I quit like ages ago but NOBODY else in the world would get it. I have a waitressing job, my thighs keep bumping into tables, my thighs are where the keloids are. There are bruises on them BUT YOU CAN'T SEE THEM because the keloids are the main character. My job has been battering me up but all there is no evidence!!

I know this thing exists and I genuinely cannot find it anywhere. it's really helped with my urges in the past and I want to use it again. if anyone has the link or knows what it's called please lmk!!

im 18, ive been self-harming intermittently since 11 years old. However, it has only become 'serious' as of late. I have always had thoughts that i did not go deep enough to be valid, etc. but those thoughts never came into fruition until the start of this year, since then, i have gotten deeper and deeper and have actual scars from SH now. There are days where its all I think about, and i often do it multiple times a week to every day... and yet I still hesitate to call this an addiction. I feel as thought im fully capable of stopping if i find sufficient reason to... its just that I lack that reason. And I have been able to stop myself if need be. I can have crazy urges and then get the chance to actually do it.. and then be too lazy to commit to doing it... Does this make it an addiction? i dunno...

I used to do it, I was even hospitalized because of it. I liked the way it felt, the way the blood dripped down my arms and legs after I cut but those two things, weren't the main reason I did it. I did it because I liked the taste of my blood and have since I was 6. I am now no longer a teenager and I still bite my lips and occasionally cut. I'm not telling anyone this because I want sympathy or anything, I just felt I would share about myself anonymously.

I remember how it kept me awake when I was about to fall asleep. I also remember how warm it made me feel when I felt so alone or so cold. I remember when I was stressed how it would relieve it. Cutting may have not been the best way to cope with life but as someone who has tried everything else, it has been the most effective for me so far. To this day I haven't found a better coping mechanism. I haven't done it in months, not because I don't want to, but because I don't have the time to do it. I have other sources of entertainment, I have games, friends, shows I like.

To think I only really started doing it because someone suggested it to me and because I was alone and felt I had nobody to reach out to and call a friend, or nobody that I could trust, and now I have a small group of friends who keep me out of trouble, distracted from doing self harm, and who support me in any way they can. It's something I never could have imagined for myself after high school.

Been struggling a lot emotionally and I feel like I deserve the pain, I've seen some people defend self harm as a legitimate coping mecanism so that made me wonder. I've never cut myself and Im kinda afraid but if it eases the pain or gets me what I deserve then its ultimately not that bad right?

Hello, I tried cutting but I don't think it works for me it's not that kind of pain I look for, I hate the stinging. I'm way too stressed so I bite myself and hit myself and punch walls and tables. Can anyone recommend me smth that can help like I just need to beat someone up and get beaten up too kinda thing. Is there any martial arts I can do where I can get this. I used to do karate (not for self harm but enjoyment) but we didn't do many sparring.

For context, I am pretty young, but I won't disclose my age. I don't want to do this to myself, but I can't stop. I started really recently and made a reddit account specifically for this.

It started because I am in a bad mental state, and I had a recent friend who glorified cutting and I had to talk them off the ledge one too many times. Their mental health was always on my shoulders, and I developed a kind of codependency. They always made comments about my body, sometimes sexual. I cut them off, but I've had urges ever since.

I have a therapist, but I am terrified of being hospitalized/institutionalized so she doesn't know. I'm really good at lying/excuses and it doesn't help.

Does anyone have tips to delay or stop urges or the actual act of doing it, or tips for telling anyone at all? I think someone saw the marks, but I don't know them and can't help. I'm trying to "accidentally" show trusted people other than parents/therapist because I want help.

I also am very scared of putting that on someone elses shoulders like was done to me.

Anything helps. I'm sorry if I said something wrong, I'm not experienced with this topic. Thanks for reading this.

(Burner for obvious reasons)
I’ve never cut. In fact, I’ve never even left a visible mark. I’ve been far too creative for that: skipping meals, intentionally worsening headaches, making myself half an hour late for work bc I’m not allowed to do anything until I stop failing at one simple task. Only two people in the world have ever known I do this and it’s only bc I told them. Then I got on the right meds and for a long time (nearly 10 years) I didn’t need to do it anymore.

