[SeraphNeophyte]

I have, on quite a few occasions played with the thaught of hurting my self...mostly by burning my self with my cigarette and usually when I am distressed.

I have only moderately "tried" to burn my self once or twice and have never really hurt my self (Not conciously). Is this a warning of possible self-injure or does it fall into the same category as suicidality? (Ideation of suicide that won't necissarily escalate to the actual act)

Also, since I was small, I have been almost constantly in pain and discomfort. Through family reaction's, ridicule and accusation, I had come to think that some of the pain and/or discomfort I felt was felt by all people and the fact that they never said anything about it, meant I was just whinging over nothing. Subsequently I seem to have grown very much "Desensitised" to pain untill the recent discovery that I have Marfan's Syndrome. Since then, I have become more and more aware of the pain and discomfort I have on a daily basis...

Is it possible, that due to me ignoring these ache's and pains over the years, that I have become "addicted" at some level to pain and/or endorphines and that the urge to hurt my self, especially in times of distress is a symptom of this?

[Rapunzel]

I wonder if maybe pain and discomfort have become familiar to you, and you feel at some level that something is missing if you aren't hurting. Anything that is familiar might be comforting when you are distressed. Did you ever do anything to comfort yourself when you were small? Maybe developing a comfort ritual of some kind now would help you to have something to do instead when that urge to hurt yourself appears.

[SeraphNeophyte]

Thanks for the response Rapunzel

I am sure it is very likely that there is some form of link.

The only thing that springs to mind, in terms of child-hood comfort-ritual, is the fact that whenever I was distressed...which was a lot of the time due to, most likely depression from an early age, is that I would lock myself out from the rest of the world. Most of the times, I would keep my self busy with almost totally "un-productive"/"mindless" actions and I would get seriously aggrivated if someone interrupted me.

I still do that in a way now and it might even be that the attempt to get away from that habit, is causing me to try and find alternatives...

Additionally, the change had come very suddenly and very unexpectadly as I was diagnosed earlier this year with Marfans and this most probably has thrown my whole mental state in a mix...which I don't realise.... but thats most likely whole page worth of discussion...