15 years

[finding.my.wings]

is way too long :/
the longest ive gone without slef harming is only 3ish months.
recently ive been wondering if im a chronic self hamrer? and if my mh team are simply just helping to make sure that anything serious is treated.
Yes, im medicated and i attend group therapy- so defiantly am under treatment. Its just something the other day that my nurse said to me about my self harming....she said that she doesn't always believe me when i say ive been okay or fine or have self harmed as my past record suggests that its probably not true and that i am indeed lying. Shes right, but i dont know why i still lie to her (been seeing her since 2009) so it cant be a trust thing. Maybe its just habit?

But yeah, what does Chronic mean?
who even defines this?

My scars and cuts arnt even that bad (always superficial) and like only ever cause nerve damage once. so really its just a stupid habit that i cannot kick or let go of. Personally in terms of severity i wouldn't say its bad or chronic, but in longevity i say that its long during but still not chronic.

[Sooty]

Chronic by definition is "(of an illness) persisting for a long time or constantly recurring." I would say 15 years is chronic. Have you ever had any treatment from a totally behavioural point of view like CBT which tackles the SH as a behavior in response to a cognition but doesn't talk about the routes of problems? It may be an idea to run along side your medication and group therapy?

Sophie.x

[finding.my.wings]

Hey Sophie thanks, up until october last year i hand had any specific behavioural treatment. but then i started with a therapist for other reasons and she said that we needed to work on my self harm as i need to be able to have a massive handle on it before we did the other stuff (reason for the therapy) ans also that my self harm is a behavior that has come out of that stuff. SO we began working with some DBT stuff and some cognitive restructuring which i think is part of CBT. In my city we dont have alot of option through mental health teams and very little in the way of funding to access specific therapies. And i havent ever been able to afford to pay up to $180 per session to see a privet therapist.

At some point i will have to look at the route of my issues :/