My biggest secret (trigger)

I really don't know what was going on this weekend. It was a really laid back relaxing time, I had nothing to stress over and only a couple of things I had to get done. Maybe it was the lack of activity that sparked my bad mood? I am feeling much better now, but mood doesn't seem to be playing a role in my SI right now. I had a really good day today, but I still just spent about five minutes working at my arm. I'm not upset or sad or angry, I'm not even really angry that I did it, I really don't know why I did it, but there you go.

The more posts I make here, the more I really listen to myself and try to understand what goes on in my own head, the more I really start to consider therapy. I know I keep saying that but I honestly feel like I'm getting closer to really being able to push myself to get help for ME.

Yeah!!!!!!

Been feeling pretty good for a couple weeks, which I suppose is why I haven't been around much. I haven't had the urge to cut since the end of September. I've thought about it, but I haven't felt like I wanted to do it, which is good but also just makes me think that sooner or later I'm gonna fall back into that hole.
I've been experiencing a lot of social anxiety lately. I'm in this American Sign Language class, which is a lot of fun and very rewarding and I'm doing very well, but going to that class is such a chore. We often have to work in small groups or in partners, which causes me a lot of anxiety. A couple times I've cut out of that class early or not gone at all, because I just couldn't take it. I don't really know if this is significant, but I'm going to try really hard to go to that class every day for the next two weeks to see if I can break this cycle of my anxiety.

Understanding why you are anxious might be more helpful. I had trouble with the same thing when I was a student. The things that caused my anxiety were 1) my unexpressed feelings and 2) my low self worth, and 3) shame. Sitting openly and "intimately" with the other students made me face myself and this was painful. Sitting in a big auditorium with all of the students facing the professor was much more comfortable.

What I did was express my feelings in therapy, even all the unexpressed ones from long ago. I also worked on my self worth by understanding how it got low while growing up and then in the present, when I would feel the low self worth, I would remind myself where it came from and that it wasn't right then (how I was treated) and that today I can feel good about myself. (I did this in the moment work every time that it came up and it did improve it each time). As for the shame I learned that we all have issues and it is okay to have issues and that I didn't need to feel shame for things that others also deal with and they do so without shame. It really is okay to have issues.

Okay, I read your entire post and so this is going to be quite a long reply. Bare with me.

When I first started SI'ing I can't even remember how old I was. I believe I was 15 or 16. It started off slow. I used a razor blade and just barely cut my wrist. The next time it was a little more intense. I cut more times, cut harder. It got to the point one night where I was so upset over a relationship I was having at the time, that I grabbed a razor blade and went crazy on my wrist. It started near my hand and the cuts didn't end until they were up my forearm. At first, I didn't feel anything. I was so upset that I was crying, and did not feel any pain. Well, I did it so badly that I nearly passed out from the blood loss. I had blood EVERYWHERE, I thought I had cut a vein. I just held some towels on it and fell asleep. When I woke up the pain was unbearable, and that's when I started asking myself how I would hide it. It was so difficult.. I hid it from everyone. My Mom walked out on me and at the time I lived with my Step Dad, my Brother, and my Sister. I managed to hide it from my Step Dad (to my knowledge) and my sister, but my brother found out. He was mad at me but didn't make a big to-do about it. My friends never found out to my knowledge, and I just had to wear long sleeves (DURING the SUMMER).

After that I think I cut once or twice more before I finally stopped. I guess that was a scary moment, of what had I done to myself and would anyone find out. Plus, when your cuts are so bad that your arm is sticking to your long sleeve shirt because of all the stuff coming out of it for an entire week I think that's a good indication that you've went too far. So I finally quit in the summer of 2009. I was fine all the way up until last week, when I was triggered by my Grandma. She was just being so rude to me after I had already had a rough day at work, and I just went all over myself. Luckily I was smart enough to do it hidden. On my biceps and my thigh. I counted 19 different cuts.. I didn't really feel any pain during it, I just felt really good.. It gave me a relaxing feeling, I guess. Don't ask me why, it just did.. So I guess I am sure I will do it again, and I am not going to even try to stop anymore.. We'll just wait until I get my next trigger..

The thing with it is, those of us who have ever SI'ed have given our brain something that it won't take back. Whatever feeling SI'ing gives us, it's something that when triggered is very hard to stop. We can be triggered at any time, for any reason, and any length of time after "stopping". In my opinion none of us will really be cured from it. It's an addiction that maybe can be more controlled than some addictions, but that at any point has a chance at busting out. That's how I feel about it. I think that even if we stopped for 20 years, it could come out again. It might differ with some people, but as for me, it's definitely how I feel.

