Self Abuse

Self Abuse
O

outis

Registrant
When I was a kid, around 10 or 11 years old, I would wake up in the morning with my head down on the desk and the knife from my microscope dissection kit still on my arm. I had to wear long sleeve shirts in even the most humid weather to hide the marks on my wrist.

I used to think I must have been such an incredible wuss, to play with that knife when I could have gotten a razor from the bathroom at the bottom of the steps and done the job right. Only recently did I come to understand that they were't a coward's failed suicide attempts. I was what some people call a "cutter."

I was about to turn 20 when I broke a bone in my foot playing whiffle ball on the street. I walked on the foot for the next 11 days before finally going to the doctor. Then I walked on the leg in the cast because I "didn't feel like" using the crutches.

Years later when I was in college I had several operations on one knee. ("What, summer already? Must be time to go back under the knife.") Each time, as soon as I got out of the hospital, I went out to walk on the leg. Every time but one I went out to play frisbee within hours after leaving the hospital.

I quit smoking years ago. I don't do drugs or drink to excess. I don't have injuries to aggravate. I figured my self abuse was behind me by now.

It wasn't. Some habits die hard. You see, I misspoke above when I said "I was what some people call a 'cutter.'" A couple weeks ago or so, I cut again, though not my wrist this time. Hey, I'm older and wiser, not willing to live full time with long sleeve shirts, what with summer coming. Sorry, but bad jokes come with the territory.

This "recovery" thing is a lot of hard work, with setbacks and stumbling and progress oh, so slow. There have been a lot of ways I have abused myself, some less externally obvious but no less damaging.

If this sounds in any way familiar to you, well, what's that line again? You are not alone.

Thanks,

Joe
 
Joe,

hello my friend. Well, of course you know of my history with all the self-harm, the cutting, the burning, and the actually finding someone to hurt me physically. I am working hard to not do any of that right now, although you know I messed up on it a few weeks ago. It is very much a hard habit to break. I believe you also know someone else who has your same indifference to pain.

I think there is still very much something within my head, and maybe yours, that tells us we deserve pain, we deserve hurt, that somehow we are bad people who have earned this. It is not just the cutting or other self-harms that we must prevent ourselves of doing. It is to fix the underlying emotion, it is to somehow program ourselves different, to believe that we are good people, who do not deserve pain and hurt.

Another thing that it may be, I wonder sometime if I am in total control of what I am doing. If it is truly 'me' making the decisions, or some other aspect of myself in my brain. But I do think that sometime, it is indeed myself choosing it.

I hope that you are able to think good things of yourself, and be safe. You know I wish you well, always.

Leosha
 
Leosha,
It is not just the cutting or other self-harms that we must prevent ourselves of doing. It is to fix the underlying emotion, it is to somehow program ourselves different, to believe that we are good people, who do not deserve pain and hurt.
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That is so true. "The problem lies not in our stars, but in our selves." It really is a need for new programming and new, healthy beliefs.

If it is truly 'me' making the decisions, or some other aspect of myself in my brain. But I do think that sometime, it is indeed myself choosing it.
Click to expand...
I could have written words like those. In a sense, it wasn't "me" (the "me" that's writing this wouldn't cut) and yet I know in my heart that it was.

You make another good point, too. When I chose it, it was because of the old programs and old beliefs telling me that I deserve it. I feel their influence a lot, whether I'm driving like a maniac (I've gotten better about that, but it's still a problem my wife hates), blaming myself for having been abused, distancing myself from the people who somehow still care, or fighting an urge to hurt myself in some other way.

I know it can get better. I have never stopped wishing for my "magic pill" or the "answer book" because it seems that this is such a long process. It takes more patience than I feel that I have sometimes. (Dear Lord, I want patience, and I want it NOW. Thanks, Joe) :)

I'm glad you and the other folks are here. Sometimes having someone know what I mean makes such a big positive difference in how I approach life. Thanks for that.

Hey, how's this for a translation of "dude" into Russian?

Лёша, Дру-у-у-у-у-у-у-у-у-у-у-у-уг!

:D

Thanks,

Joe
 
I hate pain ,

like- :cool: havin a root canal on a molar;

now thats' self abuse!!; plus 400-1k lighter.

you wanna break bones- do a lil taek won do or grab a pair of cheap Nikes'...

you doin' good..sir.

stay in the race,

your vital and important to us and your wife.

enjoy life. be strong.
 
Hey Joe... I know about playing through or ignoring injuries or getting back to something too soon before you are healed.

