[SecretGarden]

I wonder as I hear folks here talk of their self harm by cutting or... __________ feel free to fill in the blank.

I would like to know, if it can be put in words here, how this is dealt with in therapy and how that continues outside of the therapetic milieu. What questions, what emotions, what... whatever.

I know that some of you talk of hiding your injuries and even how freeing it would feel to not feel the need to or to have never done it in the first place.

I am obese. I am beginning to see it with more reality. I know that it is "protecting" me from the world. I also know that sometimes I eat so much I am in pain....though I suppose I am trying to cover up a different pain or swallow it.

How might it feel to just be with the pain. It is hard to think of not taking the actions that I do... and I think I am coming to see it in a different light. I enjoy the intake and admittedly embarrassing..the output. (There I said it.)

I wonder in others if it is the intake (or prerelease) as the cutting or what have you or the result.. the blood.

I hope this post does not offend and this really is a fishing expedition for me.

How do you deal with all of this in therapy and beyond.

I also have embarrassment as there really is no hiding my girth... except I do wear looser clothes. I am often uncomfortable with this and know it gets in the way of my present and my future if I do not deal with it.

I appreciate your responses on whatever you feel your self harm (if you have one) to be and how you do or have dealt with it.

I also wonder about the embarrassment as I think/know that people know that fat people have no self control. Do you see fat people and others of self harm for the pain they carry?

[Direction]

I have found that my old pdoc and my new T don't ask a lot of questions about cutting. They know but we don't talk about it.

I don't know if you can edit your post to put the trigger on - it might be to some...

[SecretGarden]

Was considering that and will do. Thanks.

[MissCharlotte]

Hmmmmm interesting tying the two together. I have cut myself, not too often but enough. I said nothing to anyone for quite a few months. For me, the release is in the cuttng AND in seeing the blood but mostly in the blood coming out. It's a huge relief from overwhelming emotion. I am outside of myself when I do it. It has been about four weeks since I cut. The first time I told T was on the phone because I needed to tell him; at that moment. I guess i couldnt face him. the second time I brought it up was in session. We have not discussed it again and never really got into any details about it so I think it looms on the horizon as a future topic when I am ready.

[ErinBear]

Hi SecretGarden,

I know this is a tough issue. I have dealt with it myself, and I have improved through a lot of work in counseling. Sometimes it becomes an issue again, but mostly I deal with urges to hurt myself when I am having a bad time, rather than actually hurting myself. For me, I was thankful to have a counselor that was willing to talk with me about it, hard as that was at times, and we took time to figure out why I wanted to hurt myself. That was useful information. It helped me to figure out other alternative things to do instead of hurting myself as well. Those things may differ from one person to another, so some of those conversations may be best if you have them with your counselor.

If you want to stop hurting yourself, one thing to do is to try to use ways of distracting yourself in healthy ways....go for a walk....listen to some music you enjoy....do crossword puzzles....call a friend on the phone, or go out and have a cup of tea with a friend....go online and play solitaire? I don't know. I think each person needs to find what sort of distractions help them. The possibilities are endless. Sometimes if I can do something for awhile, or even most of the day, I can get past that initial urge, and it really helps. Sometimes writing about my feelings in a journal helps, too, which is something I can anywhere, any time of day or night. If I don't like the things I'm writing, I can rip up the pages as well, and sometimes even that feels good if I'm upset.

The best thing I've done is to get rid of things I might use to harm myself. It was hard to do, but it makes things much safer. I know it can be a big decision for a lot of people, but it also can help you step forward if you do want to stop self-injuring. If you don't have things in your home (or carry them with you) to use to hurt yourself, then you aren't so constantly and easily faced with that sort of decision. You've made extra barriers to yourself for self-injury. My prior counselor didn't force me to get rid of the things I'd used to hurt myself, but sure encouraged it. I did so, and I was glad I made that decision.

Anyway, those are some experiences I've had with it. I know this is a very hard situation, and I wish you the best as you deal with and try to figure out how to make things better in days ahead.....take care....

