Why?

(I'm putting the trigger icon just in case someone's response might trigger another user.)

But I am curious... Why do you do it & for how long have you self-harmed? I wanted to post this to break up the crisis posts a little bit & to give everyone a non-chaotic way of analyzing their personal motivations. Maybe once we think about this & really think about it, we won't feel this urge anymore... This urge that fights against our most basic human instincts -- To survive & to not endure pain.

Me?

I did it every single day between ages 12-15. It only became once or twice a month through 16 & 17. Totally absent through 18 & the first half of 19. But I cut on two different occasions at 19 due to massive psychotic breaks. And that, too, passed until just 2 weeks ago. I've been cutting & burning at least once a day since... But I'm not surrounded by my family anymore, so at least I am not as ashamed by walking around with my scars, awaiting torment.

Why? I wish I knew. I have so many things up with me that could each contribute to the source of my need to feel pain... OCD, psychosis, bipolar, anxiety, childhood trauma. And I am also a true masochist; though I'm not sure if that is independent of my MH issues or not. Oftentimes -- I do it for excitement, I do it to feel the pain itself, & I do it out of uncontrollable anger.

What about yourselves?

I started because I wasn't feeling so great for a while. And I thought, well, isn't this what sad people do? So I just did it. Not because I felt like it, but because I associated SI with people who were feeling sad and depressed. I used a stereotype. And I never should have, because cutting for the first time has changed me ever since.

- AJ

Honestly I can't remember the exact reason why I started SI'ing because it has been so long ago. I'm sure that a lot of it stems from my father's death 27 years ago and the feelings that go along with a sudden, unexpected death like that. At first I SI'd because I was too scared to do what I really wanted to do and that was kill myself. It relieved the pain that I was feeling so I kept on doing it and have been doing it most of my life now.

I used to be ashamed of my scars but I'm not any more, they are a part of my past, they make me who I am today. My wife knew nothing of my 'secret' for most of our marriage, I always blamed them on 'accidents' or getting cought up in the rose bush while I was mowing. I told her a few months ago and she has been nothing but supportive of me, as she has been for all of our 23 years together.

Why? that's the question... why did I decide to self-injure... instead of cutting... the reason behind it is I wanted to feel like I had control over something in my life.

i been hurt by people so i cut to control my pain

I always thought of it as physical pain hurts a h*** of a lot less than emotional pain. When the emotional pain is simply to much i cut to release that pain out of my body.

i do it to punish myself, for the sexual abuse by my father from 4yrs to 11 yrs old. I hate myself, that's another reason, and I deserve it for being dirty.

On and off for only a year so far. Depression, curbs suicidal thoughts, hate myself, I deserve the scars and pain.