I think it is part of this whole thing. I know for me, I hardly feel the pain or I glorify it. (Look at how tough I am, I can handle anything.) I also have a strong belief that when I am in pain (and I held this, and still do sometimes, belief about my abuse) that it is "not a big deal." And, this may be the saddest part, I think that many of us are used to being in pain, and when we aren't, we feel like we are missing something that should be there. We work to bring the balance back to what we are comfortable with, which is, sadly, pain.

I hope you are feeling better than when you first posted this. And know that the good part of recovery is that the relapses or the backslides or whatever... well, they start not to last as long. Where you may have cut before and kept doing it, you are now here talking about it. And that has to be a major step forward.

PM me if you need to.

-Sean
 
It is good to read these posts. It gives confirmation.
I also feel that pain is a kind of familiar and normal state. I don't ask for much help.

A couple of days ago I had a horrid experience. I was out shopping with my wife. All I could think of in my brain was to figure out means to make people dislike me and reject me. In my mind I went to extremes. I felt that I wanted to walk into one store and smash the whole place up. Then people would reject me and recognize the guilty and bad boy. It is like I need to feel guilty...

Another time I remeber I was sitting at the hairdresser's and i had a woman cutting my hair. She was so gentle and caring. It felt good and safe. After a while I started thinking that I wished she would rather hit me real hard than be so gentle. I can't handle that loving behaviour.

It seems some of us want to be hurt.
It is a sad thing and i have not yet figured out how to get rid of it.
Still I have tried to think in many ways, but I get exhausted cause I can never just be.

Perhaps we can learn overtime to allow ourselves to get good things.

What I think will work for me in the long run is to try and change the fear I always felt for my father and the hate and distrust into something more comforting. Forgiveness?
Try to give the love I wanted from him to my daughter.

I have began to discern that somethings that he did was not altogether bad.
It must be harder if all you have is totally black and evil.

/ Erik
 
Mike,

I actually did learn some Tae Kwan Do when I was a kid. Ironically enough, the perp was supposed to be teaching me some judo when I went to his house.

I intend to enjoy life, as best I can, from now on. There'll be more ups and downs (or it wouldn't be life, right?) but I'm gradually getting a view of where I want to go. A goal makes a big difference in setting a course. :D


Sean,

You hit it right on.
I hardly feel the pain or I glorify it. (Look at how tough I am, I can handle anything.) I also have a strong belief that when I am in pain (and I held this, and still do sometimes, belief about my abuse) that it is "not a big deal."
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I was in a self imposed exile from here and some other supportive connections when I got to the point that I did. And I was away from here because, after all, what happened to me was "not a big deal."

I know better now. I think the good things that can happen in the future are a big deal, too. I have things to look forward to, and that feels good.

Thanks,

Joe
 
Joe, I read this post when it first came out, but I needed some time to roll it over in my head before replying.

I used to self abuse alot when I was a teen.... Burned, cut, etc, and also waiting too long to get help after injuring myself by accident. I think the last time I actually did it was about 2yrs ago when I peirced my own nose. I laugh about it sometimes, but, I know it wasn't a healthy thing for me to do. I can relate when you talk of feeling like I deserve pain, or I don't deserve to feel good about anything. I know this to be true, but I don't always feel like it. So this is my struggle, to decide whether or not I deserve to have good things happen to me. Today, right now, I do. The reason it took so long to reply to your post, because last week, I didn't feel like I deserved anything good. So the cycle goes on....

Thanks for talking about this. As always, it helps to know there is someone else dealing with the same thing.

peace and love

shawn
 
I have done those things b4 as well. mine ws slightly differnt. I burned the word H A T E into my right knucles with a heated up close hanger rod that i bent str8. I have also used a ice pick to carv/wear things into my skin b4, also a half assed sort of suicide attempt i tryed to slice the vien where ur elbow joints, i only got to the side of my elbow so i kept retrying it so ther ended up being alota marked going down and then in a fit of rage I slaedh 2 marks the other way making a un intentional cross hatch. that took along time to heal and was very hard to cover wtih out a long sleeve shirt. Lately with the death of my dog i have been lookin for things to get my mind off the pain iv been feeling over him, not to mention all the issues iv had and been working on, Mario was a big help because he was a safe/reliable way for me to get away for a while from what i didn't like , and now thats gone so I posted on this because iv been fighting the urge to hurt my self as well.
 
