Deserving or otherwise to self harm
 

So I got asked the following question by my psychologist at our last session:-

Reasons why I don't deserve to harm myself

And I couldn't really come up with an answer which surprised me as I wouldn't say I did deserve to hurt myself but I couldn't think of an answer.

I've racked my brain over the last few days and then decided to turn the question on it's head and I realised that I couldn't think of any reasons why I did deserve to hurt myself.

It kind of feels like I'm ambivalent to it all which isn't how it really is!!

Can anyone think of a way that I could come up with some answers - I have thought about changing the question but that feels like a cop out....

Hi Cam!

Hmm this is interesting. I was reading your post and I was thinking, well obviously there's LOTS of reasons you don't deserve to hurt yourself, but then thinking about it, I would struggle to answer that question too. For me it isn't because I think I *do* deserve to hurt myself (I don't!) but because I don't really think that anyone does.. so I could say things about myself, but none of them would be the actual reason I don't deserve to harm myself, because I don't think it's really based on personal qualities or otherwise. But then I guess that is an answer in itself.. something to do with respecting yourself just because you have an inherent right to, or something? I don't know if that made ANY sense or if it's something that you relate to at all.

But anyway. You could also approach it by thinking about things you like about yourself and the good things that you do (e.g. RYL, your job etc) which shows you are an awesome person so therefore don't deserve to hurt yourself. I am sure you must be able to think of some!

Anyway, sorry that wasn't terribly helpful! I hope you're doing okay xx

That first paragraph is my issue in a nutshell! I think it's hard because I know I don't deserve to self harm but nobody deserves it!

I may well approach it in a different way!

You say that you wouldn't say you did deserve to hurt yourself, which makes me wonder why your psychologist asked you that, if thoughts about deserving to hurt yourself aren't really an issue. Do you think maybe you've got some subconscious thoughts of that ilk?

Or maybe it was more just about getting reasons not to self harm, i.e. you deserve to not self because you are a great person, in which case could you like Hannah said think of qualities that you value in yourself and cite those as reasons why you deserve better than self harm?

I hope that makes sense. It was a great point in my head, but I don't know if I've successfully articulated it!

The phraseology of the question is quite interesting. I understand it to be 'reasons why I don't deserve to cause harm to myself', as opposed to 'reasons why I don't deserve to be harmed by myself'. Does that make sense? Or I could be reading too much into the wording :blush:

If it's the first, I think it's asking the self harmer why they don't deserve to do what they do. When I think about this question, I get slightly defensive thoughts, if that makes sense? For example, I don't deserve to hurt myself because I know there's better ways of dealing with my emotions, I know that there's better ways of expressing my pain and the part of myself that's being hurt, doesn't deserve it. So it's like it's asking the harmer part of me to identify reasons why what I'm doing to the other part of me is wrong. If you were to seperate the self harming part of yourself away from the other part of yourself and apply it to two people, ask yourself why you wouldn't deserve to hurt another person e.g. I don't deserve to box Sean just because things are really sh**ty for me right now. The reason being because it's not going to make things any better, I know there's other things I could do to make myself feel better and it's not fair to Sean to take it out on him.

P.S. this kind of makes sense to me, but I don't know if will make sense to anyone else...sorry :ermm:

Thank you it does make sense!

I think one of the things I've realised is I find it hard to say I'm a good person because it's such a cheesy cliche and most people are good people!

Hum