actually, thinking about it...when i was much younger i used to pull my hair out and hit my head against things. is well as picking my skin and making it raw...i didn't know what it was...but still, i did it when i was stressed, angry, sad etc.
I've never thought back to how I felt before I turned 12 before, when I was 12 I started cutting and, like many things in my life, I got very into it very quickly. But really before that I used to bite myself and sort of pull really hard on my arms - things I still do now when I can't self harm in other ways - but I don't know if that was really self harm or not.
Why do I hide it? Because I feel ashamed.
"this is the room where you don't have to be brave"
I started harming very young. I'm 14 now, going to be 15 in July... I started when I was 12.
I'm still not sure why I started. I'm not even sure where I learned what self harm was. But I did know what it was, and I was completely aware what I was doing to myself. I would cut my arms with my mom's sewing scissors.
Like I said, I still am not sure where it came to me that pain would help, but I liked it... and sadly, I still do. I regret it.
Life:
it's all about perspective.
So when it isn't going well for you,
just try looking at it in a whole new way.
oh, and I hid it with makeup. I didn't want mom sending me to a therapist. She had threatened to when she found me crying one night over my parent's divorce, but hadn't.
I don't hide it anymore, but somehow people still don't notice. I think people choose not to see.
Life:
it's all about perspective.
So when it isn't going well for you,
just try looking at it in a whole new way.
I started at fifteen,I cut myself. but when I really think of it I always had a habit of picking scabs till they bled. I realized it was bad because my first time officially doing it I was scared like when I cut it was some uncontrollable internal anger trance like and hid it because the cuts looked nasty. I red about it in a book my sis gave me,gurl book it was in the tough stuff section and I thought self harm was grotesque.
you know what? if you don't like who I am..I don't see anything stopping you from moving on![b]
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To all the people who say they used to hurt at young ages i.e. 6/7 in sort of "passive" ways. Do you think that most kids are like that and we just notice it more because of what happened afterwards?
For example I have ALWAYS picked scabs from very young. And always took a kind of playground pride from scrapes and bruises when I fell over. I told my little brother once that because he was younger than me he couldn't hurt me and of course that meant he would kick/punch/pinch me and give me chinese burns at every opportunity whilst I kept saying it didn't hurt even if it did. Just generally pestering my body you know? Biting nails, wobbling teeth and pulling them out before they were ready etc.
And my dad taught me an old trick when I had to take a plaster off to bite or pinch somewhere else so the plaster coming off didn't hurt as much (classic pain transference?).
Who knows whether that was just me being a kid and showing off to my little brother how tough I was or me actually wanting to be hurt? I have often wondered about these kind of questions and I'm not sure of the answers.
I always felt "different" to my friends from about age 9. Started what I would consider properly harming around 12 (my first scar). Cutting with tools at 15. Always hid what I was doing from 12 onwards...i.e. when it became deliberate and intentional.
As a child perhaps a lot of it is attention seeking. If you are hurt a teacher or parent gives you a hug and kisses it better and makes you feel cared for.
A thousand mile journey starts with the first step
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I started self harming when I was 14, although when I was 10 I tried to cut my wrists and kill myself, although it failed miserably because I didn't know what I was doing. Over the years I have let people hurt me, emotionally and physically, because I never could say no. I don't know what it was, I just didn't know how... And I'm not sure if I do now.
I never realised it was self harming, I never realised the severity of what I was doing until about November last year... When I really started self harming frequently and quite bad as well.
To all the people who say they used to hurt at young ages i.e. 6/7 in sort of "passive" ways. Do you think that most kids are like that and we just notice it more because of what happened afterwards?
I was thinking that too...
In fact when you think about it maybe self-harm to some degree is almost innate... i mean even animals when stressed will perform acts of self-harm, and most people will do some form of more "passive" harm when angry or frustrated (digging nails into palm of hand, biting/chewing on lips, ect) or will perform what is effectively "social self harm" when they feel alone, misunderstood or that they need to be punished.
also wondering if the method of self harm may be cultural? Esspecially as so many people seem to be saying that they "got the idea" of cutting from elsewhere. Even more so when you think about the fact that things like suicide seem to have almost "popular methods" which seem to be different for different cultures, not sure if anyone has ever done a similar study on self-harm though...
The following content has been hidden - Reason : potential trigger
I know for me I first cut when I was 6 only about a month or so after my mum attmpted suicide and so maybe I got the idea from there?
Although I have in the past heard peopple blaim the media, but cutting as a form of self-harm is pressent in the Bible and don't think that the media had the same power then that is does now...
In fact when you think about it maybe self-harm to some degree is almost innate... i mean even animals when stressed will perform acts of self-harm, and most people will do some form of more "passive" harm when angry or frustrated (digging nails into palm of hand, biting/chewing on lips, ect) or will perform what is effectively "social self harm" when they feel alone, misunderstood or that they need to be punished.
also wondering if the method of self harm may be cultural? Esspecially as so many people seem to be saying that they "got the idea" of cutting from elsewhere. Even more so when you think about the fact that things like suicide seem to have almost "popular methods" which seem to be different for different cultures, not sure if anyone has ever done a similar study on self-harm though...
The following content has been hidden - Reason : potential trigger
I know for me I first cut when I was 6 only about a month or so after my mum attmpted suicide and so maybe I got the idea from there?