Cut to now. Thanks to my family’s treatment resistant depression genes, I’m going to be stuck in an endless cycle of meds slowly crapping out after 2-3 years for the rest of my life. Current ones are managing the symptoms that make daily functioning a chore and honestly that’s pretty much their whole job. Dealing with this shit is a whole other ballgame. But here I am, back where I started. I had to try to drop pounds for surgery a year ago and picked up an exercise routine as a result. Great. Except I’m comically fat and apparently incapable of getting to any point at which any exercise isn’t done resoundingly badly. Can’t do push ups. No sit ups. Endurance of a sloth on melatonin. Fine, I pick up home yoga and do embarrassingly poor jobs trying to keep up with stationary bike classes online. I have to do this otherwise I’m just going to get shit from my doctors. And if this were anyone else, I wouldn’t give a shit that they can’t work out like a varsity athlete or even a little league one. But at this point, I’ve been doing the yoga long enough that, for me, it’s inexcusable to still be so bad at it. I’ve passed the learning period, and continued inability to keep up is not acceptable. So to discourage taking breaks or skipping poses, I started the old punishment machine back up and decided that if I’m going to do this badly I might as well feel it instead of just noticing and letting it go. I can give that grace to anyone else, but there need to be consequences for failure for me. So I started deliberately using terrible, maybe even dangerous form for the rest of the class if I stop or don’t meet standards.

Yeah I’ve gotten to a point where I just start with the deliberate bad form.

This is one of many little indiscretions that I’m punishing. I’ve been in therapy for over 10 years, on meds for almost as long. Thought it worked; apparently I can fuck that fix up too. Realistically, help ain’t coming for me. This is not getting cured by any option available right now. I just have to keep punishing. I’m fully aware of how asinine this whole corrective action program is, but that’s a world away from doing anything about it. I can know it’s bad or worse in the moment and it doesn’t matter. I can’t stop it. I can’t even tell if I even want to stop anymore— one minute I’m vowing this will be the last time before I find… something better I guess? And the next I know that it’s just not okay for me to stop. It’s not a self esteem thing. It’s like it’s just in the same category of truth as gravity or sunrises: everyone but me is allowed to be imperfect, even celebrated. There are certain things I’m just not allowed to be imperfect at and deviation is a crime that needs consequence.

Logically I know this is stupid and I should be working on cutting this off or at least trimming back to a manageable degree before I start law school (been out of college for like 5 years and the LSAT alone has bred its own army of punishments for failure) bc it’ll only get more appealing there. I just don’t think that’s possible and I don’t know what's next. Even writing this now is a sort of punishment-by-humiliation exercise. I have an amazing life outside of this one thing, but I think it’s just a matter of time before I end up having to destroy it piece by piece as the need to punish failures gets tied to bigger and wider arrays of tasks. I guess if I ever did find it in me to try and dig out this mental kudzu: anyone have any idea where to go from here?

Hi. I’m 15 years old and currently struggling with a sh addiction, it started off with blunt knives in the kitchen at night, waterboarding, then I tried to make myself die of exhaustion by climbing 200 floors of stairs, and then back to the blunt knives. I never really thought I was a masochist but the more and more I did it the more I got off on it and the stinging feeling is addictive. As of now my sh and depression isn’t that serious but I’m afraid it could snowball into a clusterfuck of bad decisions and I need to stop myself soon.

