I want to stop.

[CagedBird]

I'm new to this site. I consider myself a veteran because i'm more than 10yrs older than most of the people that are on this site by the looks of things!

Basically I want to stop self harming. I've been battling mental illness for a very long time now but although i cope and function i've never been proactive in helping myself. That is quite hard to admit to because everyone always say 'oh your so brave to keep so strong' but actually behind their backs i self harm and i'm generally destructive. It always manipulation and lies and i'm really tired of it.

That is the main reason i want to stop self harming, i want to stop being so tired all the time. I'm emotionally exhausted from pushing down the intense internal pain and putting on a performance at the same time. I started therapy approx 10 months ago and we're going at a ridicuously slow pace because i'm very detached from my *pain* and my fake self is really hard to get rid of. It is making me very angry and frustrated that i can't seem to get to anything real. So i have been thinking recently maybe if i stop self harming one of the layers of control and protectiveness will be gone and it might make it easier to feel.

BUT - the reason i have come to this site is for advice to know if i am ready to do this. On a detached level writing this i can logically think it is a good idea but if i truly let it be real i start to freak out and the *pain* goes wild. This is what i wanted, but am do i have enough energy to cope with this feeling of being out of control on a daily basis? On one level i think i need to move my life forward and just deal with all of this for once and for all, but on another i think i should understand there is a reason why i self harm and i'm scared of what would happen if i don't do the thing that keeps me in control.

I have asked my therapist what can i do to move the therapy onwards and she said i could try recognise the things during the day that cause me upset but she is wary of me doing this because there is a reason why i dissociate and self harm and she doesn't think it is time yet to upset that very, very careful balance i'm found. But in the meantime i am in the same amount of *pain* and my life is going nowhere because i'm to scared to do anything real like make friends, have relationships etc.

What it boils down to is does the frustration and anger of being stuck in this horrid existance outway the absolute fear of feeling. I want to try but i don't really have a back up plan. I don't talk to family about it, i have no friends, and i only see my therapist once a wk and even then most of the time i'm too defensive to get the care and support i really need.

Any advice would really be very appreciated! Sorry this was so long.

[Merc]

First off, welcome! I hope it can be of some help being here; vets is a lovely bunch!
I think you are being very brave in 'admitting' all this, good for you. It's a huge and hard first step, and you have done it.
It sounds like you have a very good therapist. I can understand tho, why you are frustrated. I often want to be 'well' yesterday. But it is, unfortunately, a slow process. But i believe it needs to be this way for it to take hold, for real change to take place.
Not what you wanted to hear I'm sure, sorry.
Perhaps you could discuss limiting the amount of times you SH? But you mentioned that you dissociate and then harm, so I'm not sure if that would work.
Has she given you any ideas of what you can try to do for distractions?
Are you able to recognize your 'triggers'?
I'll stop there, that's a pile of questions, sorry!
Again, welcome. I hope we can be of some help and support.
xx

[CagedBird]

Thanks for the hugs, i appreciate the support. Somtimes i don't have the words either, but it is nice to have a hug it kinda says 'i'm listening'.

Thanks romperfry for the welcome. Yeh it has taken a very long time to get to the point of admitting i have to take some personal responsibility for my actions, to be honest with you i just want someone to rescue me.

That is exactly it i want be well NOW! I've lost so much of my life to numbness it is demoralising to think about. I do understand, i just want my therapist to just say a magic word and make it all better (sometimes when paranoid i think she is maliciously not doing this to watch me suffer)...but she seems to think the fact i can talk to her now is an improvement.

I self harm for lots of different reasons but mainly to stay in control. When i dissociate and self harm i generally don't have any control over what i'm doing so I don't really mind self harming in that state because i don't consider it me doing the harm, if you understand.

I could definately try and limit the times i SH when i'm angry and depressed. If i have the will power!! I try and do self soothing techniques but that ends up becoming another way to hurt myself. I try distraction and that can work really well because i'm brilliant at switching off but i hate being numb (well i also love it too, its complicated).

I'm still in very early days re: triggers. I know i SH when i feel out of control or hopeless but i don't know why i feel that way. I feel my main problem is that i never have a stable mood state, my moods fluctuate wildly and they literally consume me. I have very black and white moods, if i'm depressed i've always been depressed in my mind, if i'm angry everyone is out to get me etc. That is why i worry about saying to my therapist that i want to stop SH'ing because in an hours time i might not feel the same way about it.

Do you relate? Thanks for the pile of questions (and there really wasn't that many, i mean look how much i write in response!!), it shows that you care and that means a lot. I really do need help and advice, and i'm finally getting to the point where i'm willing to listen to it.

[Sigma]

^ echo what Romp said - the welcome as well as the advice!

I also get big mood swings, most of the time I can function pretty well (especially at work where being slightly detached is a good thing) but half an hour later I can be feeling incredibly destructive. You're not alone...

I'm not sure that I have any answers for myself, let alone anyone else! Keeping busy, of course... But also, after years of 'just surviving' I've decided to try and 'get better', so I want to encourage you in that as well. It's early days for me (a couple of weeks). Drop me a PM if you'd like to chat.

[~*forever_broken*~]

Hello

I'm sorry, I'm not much for advice right now but I did want to say hi and tell you that I think it is awsome that you want to stop SHing! And to let you know (and you'll hear it again and again here) that... trying to stop is great... from time to time, though, folks tend to 'slip up' (I've done it several times in the past). That does not mean that you have failed or that you cannot reach your goal of stopping. I had a psychology instructor at Uni (well I had several seeing as I was a psych major but only a few who knew about the SI) tell me once that set backs just make for a stronger recovery.

Now before I say anything that will do more harm than good I'll let you go.

Glad you are here

[Evil Annie]

Hey CagedBird, I know how difficult it can get being an "older" SIer. I started cutting sometime in elementary school, and twenty some years later its still a struggle. As we become adults life situations change, and the function of our self injury changes as well. I know some of my triggers changed. Some days it takes all of my energy just to "keep it together" at work until I can get home. Its frustrating that many people, medical professionals included, still consider this to be an adolescent, or teenage problem. It makes it harder for adults to ask for help. Like you I don't have any friends to talk to, my family knows about it but doesn't really want to get involved. I rely alot on a few good distractions to get past the urges.
It sounds like you have a good start towards recovery and really shouldn't rush it along. Sometimes you have to heal the internal wounds before the outer ones can vanish.
Let us know how things are going
~Evil

[CagedBird]

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.

[Sigma]

the way I look at it, the SH doesn't matter as much as the feelings behind it - in other words, there's no point 'trying to stop' because the reasons are still there... so I don't really focus on the SH (having said that, what I do is fairly superficial, so I don't need to stop from a health point of view). What I want from 'help' is to stop feeling so bad - if I didn't feel so bad I wouldn't SH.

Not that it's going too well at the moment - didn't make it to work today... :( so perhaps I'm not the best person to give advice!

[CagedBird]

You're absolutely right. If i didn't feel anger, pain, depression and fear to the extent to do, i wouldn't be cutting. I don't really care about the fact i cut, it is an irrelevant yet irritating factor in my life most of the time. But if i stop cutting and it allows me to reach emotions i am so very detached from (e.g. underneath the anger, pain, depression and fear) then it may be what i need to do.

Don't worry i know how you feel. When i posted this first thread last week i was in a strong position, i've fallen deeply since then and i don't care enough to stop right now. I'm not going to work tomorrow either, i'm feeling really petulant and angry which is a very dangerous combination.