Take care,
ErinBear

[Lemon]

My T knows about the SI and at least every other session if not every session she brings it up as sort of a check in. She doesn't ask a lot of questions. I think she is just gageing if it has gotten worse, moved to different areas, etc. She's never asked me to stop, I think she is just opening the door if I want to talk about it more. I think she is trying to get to the point where we can talk about what the triggers are, but honestly I'm not ready for that yet.

As far as the release, I think it is seeing the blood after the cutting. I also burn and there is something about physically feeling the heat slowly fade that parallels emotionally feeling the anxiety calm down in my head. Don't know if that makes sense, but it's what I experience.

[SecretGarden]

Thank you Sister. You know I do not think that people talk about weight as a self harm thing but I am just playing with this. I have never explored this element of it in therapy.

I am glad you have shared with your T. It shows your connection and trust and your wishing to connect. Yes, it will come back up I am sure. Your T may feel that you would report new SI efforts???

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.

My pdoc once offered me free copays if I would lose a certain number of pounds and I ended up declining. I hated being put to a standard or test on that ... demands... more stress.

[Lemon]

Secret Garden -- I guess we posted at the exact same time. I just wanted to add something after I read your post.

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SecretGarden said:
My pdoc once offered me free copays if I would lose a certain number of pounds and I ended up declining. I hated being put to a standard or test on that ... demands... more stress.

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I wouldn't like that approach either. It would be like when you hear of T wanting clients to sign a no SI contract. I don't think those work.

I think you are very inciteful to consider that eatting can be a way of self harm. I think that there may be something there and you and your T might find a lot to talk about if you bring in up in this type of frame of reference.

[SecretGarden]

Erin Bear... Thank you so much for your thoughtful post. It really does translate across the different ways of self harming.

The thing with food is I think the quantity is difficult. I admit that I do not always eat well but for the most part I do eat quite healthy food... I just eat too much of it.

I will reread your post and keep considering your thoughts. I do thank you and wish you well with your journey. The urges are important to be addressed and you have appropriately stated that here. Urges... if we can control those.. the actions will be changed. You are right. Thanks.

Do you find that with treatment the urges decrease?

[SecretGarden]

Lemon,

I am sorry if this is too out there but do you ever equate that with the release of an orgasm?

I seem to be obsessed with my sexual side right now... but things are connecting for me.

Thank you Lemon... I will bring this up to my T.

I appreciate your thoughts...

[Lemon]

I don't think I've consciously compared it to an orgasm, but now that you brought it up I can definately see the connection there. I think you're onto something.

[sunrise]

SecretGarden, I used to cut when I was a teen, for about 5 years. It was a very successful coping mechanism for me to deal with extreme emotional pain. I hid it from everyone.

I have never told my T about it as it is from my teen years, and I am well past those, and don't do it anymore. When I moved away from home at age 17, I left behind the source of my emotional pain and so had no use any longer for cutting. I think I only did it a couple of times after leaving home to help me deal with a boyfriend who kept trying to commit suicide.

The actual pain of the cutting felt good to me, like I could really feel it, whereas I was not allowing myself to feel my emotional pain. It was just a huge release to cut and let all of that pain out. I also liked seeing the blood, but I think the pain itself was very important too. I got a real rush. I also had rituals of sorts. I liked a certain kind of a knife, which caused a different sort of pain to me than did a razor. I didn't like cutting myself with razors. I would take out my knife and always flame it slowly in a match or candle flame to sterilize it. The tension kept mounting as I did all this, and then, ahhhh, release. When I turned 18, I bought a really sharp hunting knife (minors couldn't buy them), and I used to really enjoy this knife, just taking it out and fingering it, and looking at it, even though mostly by then I was beyond cutting. I never cut myself enough to require medical attention except for once, when my hand slipped and I really gashed my opposite hand. I had to go to the ER and have it stitched up.

I look back on my cutting as a teen and actually see it as a really successful coping mechanism (not trying to be encouraging here). I had never ever heard of anyone who cut themselves back then, I thought I made it up myself. About 15 years after this, I read an article in Time magazine about cutters and remember feeling so disappointed that I wasn't as original as I had thought I was. As I matured, I left cutting behind. But at the time, it worked for me, and didn't really hurt me, except for some scars and that one trip to the ER. I think if I had been in therapy while cutting, I would have liked to have worked on the root of my SI, that is, what is causing my emotional pain, rather than just dealing with the symptoms (cutting).

