really is self-harm.
I hope it doesn't sound like she was hard about it....she was actually very kind and gentle about it, but also very definite and firm. Which is really what I need to help me.......the sense that someone is setting very firm boundaries in this, as well as the sense that she is setting them because she does care and does want to re-direct my compulsions away from hurting myself...

[Paige008]

Squiggle - You just put into words what I feel most of the time. We put on our face for the outside world to see, but eventually the anger and pain starts to trickle into that face. You don't want people to see the 'real' pain, so you smash it back in to yourself.

You don't deserve to hurt, but no one does. It's so hard to sit with the feelings and deal with the anger. It's much easier to stuff it down deep where we feel its safer.

I recently told my T about my SI and she wasn't mad or grossed out. She asked me if I could find alternatives for that anger - to smash some old dishes, or take a baseball bat to a tree, go to the batting cages, anything that would let me be destructive, but not hurt myself. A few times this has worked. Maybe it'd be something that may work for you every now and then, too.

[krisakira]

For me, with self injury, it is same sometimes with needing to SEE the pain. So I am a cutter. Although I have done the bruising before too. But one thing that helped me during a moment of needing to see the pain, is taking a red marker or pen and make red marks all over my arms. Perhaps you could do the same with makeup and fake bruises. Like put dark blue eye shadow or something on your arm, to look like a bruise. Just an idea.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by Squiggle328

Smashing my hand with a hammer until it turns black and blue! It hurts like hell

If you are smashing your hand hard enough to turn it black and blue than you are hitting it hard enough to break bones. The hand is filled with many delicate bones, close to the surface, that work together in an intricate way. You truly will have a permanent sign of injury if you keep hitting it so hard. Many hand injuries cannot be repaired to full functioning. If you must injure yourself, please do something without so much potential to cause permanent damage. I like the ideas of drawing and clay that have been suggested here, but if you must hurt yourself, don't pound on your hand! Please take care.

[Perna]

Yes, if you must see the pain, I would draw it. I know I had a horrible dream one night (with a scary "bug" on a screen door) and I felt I had to make it more concrete so I drew it and got a lot out of trying to get it on paper, out of me completely.

Not knowing what the anger is that is causing you pain and being transferred into the hand pounding; trying to draw (trace your hand and a hammer and color it bruised?) it might give you other images, other people you wish you could pound with a hammer (I spent 10+ years wishing I could smash my fist down my stepmother's throat) that might have been causing you pain. Let other people cause you pain, you are too valuable in your life to be causing yourself pain; it's just "thoughts", don't translate them so literally into actions. You can survive thoughts, look how long you have?

It will make things much harder for you, as sunrise says, if you literally injure yourself in a way that won't fix (and/or set up your hand so it can't survive in the future; I'm nursing a knee I fell on Christmas Eve, the same knee I fell on 40 years ago and it's having a much harder time recovering!).

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Squiggle328

I am not even sure what the anger is!

What happened when you got angry this time?

[krisakira]

This thread might do very well in the Self Injury section. Since it is, in fact, self injury. You will see that others who do self-injure also do it for this reason, and perhaps you can gain some advice on what you can do instead, that might fill the otherwise visual void in your life.

Sunrise~that got my attention about breaking delicate bones in the hand. I would NOT want to have to go to the DR and explain what happened. Maybe I will rethink what I have been doing.

Sannah~What triggered the anger was a discussion with my husband about sex. It somehow ended up in masturbation and pornography (he is an addict). I told him that I felt we needed to end the conversation before it caused one of us to say something we would regret. He made some stupid remark like what he did was none of my business. (He has had multiple online affairs.) This threw me into a rage as well as brought up all the hurt he has caused me by this addiction.

Self punishment may be a better word than using self injury. I know that I am punishing myself for the STUPID decisions I made in my life that I can never take back and will have to live with the consequences of them for the rest of my life.

A lot of this anger comes from feeling trapped in the caregiver world. My husband depends on me for just about everything. If something happened to me he would could go to a nursing home. This is A LOT of pressure to live with. I feel guilty for feeling like I want OUT of this lifestyle. It makes me feel like I am a bad person. Thus, the punishment on myself for not being able to handle it all and do it right.

[WePow]

((((Squiggle)))) Wow. What you wrote took a lot of courage to share. Thank you for sharing this. It sounds like you are in an emotionally abusive and toxic relationship.
There is no reason at all for that type of behavior from a mate. I would strongly suggest couples therapy. In fact, I would suggest to you that you don't make it a suggestion for him. It is NOT right that you are living your life in such internal agony. In those situations, SOMETHING has to break! You can't contain this. You have a RIGHT as an individual to live in a healthy place emotionally. And looking out for YOU first is not being selfish, it is being HEALTHY.

It would go down like this: "Listen here Hubbie-o-pal-ole-chum, You WILL attend couples therapy with me. It is not a "maybe" or "I don't want to." You WILL come because if you don't, I am walking. I can't take this any longer and it is not healthy for either of us to exist in this way. We WILL deal with this right NOW or it is over. Period."

Just my 2cents. But you DO Have a right to your sanity. And yes, I am a woman who survived two very abusive relationships and had to learn the hard way how to do exactly what I am suggesting for you to do. The first one (my ex-husband) had tried to kill me, but he had colon issues and was on full disability due to his "back injury" and he did the old "I can't survive without you so don't ever leave me" guilt trip. Needless to say, the idiot is still alive and doing fine without me 22 yrs later - so that shows you they CAN make it. The other one was an abuser from my childhood who told me I wasn't strong enough to make it on my own and she managed to keep me pinned down to her for 10 yrs. I call it my 10 yrs of hard labor as it was emotional agony like what you are in. I finally had enough and she didn't want to do therapy with me to fix things since she didn't think any of the problems were her fault in any way at all! So I left.

