nobodys perfect.

[Stephen]

anyone else mentions the word brave in a thread like this again and ill -rep you till you die

[Shannon]

Awww, your so brave and yes i agree, your right, its better to talk about things than not

[bam..its..abbz]

Awww, your so brave and yes i agree, your right, its better to talk about things than not

Thank you x for understanding x

---------- Post added 18-04-2013 at 12:11 PM ----------

anyone else mentions the word brave in a thread like this again and ill -rep you till you die

.

[e5]

Wish I understood more the mentality of self harmers. I'm not going to give criticism, because I genuinely don't know why people do it and where it gets them, but i'd love to know why people do it and how they think it helps them.

[buttons]

Wish I understood more the mentality of self harmers. I'm not going to give criticism, because I genuinely don't know why people do it and where it gets them, but i'd love to know why people do it and how they think it helps them.

Show Hide

many reasons, even as a self-harmer i don't understand why everyone does. personally for me it's an anger issue over a home issue i cannot change or express my anger over in any other way. i realise there are other ways to cope but it's like an impulsive thing, say you're angry and whatever you have in your hand you through it and regret it instantly. that's the kinda feeling i get. the thing with self-harm is you'd never know to do it unless you've heard of it or seen it, which is the same case as drinking alcohol which i'll use to compare the two in a sec.

i had seen people self-harm when i was younger so i wondered if it would help me too and tbh it didn't at that time because i had no reason for it. anyway, one day a few year back i was having a bad home life, its a situation i couldn't and still can't escape and i have no way of coping with the anger. so i suddenly remembered about a blade i have from years ago in my jewellery box and i got this weird adrenaline rush from merely thinking of it. got it out my jewellery box and you know the score. after that it was kind of like my holy grail for relief.

and you know if you have a bad week or stressful day at work,school blahblah you think "ah it's ok, i can go home and have a beer" whatever, its like that. because you know the blade will always give you that relief no matter what. in a sense it's like an addiction. and in a sense, drinking alcohol to relieve your stress is also a form of self-harm, you harm yourself in order to relieve yourself from that stress/pain. so maybe if you could understand it in that way, then you can understand self-harm too. because you have that one thing that will always give you relief from any pain you have, then it's hard to stop it. this is how i understand addiction and this is how i understand self-harm but i can't speak for anyone else.

its nice to know you don't judge because you don't understand, i think that's the best way to go about certain topics and i really wish more people were like that other than "i don't understand therefore it's wrong" approach.

although i don't understand why anyone wants to show their scars as it's quite a private thing and a battle with yourself but if it helps someone then hey why not. i do not agree with it and feel like it degrades other self-harmers who find it a private often shameful experience so i don't really wish to comment on this thread but i wanted to answer your question.

[e5]

Thank you for helping me understand a little better. Part of me used to think that self harmers somewhat get a thrill from hurting themselves? I'm not too sure whether I believe that or not. I want to understand you're comparison to drinking beer, and part of me does, because I understand why people drink beer to forget/relieve stress - but that doesn't necessarily cause physical pain (short term anyway) whereas I would have thought self harming does? and it would probably last for a few hours afterwards?

I've always had the mentality that people shouldn't post their scars on the internet as some people are offended, although as you said it may help them, but I more agree with the point you made about how it is a private matter and you wouldn't openly self harm infront of someone, so why would you want the post the aftermath for all to see? I guess when you do it, it's a burst of adrenaline where you're just not thinking. I won't ever fully understand why people do it but I somewhat feel a bit more enlightened now

Show Hide

many reasons, even as a self-harmer i don't understand why everyone does. personally for me it's an anger issue over a home issue i cannot change or express my anger over in any other way. i realise there are other ways to cope but it's like an impulsive thing, say you're angry and whatever you have in your hand you through it and regret it instantly. that's the kinda feeling i get. the thing with self-harm is you'd never know to do it unless you've heard of it or seen it, which is the same case as drinking alcohol which i'll use to compare the two in a sec.

i had seen people self-harm when i was younger so i wondered if it would help me too and tbh it didn't at that time because i had no reason for it. anyway, one day a few year back i was having a bad home life, its a situation i couldn't and still can't escape and i have no way of coping with the anger. so i suddenly remembered about a blade i have from years ago in my jewellery box and i got this weird adrenaline rush from merely thinking of it. got it out my jewellery box and you know the score. after that it was kind of like my holy grail for relief.