Although I have in the past heard peopple blaim the media, but cutting as a form of self-harm is pressent in the Bible and don't think that the media had the same power then that is does now...
You might be right there, I think the tendency to harm ourselves sometimes can be innate almost like for the greater good. I think the tendency to transfer pain is very high in everyone but I'm not sure if that applies so much to emotional pain. I do also wonder whether when I used to bite myself and stuff it was self harm or if it was just me being weird. It links up with the self harm in quite a explainable manner but it doesn't mean that everyone else didnt do that.
"this is the room where you don't have to be brave"
To all the people who say they used to hurt at young ages i.e. 6/7 in sort of "passive" ways. Do you think that most kids are like that and we just notice it more because of what happened afterwards?
For example I have ALWAYS picked scabs from very young. And always took a kind of playground pride from scrapes and bruises when I fell over. I told my little brother once that because he was younger than me he couldn't hurt me and of course that meant he would kick/punch/pinch me and give me chinese burns at every opportunity whilst I kept saying it didn't hurt even if it did. Just generally pestering my body you know? Biting nails, wobbling teeth and pulling them out before they were ready etc.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
I was a riddiculously active child. Always climbing trees, and walls and falling over in the playground and stuff, So I was always covered in bruses. If I didn't have scabs on my knees, it was like being naked. I would also pick at my scabs, but not intentionally self-harming, they were just there to be picked. I suppose some of that is how we were raised. My brother, for example, has never self-harmed, but he still picks his scabs now, at 17.
I guess the first time I knew I was doing something deliberatly was when I started pulling my hair out aged roughly 6-7. I used to do it at school when i was being bullied, and teachers would panic, and tell me to stop it.
When i started high-school aged 11 I started letting others hurt me. One boy brought in a hard rubber insulation tube, and was whipping people with it. I let him lit my arm till it was red-raw.
I actually conciously cut myself at 12, when pulling har and picking scabs weren't enough to help me anymore.
I cut for 5 years, and have been 'recovering' for 3. But I still pick skin and unconciously scratch myself when i'm anxious. Sometimes I catch myself, but mostly I don't notice til i've rubbed the skin raw, almost to the point of bleeding.
SO yeah, I think there can be some instances of young kids deliberatly self-harming, but we shouldn't assume all these behavious will lead to serious SI. Kids are just being kids.
Yeah, you guys have a good point, and I'll be honest, I haven't thought about it from this point of view. Kids will be kids. They'll pick scabs. I wonder if that could be because they're itchy (as we all know) and so they scratch them, which makes bits fall off, so they them pick them off?
After my exams, I have a project on Abnormality for Psychology, and I might ask some of these questions of my class (a non-harming majority) to see how different things are... if no one here minds? I can of course post anonymous results of the questions.
That sounds really interesting. I would be curious to see the results.
I do feel that some people have a greater tendency to self harm than others. I think that there are probably people with that tendency to self harm who have never done anything worse than digging their nails into their palm or picking a scab, but I bet almost all people who have cut do minor things as well.
Maybe this is just me, but when I've told friends that don't self harm about it people either get it .... or really don't. I've had people look at me blankly when I tried to explain, wait, don't just dig your nails into your palm when you're upset? Didn't you ever pull your hair or anything when you were a kid? But then some people do know what I'm talking about.
A therapist told me once that she has had clients come in and say that they tried cutting once or twice because they thought it might help and that it did absolutely nothing for them and they never felt the desire to it again. She said that there is a theory that a tendency towards self harm might have to do with how many endorphins are released by pain, or how quickly. I can't even IMAGINE what it would be like to have cutting not feel good haha.
This is an absolutely fascinating thread for insight....
I never thought of it as SH... I was just really dangerous and reckless as a kid. I took so many stupid risks and got so lucky. The adults saw this ridiculously active kid with no understanding of consequence, like this time I tried to somersault out a tree from about 8 foot when I was 6. I musta been springy back then.
Then I properly started to cut at 11.
I realise I'm just too bored most the time. I don't SH purely because I'm bored, well, not always, but I know most my problems extend from the fact that life is so monotonous and boring and predictable and there's not much to look forward to... especially when I have my parents and tutors CONSTANTLY trying to attract me back to earth with threats of being kicked out the house or failing my course....tsk
I already decided there is no way I'm dying a boring death no "passed away peacefully in the night".... yack, not me at all.
"Alright, gang. I'll ignore that some of you are late... if you ignore that I'm the latest."
I self-harmed when I was little, although at the time I didn't know what I was doing had a name. I just knew that it calmed me down. I would pull my hair, hit myself, or bang my fists against walls, tables, or other hard surfaces. When I was 14, I slammed my fists against the bathroom wall until they were red and swollen. I scratched my wrist when I was 14 or 15 and started cutting when I was 16.
Last edited by Celticroots : 25-05-2010 at 12:39 AM.
Reason: wanted to add more
i was quite young when i first started to deliberatley hurt myself? i think mybe 8 or 9..? i wasn't quite sure it had a name being so young, but the SH didn't actually come out until i was 15?
it used to be simple things like; hair pulling, picking scabs, headbanging, biting.. nothing too serious though, never really left any damage.