SG, I am overweight and have gained a lot of weight in the past 5 years as I have become more and more unhappy in my marriage. I think my fat helps place a barrier between me and my husband, and also it is the reservoir of my anger. I have never connected my getting fat to SI. I don't get any release from gaining weight or eating like I did with cutting. I do think fat people are looked down upon by many. I definitely notice a difference in the way people look at and treat me now that I am overweight. Sometimes people just glance away and don't really see me. I never felt this way when I was thin. When I see a person who is overweight, I identify with them and think, "wow they must be unhappy", because I am.

Ok, here it goes....

I am not at all interested in seeing the blood. In fact, I bandage it as soon as I do it. It's all about the act for me. And I do it for different reasons. If I am really angry I might do it really fast. If I am agitated, I do it slow. In my agitation, there is a great deal of emotional build up, a pressure. I literally feel swollen.... I do it to release that pressure. Sometimes I do the burns with a cigarette. A couple times with an iron. Sick. I know.

It took me awhile to talk about this with T. Then I would tell him when I did it, but we wouldn't talk about it. I wasn't ready, and he knew that. He never pushes the issue. In the last 2 session, we have started to discuss it in detail.

I was projecting my own feelings, plus the (non) responses of others onto T. I would insist that he didn't want to talk about it-- get pissed at him about that. Insist that he was uncomfortable discussing it. Then I realized that it was me. And it was everyone in my past and my present. No one has ever wanted to help me with this-- not family members, not friends, not even my husband. No one feels comfortable talking about it. When I lived at home with my parents years ago, my mom knew I was doing it upstairs in my room... but she would never take the action to help me.... to ask me to come be with her.... so maybe I wouldn't do it that night. She was too addicted to the internet to care. I told T about my fantasy of telling my husband that I still SI (he knows, he can see it) and he holds me and tells me it's going to be okay. T and I both know this is not going to happen... T says that when I am with him in session he can give me that connection and understanding about my SI that I have not and cannot get anywhere else.

I have no desire to stop. I only have a desire to think a bit before I do it so that it isn't easily visible. T does not try to get me to stop. He isn't like that. Sometimes I get mad at him and I tell him he doesn't f***ing care, that he's like everyone else. I need that. I need to get mad. And I understand what he's there for and what he's trying to do.

Sometimes I SI just for the simple fact that I noticed that I haven't SI'ed in awhile. I do things to 'stir up' my life-- I told T that I need to do things to ensure that I'm still f***ed up. Because otherwise I feel disconnected.... because being f***ed up is all I know. I would lose myself if I wasn't. I'm just not ready yet.

[lauren_helene]

Secret, I only did some SI once a few sessions ago. I haven't had the courage to say anything about it. If it happens again, then I might.

I do have two little scars now on my forearm. I'm not happy about that at all. I have analyzed this and I did this right before a session when I was feeling like he was pulling away from me.

Okay, here is more disclosure. Yikes! I guess, if I take this thought outside of the session, I often wish that I would be in the hospital for some reason and my dad comes to visit me, so does my T, my husband and son. In my fantasy, they don't leave, we talk and I really feel they care for me, all of them...then I'm truly happy.

I have a similar fantasy! I SI pretty badly, end up in the hospital, and T cancels a whole bunch of appointments (in my fantasies he is always ditching other clients), to rush to the hospital because he is so concerned about me. We talk for hours. Days. He sleeps there... OKOK I know I'm getting carried away.

[lauren_helene]

Pink...are we the same person?

[SecretGarden]

I wonder if there is any correlation between those that are unable to cry and SI. However, the ritual you describe sounds somewhat familiar from what I have heard of other's experience though of course yours was unique to you. It sounds like you were controling that experience much like tears but perhaps in control of this in lieu of other things you were not in control of.