Bottom line is that YOU DESERVE TO BE NOT IN AGONY !!!

[WePow]

Also, something just occured to me that you may want to process for yourself. Toss it out if it is off base... but I wonder if the act of hurting your hand is a subconscious response to being forced into that caregiver role. It is almost as though your mind says "If I can destroy my hand, I can't offer it to him!"

[SpiritRunner]

what you say is so powerful, WePow! I fully agree, Squiggle, it really sounds as tho the situation is intolerable to you emotionally as it is with him doing that disgusting stuff...it is indeed toxic, and even though he is dependent on you for everything physically, it seems as though he has found a way to hurt you emotionally and then play the guilt card on you because you are the care-giver he's depending on. Well - he's not just depending on you, it seems as though he's both using/abusing you.....thus the anger you have. I don't necessarily like to say something so strong - but that anger, it sounds so powerful, even if you are not physically doing yourself harm, it is still doing great damage in you mentally/emotionally. It's not your fault, you're not crazy, you are reacting to an extremely difficult, hurtful situation......something has to give, and it shouldn't be a hammer on your hand. Force his hand! And don't feel guilty because he's dependent on you - he's proven he's not powerless.....

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Squiggle328

What triggered the anger was a discussion with my husband about sex. It somehow ended up in masturbation and pornography (he is an addict).

I told him that I felt we needed to end the conversation before it caused one of us to say something we would regret.

This threw me into a rage as well as brought up all the hurt he has caused me by this addiction.

I know that I am punishing myself for the STUPID decisions I made in my life that I can never take back and will have to live with the consequences of them for the rest of my life.

A lot of this anger comes from feeling trapped in the caregiver world. My husband depends on me for just about everything. If something happened to me he would could go to a nursing home. This is A LOT of pressure to live with. I feel guilty for feeling like I want OUT of this lifestyle. It makes me feel like I am a bad person. Thus, the punishment on myself for not being able to handle it all and do it right.

What did you fear was going to be said in the conversation with your husband (you stopped the conversation for it)?

Which stupid decisions (if you don't mind me asking?)

This caregiver world is extremely difficult. Are you talking about this in therapy? You are not a bad person for reacting to this difficult situation.

I think that you and your husband need to nurture YOUR sexual/emotional relationship (of course the problems need to be worked through).

Originally Posted by Sannah

What did you fear was going to be said in the conversation with your husband (you stopped the conversation for it)?

Which stupid decisions (if you don't mind me asking?)

This caregiver world is extremely difficult. Are you talking about this in therapy? You are not a bad person for reacting to this difficult situation.

I think that you and your husband need to nurture YOUR sexual/emotional relationship (of course the problems need to be worked through).

I did not want us to get into his online affairs with women and bring up how hurt I am about him masturbating to hundreds and hundreds of pornographic videos. I hate this! Is has ruined any intimacy that may have been left in our marriage.

Stupid decisions? Getting married at the age of 17. Divorcing that marriage and remarrying 6 months later to someone I barely knew. Those are what I call stupid decisions!

I have talked a lot in therapy about my issues with being a stressed out, overwhelmed caregiver. It came to a point that I told my therapist I was tired of talking about HIM! She calmed me down and said that we were not talking about him, but about me, and how it was affecting me, and how we can work through this and make some changes so that I am not so burdened and feeling trapped.

There is so much damage done in my marriage that the thought of rekindling any kind of intimacy is just NOT going to happen. In addition to all the hurt I feel, there are the physical limitations of him being a quadriplegic. He can't do much of anything, if you get what I mean.

I don't mean to make him out like he is a jerk. I have plenty of faults and things I have done wrong in the marriage. Sometimes I just want out of this, but there is no way out!

[SpiritRunner]

Originally Posted by Squiggle328

I did not want us to get into his online affairs with women and bring up how hurt I am about him masturbating to hundreds and hundreds of pornographic videos. I hate this! Is has ruined any intimacy that may have been left in our marriage.

Stupid decisions? Getting married at the age of 17. Divorcing that marriage and remarrying 6 months later to someone I barely knew. Those are what I call stupid decisions!

I have talked a lot in therapy about my issues with being a stressed out, overwhelmed caregiver. It came to a point that I told my therapist I was tired of talking about HIM! She calmed me down and said that we were not talking about him, but about me, and how it was affecting me, and how we can work through this and make some changes so that I am not so burdened and feeling trapped.

There is so much damage done in my marriage that the thought of rekindling any kind of intimacy is just NOT going to happen. In addition to all the hurt I feel, there are the physical limitations of him being a quadriplegic. He can't do much of anything, if you get what I mean.

I don't mean to make him out like he is a jerk. I have plenty of faults and things I have done wrong in the marriage. Sometimes I just want out of this, but there is no way out!

I'm sorry for the distress this is causing you.....and sorry if the discussion here has added to your pain. I just wish the best for you in making changes within yourself ( and if necessary, in your relationship with your husband, too) so that you can live well and be free of the anger that is hurting you so much now.....

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by Squiggle328

I did not want us to get into his online affairs with women and bring up how hurt I am about him masturbating to hundreds and hundreds of pornographic videos. I hate this! Is has ruined any intimacy that may have been left in our marriage.

There is so much damage done in my marriage that the thought of rekindling any kind of intimacy is just NOT going to happen. In addition to all the hurt I feel, there are the physical limitations of him being a quadriplegic. He can't do much of anything, if you get what I mean.

Squiggle, I don't know how to be objective here without upsetting you.....

He is still sexual and you are saying that you are not going to be sexual with him. Because he lost so much from becoming paraplegic this is something that he does have left. I'm not saying that I agree with his online behavior necessarily.