I don't know what advice I can give you.. When I had quit for that entire year I always told people "don't give up, you can stop". The problem is while I was saying that, I always had the thoughts and feelings of wanting to do it, I just controlled them. Once I lost that control, well I lost my own advice that got me through the whole year. I do think it's possible that you can stop, and even for a very long period of time, but I still think that no matter what, those feelings we were given from doing it to begin with will always be in the back of our mind, and whenever something really triggers them into the open there is no stopping us...

Just know that you aren't alone. I'm right there in the same vote with you and the friend you made. As a lot of us are here. If you ever need to talk I am here, and everyone else here is too I am sure. Good luck to you, and I hope my post (if nothing else) showed you that your problems don't differ so much from everyone else here, and that there is someone that has SI in common with you.

Hi ED, you won't need to fall back on SI if you learn how to handle situations like the above differently. We all have difficult lives from time to time and those of us who don't SI were lucky enough to learn the skills to deal with these difficult situations. It is never to late to learn.........

Thanks for sharing your story, ED. As sad as it makes me, I was glad to hear it.

My attempts to get myself to go to my sign language class failed pretty miserably. I left halfway through the lecture last Monday and didn't go at all on Wednesday. Before class on Wednesday, I actually plucked up the courage to send my professor an e-mail about the issues I have in that class. I was concerned and I didn't really know what to expect as far as a reply from her, but I wanted to express to her that I really enjoy the subject matter and I'm not a bad student. She was very understanding about the whole thing. We have a test in that class this afternoon and she has offered to let me take the test apart from other people in another room, for which I am really thankful.
Also, I made myself an appointment to have an assessment at the psychological service department at school. It took a lot out of me to do it but I finally got myself in there and made an appointment. My meeting isn't until the 28th, but I've been keeping a journal and trying just to keep up with my own brain for the last couple of days. I have so much to talk about, so hopefully finally hashing it out with someone else who I know will listen (hopefully) without freaking out will do me some good.

Thanks for reading.

Wow, very good self care!! Please continue to keep us posted.

It's... been awhile.

I mean. Okay. So I went to see a therapist at school. She was really nice and listened to me, and asked me a lot of questions that made me really think. I mainly went in to talk about anxiety and social problems. Didn't really get into talking about SI until the very end of the hour session, just as she had to usher me off to another person. It was really cathartic to talk about all that stuff all at once and get it all out, but the thought of explaining it all again to a different person didn't sit well with me. She gave me a list of people to talk to in the area, but yeah, never really did anything with that. I have the list saved on my computer, but I really don't know if I'm going to do anything with it.

I told my mom that I was going to the school counseling center, but only because of anxiety. It's so easy to hide it from her, because she's so far away and can't see me. I still call her on the phone every single day to let her know what's up. She is so supportive of me, but I'm afraid to tell her about this thing because I don't want to scare her. We're so close, I don't want to scare her.

anyway I took some time off the boards, because things were going well after the session at school. I wasn't feeling the urges that I had been feeling. I knew I wasn't cured, but things were lying dormant for the time, and I feared that coming back on here and reading other posts would trigger me and start me up again.

I'm back now, because my best friend just died, three weeks ago. Hit by a car while riding her bike, just... gone, all at once. She was only 21 and she was living with her boyfriend and going to school and she never did anything wrong and she was one of the nicest and most caring people I had ever met, and she's just not there anymore. She was my first roommate in college, we lived together for a year and a half and we talked all the time and she was the best friend I could have ever asked for.
I coped for the first couple of weeks after her death, mostly because it was the end of school for the semester so I had finals, then the first week of break I had to drive home for her funeral, and then it was Christmas. But now I've been alone since Sunday and things have just been stewing, and I did it because I know I can't drive my car off a bridge. I cut myself because I know I can't kill myself. For the first time I feel like I'm doing this because I am sad. I never really knew why I would do it in the past, it was just something I did, there were tons of different triggers and reasons, but the pain of my friend's death is manifesting itself in this form and I just. don't. care. I would do almost anything to have her back but it doesn't work that way.

i can't really say anything else. i don't really understand anything anymore.

I'm sorry for your loss Sirius. It is okay to be sad.......