I'm going to try stop hurting myself...

I feel like I need to stop hurting myself. I read a thread on the self injury forum reasons to stop self harming. I don't want to risk going to hospital or something worse might happen. I got rid of all the CDs, I break them and I use the sharp end to hurt myself. I threw them in the bin and I'll probably put the knife I have back in the kitchen. I don't want to end up with deep scars or to damage my body. The thread which I read on distractions from hurting myself gave me ideas on how I could stop and some of the ideas were good. It's not going to be easy but I'll try my best to stop. I need to stop self harming. Sorry if this seems silly but I just feel like telling people I want to stop self harming. I'm too scared to see a doctor or speak to a health professional. So I might as well try to stop on my own but I know I have support from you lot and my friends. I was thinking of getting help today in one of my lessons. I don't think self harming is helping anyone. It's damaging my body. It's upsetting my mum and my sister mentions about my self harming too. I might as well stop hurting myself.

It's good to say it telling people fixes it as a goal, and with the actions you took, it looks like you are really on your way to pursuing that goal.

I'm glad you've decided to stop self harming. I used to use a scalpel, or an artists knife to cut myself, and was very careful not to go too deep... and even though I was "careful" I still have criss cross silvery webs across my arms that plainly show my history. Perhaps people don't notice it... but I bet some do. And at a previous church, there was this beautiful, lovely lady, who always wore long sleeves... I remember being horrified when I saw what she'd done to her poor arms. Please if only to make sure you can wear a sleeveless blouse, stick to your guns here. It might sound like a frivolous reason... but who cares? If I knew for a fact that I could never again wear a teeshirt I'd try to avoid anything that limited my future choices.

Also, here's a technique that I learned which is extremely useful. When you next feel like harming yourself, take your finger, and gradually drag the nail across the space between your upper lip, and your nose. It may sound weird, but if you do that and then, eyes closed, focus on the sensation your fingernail left, then you're affectively drawing your attention to a physical stimuli that doesn't cause you harm, but does, even slightly, hurt. That will at the very least put time between you and your impulse to self harm (let's say it takes three minutes before the tingling dies away) and even provide you with an alternative.

That's been my best trick... hope it works for you.

I am going to try to stop hurting myself. That's one of my goal, to stop hurting myself and then the next goal might be to become more postive. Thank for your reply.

Thank you for the technique you gave me. I'll try that one out.