and you know if you have a bad week or stressful day at work,school blahblah you think "ah it's ok, i can go home and have a beer" whatever, its like that. because you know the blade will always give you that relief no matter what. in a sense it's like an addiction. and in a sense, drinking alcohol to relieve your stress is also a form of self-harm, you drink because it will relax you from that stress. so maybe if you could understand it in that way, then you can understand self-harm too. because you have that one thing that will always give you relief from any pain you have, then it's hard to stop it. this is how i understand addiction and this is how i understand self-harm but i can't speak for anyone else.

its nice to know you don't judge because you don't understand, i think that's the best way to go about certain topics and i really wish more people were like that other than "i don't understand therefore it's wrong" approach.

although i don't understand why anyone wants to show their scars as it's quite a private thing and a battle with yourself but if it helps someone then hey why not. i do not agree with it and feel like it degrades other self-harmers who find it a private often shameful experience so i don't really wish to comment on this thread but i wanted to answer your question.

[buttons]

Thank you for helping me understand a little better. Part of me used to think that self harmers somewhat get a thrill from hurting themselves? I'm not too sure whether I believe that or not. I want to understand you're comparison to drinking beer, and part of me does, because I understand why people drink beer to forget/relieve stress - but that doesn't necessarily cause physical pain (short term anyway) whereas I would have thought self harming does? and it would probably last?

I've always had the mentality that people shouldn't post their scars on the internet as some people are offended, although as you said it may help them, but I more agree with the point you made about how it is a private matter and you wouldn't openly self harm infront of someone, so why would you want the post the aftermath for all to see? I guess when you do it, it's a burst of adrenaline where you're just not thinking. I won't ever fully understand why people do it but I somewhat feel a bit more enlightened now

Show Hide

there probably are people who get a thrill out of it. self-harming is even very common in sociopaths who do it in order to feel SOMETHING, not because they want to feel pain. my point with drinking and self-harming i will explain in a bit too but for me self-harm isn't about feeling pain and it isn't about the desire to commit suicide. (suicide risk is fairly low, people have such stupid misconceptions about self-harm and once they hear it's not about suicide they ask why the hell we do it then don't even wish to understand when i try to explain) *FOR ME* it's about getting RID of pain rather than GIVE myself pain. if you have such pent up emotions which you can't express then self-harming kind of relaxes and eases you, like alcohol does. but that's just me. people do it for different reasons. another thing is that self-harm is control, you control your own pain. for example if you hurt yourself by mistake ie a paper cut, it's different than being in control of your pain whereas you can't be in control of other non self-harming pain (like your emotions..).

sometimes people do it to punish themselves for 'being a bad person', someone may do it because they hate themselves and so punish their body for it. i don't do it for that reason, i do it to relax my mind. i think i'm in the minority though and most people do it because they want to punish themselves but like i say, i can't speak for them.

mine is an impulsive thing which happens when i'm triggered by one specific occurrence and i've learnt that if the event happens then i can control my anger through controlling pain, i think this may be the same as other people but because you learn that self-harm = relief then it's easy to use it when anything goes wrong, not just the original cause. it's the same with alcohol addiction, you could have low self-esteem so drink for a little confidence then begin taking it more for confidence every day and obviously leads into an addiction.

maybe it's a thing that can't be explained unless you're in that situation. i'll try to make people understand but if they don't then that's fine too, cause if they don't understand how someone can just take a razor to their wrist then they're lucky and should remain that way.

this topic is so, i dunno how to explain, but it's attacked so often on here that i'm really hesitant and even ashamed to write things like this, cause people make you feel like a bad person for doing it. i can't see how someone who hurts themselves is such a bad person? even if it's for attention, in some cases, that doesn't make you a bad person either. it makes me sick that people can be so ignorant towards it, publically declaring it's attention seeking and other misconceptions, not realising there are many reasons for it and that there are more people out there who do it than you'd realise, you could be saying it to a friend and not realising they do it or have ever done it.

[Yawn]

gd for u abbie

[Luke367]

You are brave to post that tbf fair play 2 u but everyone as done something in their lifes... No1 can go through live without doing mistakes and if anyone says different well they are lieing through their teeth.

[Stephen]

brave is standing up in front of a school and teaching people about your experience with self-harm
brave isn't going behind a computer and posting on a forum where not many people know you or can see your face as you tell them about it

not sure why I got -repped because I'm talking about the people replying saying it's brave, not hating on the op for making the thread

Although I do think that posting pictures of the aftermath of that form of self-harm isn't needed because it just adds to the stereotype that all self-harmers cut