I have gained much weight over the time of my therapy though I was overweight to start. Someone else (Perna?) mentioned gaining weight while in therapy that things went from her head to her waist.

Thanks for your thoughts on weight. They actually made me sad last night but they are on target. I do say that sometimes I do feel that the food medicates me sometimes but that when my gut gets too full.... it is certainly not a release. :-( Thanks. I feel encumbered.

[SecretGarden]

Good for you Pink for talking about it in detail. That is trust and that is powerful...and I suspect not easy.

I project alot.... but do not always see it. Gotta get in touch with that but that is another thing to admit to that I would rather not cause then that kind of makes me have to admit I am not on target.

You said: (will need to figure out how to do the fancy stuff)
Sometimes I SI just for the simple fact that I noticed that I haven't SI'ed in awhile. I do things to 'stir up' my life-- I told T that I need to do things to ensure that I'm still f***ed up. Because otherwise I feel disconnected.... because being f***ed up is all I know. I would lose myself if I wasn't. I'm just not ready yet.

I notice that you do like to shake things up. How might it feel to be at peace or not feel the need to shake things up and accept them a bit for what they are?

[SecretGarden]

Alameda...I think this is a common fantasy as well. Been there...had that one but I generally wish to keep my pdoc separate from my family. I like to think he is mine and the one thing that they can not take from me that is all mine. Very territorial and protective of my T. That is where my trust is....even if not totally there.... it is the best thing I have going in the trust category.

[Perna]

I can't deal with SI other than in the aspects of being morbidly obese myself. One thing I try to remember these days is that everyone has their "thing" their share of problems and way(s) of dealing with them (and/or ways their "body" might deal with them). I try to remember my obesity is someone else's depression is someone else's panic attacks is someone else's schizophrenia is someone elses physical problems, is someone else's money problems, etc. I'm pretty sure no one, despite how they look on the "outside," to you and me, has an easy time of it. I wouldn't want to trade Oprah's experiences for her money, I wouldn't want to be a model/actress with anorexia or drug problems or paparazzi problems! I've decided I wouldn't want to be anyone else because I can't know all they're up against.

I occasionally mentioned my weight with my therapist (a "tiny" Asian woman easily 6-8 inches shorter than I am and close to only 1/3rd my weight, I felt like the veritable bull-in-a-china-shop, especially since the office we used was so small and cluttered) but like other "symptoms" I got the impression that underlying causes rather than specific behaviors/symptoms, understanding and "freeing" the "basis" of who I am was the goal in therapy for me. With "more" of myself known, I could then decided how I wanted to "deploy" :-) my substantive energies and skills.

I go to the doctor's (a new one, my nurse practictioner changed doctors and I have to see the doctor first before I can go back to just seeing her) in a couple weeks and I have asthma, "uncontrolled" high blood pressure, possible hypothyroid, etc. some of which are probably age-related but many of which are also weight/lack-of-activity related. I'm loathed to try meds before I truly try getting my act together and living a more healthy lifestyle but, getting myself to work on that is not easy :-) I recently read a book, Change or Die, by Alan Deutschman, which I thought would help but the steps one needs to do to follow its advice, I'm not willing to do. However, some of the explanations he gave for why people end up having bypass surgery (or weight loss surgery) instead of changing their lives so they don't need it made a lot of sense. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with that information though.

I've decided with the doctor, I'm going to tell him I'm taking another 6 months (until my birthday) and then I'll decide about meds. I'll probably be finished most of my current projects for awhile in a couple weeks and am thinking of rejoining the gym or forcing myself to try some other activity. I've watched a million shows, read a zillion books and know what's "possible" and that leaves only "me" to deal with. And that, to me, leads me back to the beginning and what one hopes to accomplish in therapy, etc. I think for me it sometimes comes down to which I "enjoy" more, which is easiest to cope with; the weight/health problems that aren't going to just "go away" or the hard work of working on them?