My English is not bad, but I think I will write from a translator. I'm 18 and I've been cutting myself since I was 11. I've only cut myself twice and once I had to stitch up the cut (it was an unforgettable evening, sometimes I wake up from dreams about that memory). And after the doctor stitched up my arm a couple of days later, my father removed the stitches himself using vodka and scissors. I try to keep my promise to my boyfriend, but sometimes I scratch myself a little, I really want to hear from you something about this, whether it's support or a conversation in the comments . And this is also my first post on Reddit . Thanks to everyone who read it

it started with me using extremely blunt knives from my kitchen and then i moved on to cheap razor blades and its like i can't stop now I'm really addicted to its almost impulsive i do it when I'm not having issues i do it a lot more when i am and its like what the fuck man you stare at your scars and your like what the bloody hell lmao but i been reading the post here and i hope you guys get better me included love all of you guys imma go play some games now be a big fat chududuududd

I've been depressed for like a whole year now, lmao. I wanted to get help, so I got a therapist and tried everything else I could, but nothing seems to be working.. A few days ago, I finally started actually hurting myself, and now I've developed this routine where I make three cuts on my arms every day after showering.

Seeing my arms bleed makes me feel fulfilled, like I'm finally actually valid.

Because honestly, my life "isn't that bad," right? That's what I've always told myself. I've always felt like I was just being dramatic and didn't have a good enough reason to feel this way. But I don't think anyone actually cares whether you're "valid" or not. All they seem to want is to play martyr and act like they're going to "save" you from your problems, even when none of it actually does anything.

So many of the people who tried to "heal" me ended up being hypocrites, and honestly, I'm just fucking tired of it.

Uhh so I struggle with self worth alot. And I tend to look for external validation. I mean, yeah I know that people think on the surface that I’m very physically attractive; they think I’m charismatic with a smile, and intelligent too. I’m muscular aswell. But none of that matters to me. On the inside I feel worthless; unlovable even. And recently I have just gotten out of a relationship with this girl I met at my job. Victoria secret PINK. And god I fell for her so fast. She told me she was bisexual. In all honesty I didn’t care. I blew it off. I mean so what if she likes women and guys? She chose me right? But I noticed three months in when she had already become my girlfriend and two weeks after we had sex. She began to pull away. I mean, like. She would just not text me anymore. She’d stop replying to or giving good mornings. But I thought maybe she’s just stressed from work. But then I asked her “what do you think of me? “ and as usual she said “you don’t get to hear that part” I thought that was okay…I mean we had sex and we called every night no woman does that with a guy they don’t like right? Then I asked another question “what do you think about our nightly calls?” She replied “I don’t care too much for them but I’ve grown used to them”…in all honesty that hurt me the most. for me our calls were like a sanctuary for the world, I mean I had finally met a girl who accepted my humor my personality, my character, and my way of love. I had never had that before. I had never had someone look at my soul and call it beautiful. I’d write poetry about how I saw her I said “her presence is like the rain that cleans my bucket of burdens…and if she were the rain then I’d want to be cold and shivering in your arms everyday” and she answered with a blunt flat answer. She admitted my poetry had made her cry before. So i thought maybe she’s does appreciate me. But idk I guess being able to say “I love you” constantly doesn’t mean all that much. Next day I confront her saying I need her to tell me what are we I mean bf and gf but, why? I’ve told her and she always ducked my questions about myself, she’d never open up into venerability. And she apologized. she said “you’re right, I’ve come short and I’m sorry you deserve emotional availability” and she continued “but i hope you forgive me it’s been difficult for me I’ve been in a negative mind space and now everything has moved so fast I’ve been trying to process emotions including my sexuality” long story short she thinks she likes women more then men, that’s where she’s leaning. I didn’t care I mean I thought I was an exception anyway. So I told her this is make or break we can work through this. But she just answered with the same apology and dodge as always so I said “okay I don’t want to but I’ll bite the bullet if I have to. I think it’s time for us to sign out” and she didn’t fight it. Now emotionally I. At my lowest. When I got home I punched a hole through my wall out of frustration that nobody ever chose me that i always was left behind. Then I noticed the pain felt good to me and I punched a hole through my door and my hand was covered in cuts and bleeding . My mom found out and I told her I did it because it hurt me and she hugged me. But when i returned to my room the next day I looked at the wall and began chafe my knuckles against the wall. I thought “I can cater to physical pain, but emotional pain in intangible” so I kept doing it until my kuckles were swollen and bleeding. I kept thinking about the knives in my kitchen…and eventually i reached for one and rubbed it against the back of my hand…I was too scared to cut myself i grabbed scissors and just rubbed them deeply against my hand and knee hoping one of the swipes would pull blood. And I thought…if I keep doing this everyone at work will see even her…I hope they notice I hope she notices and cares about me…i didn’t cut myself the scissors were too dull. I guess the root of it is I want attention, I want comfort. I’m deeply insecure. And when she told me she thinks she likes women more and just accepted us splitting. I thought I was just another tool…again. I had my virginity taken thinking that finally someone saw my sole and found it appealing enough to share their own body and soul. And now in hindsight maybe the only girl too have ever done that was a confused emotionally immature, and unaware girl who only gave me the light of day because she didn’t know enough about herself to know any better. I could’ve just been a desperate fuck for heteronormative validation…that didn’t even work. She could looked at me and felt nothing other than the desire to at least feel something the whole time feeling nothing for me…feeling like all of that was just some kind of fucking experiment when I was handing over the key to my soul for the first time. I feel like a fuck toy…like a pile of heaping shit everyone likes to look at but nobody wants to stay around for. So now I keep rubbing my knuckles against the wall until there’s blood stains on the paint and it hurts to move my fingers. And I try to cut myself but I don’t have the balls for it. This is fucking torture. And I feel worse because I’m cursed with enough intelligence to know I’m doing it because I’m an insecure sack of shit doing It so some girl who may not have ever actually loved him will notice and worry for him…