Joe: One of the hardest cycle to break is that of self destruction. It can manifest itself by self inflicted wounds or by acting out as a toy for others and that inflicts wounds on the soul as well as on self image.

I think that cutting and wounding and burning and puting yourself in harms way keeps with us the belief that we have no worth.

When acting out I used to look for someone who would injure me sufficiently to take away the hunger that I had for it. Why I am alive today I will never know. But in reflection now it was not hunger that drove me. It was the desperate need I had to confirm that I had no value and was a useless piece of shit. I think that I might have been looking for someone to actually do me in. I say this because the closer I came to being snuffed the greater my high from it became.

Unlike you I was using a surrogate me to do the damage. But I think they are the same thing.

Old habits and behaviours are really hard to change because we are so comfortable with them if for not other reason than they are painful confirmation of what we feel about ourselves.

Joe I have to tell you that habits can be changed and they go hand in glove with self perception.
Now you have done a hell of a lot of growing here and I urge you to keep at it. The better you feel about yourself the more inner respect you have and then the anger for what the perps have burdened you with expresses itself not inwards but outwards at them.

Hope this helps a bit.
 
Shawn,

The up and down cycle is whole story. Everyone has ups and downs, but with the kind of outlook on life that I learned early on, the ups are just a "trick" by someone preparing the next down. Helluva thing to wake up to each day for some 40 odd (in my case, very odd :) ) years.

I know it can get better because I see the stories of guys who have gotten to better points, or the stories of guys making significant progress in their own battles.


Brian,

Just curious, so ignore this if I'm out of line, but was the knife to protect you, or were you tempted to cut?


Keith,

If you are really thinking of going back to something harmful, please don't. It's like smoking, a helluva lot harder to quit again than to stay quit. A couple suggestions that I heard from other survivors were to use red marker (for the look) or ice (for a somewhat similar feel) instead of a blade. You can PM me if you want.


Mike,

You're right about the wide varieties of ways to hurt ourselves, body and soul. I realize now that so many behaviors were just "covert cutting" during the time when I did not cut. Taking things off the stove and out of the oven without protection for my hands, for instance. My skin is a mess from things like that.

Thanks, guys,

Joe
 
It has occurred to me over the years that my struggle to acknowledge, accept and overcome the effects of sexual abuse in my life has totally altered the course of my life.

Decisions I have made, paths taken or shunned, avenues pursued or abandoned; all based on a lot of shame, guilt and misunderstanding about my role in the abuse that was inflicted upon me.

One of the more pervasive and insidious misperceptions is the old, untrue superstition that one who is sexually abused goes on to sexually abuse others.

The fear of this falsehood becoming a reality in my life has led me to reject careers in teaching for example.

It turns out that the abuse that I continue to perpetrate is against myself. The self-harming continues at so many levels in my life, that mere knife wounds are only the superficial appearances of the deeper wounds that I inflict on my own psyche.

It's almost as if the abuser has gained a seat at the conference in my head and his influence continues to lead me to self damaging, self harming behaviors. I think "self-defeating" is the term used a lot.

Becoming aware of this malicious ongoing influence in my life is the beginning of interrupting the cycle of abuse. But it is only the beginning. To ensure against an eventual relapse into this hateful and hurtful self-abusive attitude requires daily vigilance and sometimes a minute to minute vigilance on my part with help from professionals and from understanding friends.

The most sickening legacy of sexual abuse is that I, as the survivor, find myself perpetuating the injurious work of the abuser......not abusing others, thank God, but in a continuous, ongoing internal battle.

When the outward symptoms of this internal struggle become too much to ignore (in my case it was abuse by alcohol), if we are lucky, some sort of intervention can occur.

This is what is commonly called 'hitting bottom'.

Even though it really sucks to become aware and to make physical the reality of this internal state of self abuse, that awareness if channelled and controlled is also the beginning of recovery.

And my recovery has begun many, many times.

Today, I harm myself in less obvious, less painful, less damaging ways. Many days, I do not harm myself at all; neither outwardly nor inwardly.

I have learned to reach out and ask for help from one who understands whenever the slightest suspicion of self deprecating thoughts or self harming actions appears.

It is a very slippery slope for me to stand on alone, and if I allow the first slide into self hatred, then I can rapidly sink fast.

I'm glad you came here and talked about this, Outis. Glad for the reminder that there is a place to come and reach out and grab the hand of someone who understands. Someone who can help keep me from sliding back into the pit of self loathing and despair where I spent so many years.

With gratitude,
 
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