Thanks for the welcome plus all the support and advice everyone! Sorry i've not been able to get online for a few days. Your replies are very much appreciated!
Tokoloshe - the mood swings are the worst, honestly without detachment i would not be able to do anything! Thanks for understanding, although i can't say i would wish mood swings on anyone. Keeping busy, yep i had that one well and truly sorted until a yr ago when i put myself into semi-seclusion because i was too tired to pretend anymore. That is great to hear about you wanting to help yourself too, it would be really interesting to hear from you and to know how you are getting on. I think i'll need all the encouragement i can get! take care of yourself.
Forever_lost - thanks for welcome, and btw you did give very good advice despite saying you weren't much for it right now. I can pretty much garentee i'll have slip ups when i decide to stop...i've not yet decided that is what i want to do though. No, what i mean is i definately want to stop self harming but i'm not sure if i want to enough yet to feel all the things that self harming stops me from feeling. But the fact i'm considering it is a big step forward for me because i so often play the victim role in my head....outwardly i won't let anyone near me enough to save me even if it were possible but inside i'm the proverbial damsel in distress!
Are you in the process of stopping self harming? If you have any experiences you'd like to share i'd be very interested in hearing them....btw i don't think you should be so hard on yourself, i don't think you understand what it means to me to have somewhere i can to talk openly about SH. I really appreciate that you took the time to reply despite the paranoia about doing harm (urg i get that...hate paranoia!)
Evil Anne - what a name! Yes i find it so frustrating also that lots of articles about self harming seems to be about adolescents because i don't relate. I never self harmed until my very late teens as i was far too dissociated from myself to do that (which i'm quite thankful about to be honest!). Self harm isn't something most people understand, but it seems to be even more abhorrent for adults to do so...which makes no sense in my eyes. The medical professionals i have seen (except my therapist) seem completely uninterested in my self harm. I'm not sure why, maybe because as you said they only 'understand' it in the context of adolescents.....but i've always taken that to mean it isn't a big deal....that i am not a big deal. Do you self harm? I hope it is okay to ask because it sounds as though you use distractions to surf the urges and stop yourself.
To be really honest i'm not sure how ready i am to give it up. I don't mean this how i used to when i meant it manipulatively, e.g. 'why should i give up? if you don't care i don't care!' style, but more that i'm really scared of stopping...i'm scared of what might happen if i do.....and pathetically i think i'm still scared of truly taking responsibility for my feelings and have to deal with them as an adult..... I may be just creating a load of excuses though for not having the right amount of will power! I'm just always so darn tired, you're right, it is hard enough keeping it together...sometimes it is easier to allow myself to self harm, it seems like the lesser of two evils.
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