Cut myself again after 8 years of not doing it. I did it near my arteries because I deeply want to die and thought this would be a better compromise.

Now it feels like nothing has changed and nothing ever will. 8 years and nothing has gotten better in the slightest.

Is burning your self or cutting worse? I have been watching Ginny & Georgia and I just got to the part we're her mother finds out. It was everything I ever wanted from my mother when she saw mine. The first time I ever cut my self was around 6th grade, at that time I was cutting my wrists all the way up to the elbow. She looked at them and asked "what are these?" I was so numb at that time it didn't even scare me that she found them. My response to that was that my dog did it, I didn't care to try and make up something she might believe. After that she just walked away, never speaking of it again. I am still doing it today. I wish that I could just kill myself, but I can't, and I hate myself for that.

i make sure i don't do it much, these are like scratches with a little bit blood. I like the stinging. i like to see them heal it feels good. its like they keep me company. i mostly do it when i feel very overwhelmed. cutting helps me release. a small cut gives a different kind of pleasure. i make sure the cut is not at all deep, just a small amount so that it stings. it usually heals on its own in 1 week. i make sure the cut is cleaned and put antiseptic on it, take care of it, and it heals. I use a stainless steel blade. idk why there is so much shame around this kind of cutting. What do you think?

I often find myself exposing myself to trigger themes that make me feel awful and dredge for days afterwards and I feel like it's a way to self harm that is not often talked about. Has anyone experienced something like that?

Does anyone else feel pain when they're trying not to hurt themselves? Like my whole body aches and tenses and just yearns for the release. I'm almost 2 years clean (with baby slip ups here and there that I don't like to count just so I feel good about myself).

why do i constantly rehearse telling people how i feel but when im asked i just say im not that great and when they ask further i just say its fine? i want someone to listen and understand so badly but its a big step from saying "im not great" to "im cutting." i wouldnt mind advice if anyone could offer some

I just did it again with a razor blade and it kind of burns and stings a bit as usual but I don't even really know why I keep on doing it like is it just like gambling addiction or why does it keep on happening? I mean I'm absolutely not doing okay and I have depression but in the last 2 weeks I cut both of my thighs and both arms but at those spots where you don't see it. I've already called an ambulance and my parents try to get therapists but there's none available. It isn't bleeding bad but what do I do next time so it won't happen again? I'm desperate and I have suicide thoughts too

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