On purpose, for the first time

I have alway been doing sports. A lot. And very intensively. It has always been my ticket out of depressions. That is, until two years ago when I was diagnosed with arrhythmia. In the course of a year, I had lost my job, gotten divorced and I had just been living on the streets for a few months. Needless to say, I needed my bike more than ever.

Through previous depressions, I've had a history of self-harm although I have no noticable scars. Most of it happened when I felt overwhelmed by strong emotions, people yelling at me or when feeling uncomfortably numb. None of it had even a hint of deliberateness.



People have been pusing me to get back on my bike and accept that I would have to do sports at lower intensities. I know - experienced it - that I need this high intensity. I can't go walking, jogging or cycling with the elderly because it gives me too much room to ruminate and even throws me back to truamatic situations. Yesterday, I gave in. The weather was nice and I had to go to the bike store (+/- 5 km from my door). Instead of the bus (and a book), I took my bicycle. All went reasonably well but on the way back, it started ... the guy running the store is somebody I know from my mtb-racing days and it brought back memories. It also made me feel cut off from live altogether and I started thinking about everything that brought me to this place. At 2 km from my door, I decided I would hurt myself the moment I came home. Never before had I deliberatly made this choice.



In a way, I have never felt as calm as I have since it happened yesterday (almost 24 hours ago). I slept well and this too is like a miracle.
At the same time, I am upset: it took me like forever to get home from the point where I decided I would hit myself (feeling this bad has always drained me from all physical strenght). I had the chance to not do it, but I still did because I knew it would soothe me.
I am scared because I know this will lead to worse (there is a reason I don't have bandages in the house) and I realise I am going to long for this calmness for the rest of my life.
I am terified to tell my therapist because I will probably be committed again.

I am starting to believe I found a substitute for sports and that maybe I should just accept what happened yesterday as a precious gift and embrace self-harm as a coping strategy that will make my life easier. There is no other way to shut my demons up for so long after all.

I am sorry that happened to you and is happening to you.

From unhappy personal experience, I can definitely identify and relate to you although I am not as brave as you when it comes to sharing.

Maybe I am wrong, but I believe there are sometimes underlying psychiatric illnesses involved in SI so I think these can hijack the full use of awareness and freedom of choice . . . can erode deliberateness even when one thinks one is doing something "on purpose."

Coercion is not something restricted to external physical force. Coercion can be internal. And it always destroys the "full" use of freedom and therefore full responsibility.

To be human is to have an almost constant thought stream running through one's mind. In ideal circumstances we can stand outside this thought stream and see it from the outside, so to speak. Ideally we can choose if and when not to take seriously the thoughts popping into our head.

But things are seldom ideal. Sometimes one can be powerfully influenced by things one would never choose to be influenced by if one had full awareness and the full capability for calm deliberation.

Regret is often a powerful sign that some action wasn't made with the full use of awareness and deliberation.

We can exercise our free will without exercising it fully. And things like SI are definitely impediments to the full use of freedom. I say all this so you won't beat yourself up over what happened.

Sometimes the brain has a mind of its own, so to speak and there can be underlying medical reasons for SI.

Clearly what you wrote to today so bravely shows me that the real you is in what you wrote and not in what you did. I hope your therapist will be able to help you if you choose to share what happened although I can definitely understand your trepidation at sharing this.

Wish I knew what to say that would be helpful but sadly I often find myself in similar circumstances and have to take it one day at a time.

I do hope others here with more knowledge, experience and insight will see your post and respond with really helpful words.

I don't know what else to say but that my heart really goes out to you. The fact that you struggle tells me that you are a really heroic person deep down. Even regret is a sign of struggle.