[ErinBear]

Hi Secret Garden,

At least with me, I did find I was having less urges to hurt myself as I worked on various things in counseling. I still have had urges periodically, but not as much as I did, and generally not as strong either. I realize the wisdom, for me, of working through the urges and getting past it. For me, I think it is a bit like an addiction, as an alcoholic might experience. I really don't want to start up again and have to work hard to stop again. I think it's better just not to start re-hurting myself. So I work hard just to keep myself from harming myself, and keep myself out of temptation. Hope that makes sense.

I can also say that I have struggled with my weight. I was very overweight most of my life. I chose to lose 100 pounds several years ago for health reasons, and part of that was while I was in counseling. I've been really glad I made that choice. I became aware, though, that there had been a lot of reasons that I was overweight. I ate to comfort myself, console myself...at times entertain myself or bring joy to myself. I didn't eat only for nutrition. I also ate to numb or medicate myself when times were bad. I think for me, the extra weight was somehow protective and helpful at times. I wasn't attractive, and knew it, and somehow this was helpful to me. I don't know that I would call overeating a direct form of self-harm in my case, but it was a less-than-ideal situation. I have been glad I made the choice to lose weight, and it has helped me feel better healthwise. For me that was a good decision. It is another area in which it is much easier to make healthy choices (foodwise, in terms of eating) and I can generally follow along with my food plan. It, too, has gotten very much easier with time for me. Again, that's just me, though, and may not be true for everyone. Counseling helped with this, also, even though I started the weight-loss process before I entered counseling.

Wishing you the best - take gentle care of yourself.

Take care,
ErinBear

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SecretGarden said:

I notice that you do like to shake things up. How might it feel to be at peace or not feel the need to shake things up and accept them a bit for what they are?

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it doesn't feel like me. disconnected. maybe t will leave. you know how you start forming your adult identiy around 17, 18 years old or so? well that's when this all started. it's all i know. and i function along with it... work, school, internship, marriage, house, etc. so when i notice that i am beginning to settle a bit, i immediately shake things up. for a long time, i have had an immense fear of getting well. to accept the things the way they are for me, is to accept that i am going to be 'this way' for my life. sometimes it is scary; i get sad; sometimes it is comfortable. i don't know.

[SecretGarden]

to accept the things the way they are for me, is to accept that i am going to be 'this way' for my life. sometimes it is scary

I know this feeling.. It is what keeps me going. I fear stopping or "settling." I am not done yet.

Wishing for acceptance and not another 20 or even 5 years of therapy.

[SecretGarden]

I can relate to this in the terms of being able to quit smoking..some years ago. That is a slow self harm... DIfferent bird I know but some days I wish for one... but that almost never happens.

I did lose 48 pounds a number of years ago...then regained plus some. I know that this can happen for me with food. You speak the truth for me in terms of comfort, numbing and medicating.

I have a problem distancing (or not) from people physically and this has provided a function over time but it has really run away with me.

I was sitting watching a baseball game last week...that was a hike to get there. The words that came to me ... TOO FULL. I feel I need to be more cognisant of that and what is not too full....and how to fill myself in other ways.

Congrats to you on all that you have accomplished Erinbear. You have done well from what you have shared in this thread alone.

Do you still recall how it feels to be large? The body and the mind sometimes have difficulty keeping up with each other.

[SecretGarden]

Yes everyone has their own thing but I guess I wish that we could either hide ours or see theirs... Your points are all well taken in terms of everyone having their own vulnerability.

You said... I think for me it sometimes comes down to which I "enjoy" more, which is easiest to cope with; the weight/health problems that aren't going to just "go away" or the hard work of working on them?

That is probably universal to self injury or weight loss.

I am on bp meds. I do not wish to have the bypass but I have watched a show on it and people talk of the struggles of still wanting to eat eat eat and that I think is the crux of it all. I think that if one can not get rid of the need to eat eat eat that that would not be successful anyway. I too feel the need to do it on my own.

This too is good: I got the impression that underlying causes rather than specific behaviors/symptoms, understanding and "freeing" the "basis" of who I am was the goal in therapy for me. With "more" of myself known, I could then decided how I wanted to "deploy" :-) my substantive energies and skills.

I would hope that with therapy that that would even out but perhaps I need to deploy.... (Of course I do.)