[ickydog2006]

Does it really get much better? When?

POSSIBLY TRIGGERING
It got a little better for me around the 1 and half year mark, and a little better at the three year mark, I'm almost to 7 years and unless I'm thinking about something else, than I'm thinking about cutting. It's like my arms ache to be cut all the time. I'm soooo tired of fighting right now. I know I'm better off without it. I know how much it would hurt my husband. I don't want to have to explain to my child when he grows up what the scars are from. It's just really overwhelming right now. I have this awareness of the bare space on my arms all the time. It use to be mostly that I would just crave the blood, and feeling of release, lately I don't even care about the blood half as much as I care about the sensation on my skin after the cuts have been made. I've never heard of anyone struggle this badly for this long, and have it ever get better.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Triggering******************

I have been for several years now.

My history... As a child, all throughout elementary school when I was at my low points I would sit there and twist about 50 or so hairs around my finger and tug on it for a good 5 minutes or so until it would all rip out. I did this for quite a bit of years. I would have bald patches but even as a kid I knew it wasn't "right" so I would do it where no one would notice much, my hair thinned but the bald spots were underneath. Than my brothers found out and teased me for a while so I stopped and moved on to scratching myself. Would use any number of things, would even go so far as to take the blades out of my razors. I never wanted anyone to know so I would make sure not to do it bad enough where I would have to get medical attention and always did it on my upper thighs so no one saw. I did this for a few years until I was hospitalized and they made me strip, they found all of the scars and cuts. It was bad and really eye oppening when I saw their face.

I wont lie, after the hospital (and this was going on 10 years ago) I did for about a week after the hospital visit. But then something just clicked and I just realized that I was only hurting myself and I was only carrying on the abuse that I wanted so badly to be freed from.

For a while it was hard not to do it again I wont lie. When I would get really low, that was my first instinct. But I would remind myself, if I continued that it made me no better than my past abusers. (I don't know if you experienced abuse before but...) I didn't want anyone else to hurt me so I didn't want to hurt myself. It took a lot of strength but now it's a breeze. The idea never goes through my mind any more and hasn't in about 5 or so years.

The first few years took a lot of adjusting, a lot of mental awareness and self control but eventually the ideas of hurting myself were replaced with different techniques of making myself feel better. Eventually the urge just faded and it pretty much non existant now. The only similar thing I have now is when I am extremely stressed, I will tug on my hair. When things are frustrating me and I feel like I can't take it any more I'll pull on my hair a bit, but never pull it out or do anything to really cause damage at all. Maybe some doctors would say I haven't stopped because of that but I don't do that to hurt myself, I do it because it feels like it's letting some of the intense emotions that are boiling in my head out.

I hope you find an easier way, I wont lie, it was definately hard but it is so worth it now. I look see girls doing it all the time and now it doesn't tempt me, it makes me want to reach out and hug them. I'm glad I've come this far in at least that aspect.

[splitimage]

I had been SI free for a little over 3 years until about 3 months ago, when i had a mini - implosion and wound up cutting one night. But during those 3 years I had constant urges, sometimes pretty intense. I really regret cutting this last time, as it's left some permantent scars on my lower left arm that are obviously self-inflicted. I'd avoided much scaring up until that point. But strangely once I had that last episode, I've had very few urges to cut, except maybe 2 or 3 times, but they were pretty intense. One thing that I find is helping me a lot to deal with intense emotions in general, not just stopping cutting, is DBT. I'm in a program now, and it's really intense, but it is helping me a lot with staying with the feelings and just riding them out.

splitimage

[haier]

ickydog,
i'm so glad you started this post, i was trying to talk about this in my ...monkey see monkey do thread. i feel the same way. i have been self harm free for 12years. it was really really hard the first 2 years, almost anything that went wrong in my life merrited self harm then i got married and had kids and it got better, then an event in my life caused me to revert back to old thinking but i got help and thankfully never self harmed, that was in 2004, this year has been horrible. recent events in my life are causing me to want to self harm and i'm literrally struggling on a daily basis to push these thoughts out of my mind, i know i need therapy and this is something i will be addressing. i feel like i am forever addicted to self harm, anytime in my life things go wrong this is what i want to do and i'm tired. i think even if you stop the addiction is still there because in the end it does make us feel better but it's not normal or healthy. i understand this and it frustrates me not to be able to get down to the root of the problem. just know you are not alone and i offer you support, i feel so much better knowing others feel this way and that you all stopped and that you continue to fight these awful urges, i think this takes true courage and commitment, i HAVE to keep telling myself this.

[turquoise4]

Its been a couple years for me too. I still get triggers, but overall it is much better. DBT has helped me also. Congrats on getting to 7 years without cutting, what you are dealing with is not easy, but I believe you can do it. ((((((hugs)))))))

SI was a coping behaviour I picked up, while in hospital. I only did this when I was on Zoloft and Paxil. At the time, I was a vulnerable, hurting, angry and alienated teenage woman who wanted someone to understand me. I also had major issues with anger. SI, although maladaptive, seemed more socially acceptable (at least in the psych. world) than putting holes in walls. It was more discrete and did not involve being sent to the quiet room or getting an injection.

SI did not really help me. Actually, it alienated me, even more. After a few years of confusion and despair, I decided I had enough and walked away from the pills, the hospital and the psychiatrists. They were killing me. In order to survive, I had to reclaim my life. Quitting SI was one way, I accomplished this.

The urge to SI has resurfaced but only when I feel intense anger (at psychiatry for misdiagnosis). It bothers me, when I get the urge but I think once I work through my anger, these urges will disappear.

14 years have passed without any SI. I never ever give in, no matter how livid and distressed I feel.

No matter how strong the urge, talk with someone or do something to distract your mind. It gets better.

[ickydog2006]

It's nice to know that I'm not alone and not some abnormal freak. Thanks. Lately I've been resorting to sleeping pills a lot. It always gets worse at night for me and some nights the idea of living with this craving for the rest of my life seems unbearable. It's hard enough to fall asleep without the cravings, so unless I'm basically half asleep when I go to bed resisting th urges is almost impossible. It seems like such an unrealistic expectation to make it without si. Seriously, how many people would expect an alcoholic to go to bed everynight with a bottle of wine and not relapse. It seems like this neverending cycle. The less sleep I get the more I think about si, the more I think about si the less sleep I get. I just try to wait every few days (so hubby can be on toddler alert), and take a sleeping pill (or occasionally antihistamines) to catch up on sleep, and then repeat.

[turquoise4]

You are not an abnormal freak. I get triggers most days. I'm sorry yours are so frequent. I've been working on finding other ways to calm myself when I get upset or get triggered to SI. Deep breathing can be calming to me. Sometimes more so than others. Take Care. (((hugs)))

[shipping]

I began SIing at 13 and continued until I was 43. Upper thighs mostly, as someone else said, so people wouldn't see. I quit cutting when someone switched me from risperdal to abilify. But to this day I am still trying to stop a different kind of SI; I know many of you won't think this counts but I am diabetic and when upset and hurting and full of anguish i eat 3 or 4 POUNDS of candy in one sitting. If I do this several nights in a row I almost need hospital; I stop only just short of diabetic coma. I don't know how high my sugar level gets because my machine, like most machines for home use, will go to 600 only. People go into a hospital around 800 or 900 usually. I don't know what my point is though, so fine.