I’m pretty sure this would be a good place to ask, since it is related. I have two really good friends who have really terrible tendencies to purposfully cause harm to themselves, not necessarily phisically all the time, but emotionally and psychologically too. They get into hopeless relationships that they know will eventually harm them, they purposely put themselves in destructive and dangerous situations, and they have fantasies about living lives with greater pain. It’s this addiction to pain, when they say what they’re searching for is feeling. That all they want to do is feel. But what they want to feel is pain, and we all know they are masochistic, and that its terrible for their well being, and it only seems to get worse. People in our society barely ever talk about masochists, but behind closed doors they exist everywhere. And because of the way society is disgusted by and looks down on this problem, these people have an exceedingly hard time getting any help what so ever. My friends are insistant on not talking to or telling anyone about this, except for a few of their closest friends, including me. What can I and their other friends do to help discourage and prevent this subconcious and concious self distruction, when, sometimes my friends are barely even aware of the things they are doing to themselves? I don’t know how to help them, and I can’t stand by and not do anything…
I’m not sure that you can ever help any one who doesn’t want to be helped, or doesn’t acknowledge that he/she has a problem. Perhaps the best thing you can do is to love them unconditionally, not judge them, allow them to make their own choices, stay in relationship with them so long as you can do so without hurting your own emotional health, and listen to them and present to them different perspectives, helping them come at their situation from different angles, asking differing questions, and of course, being their for them when they crash and burn, not telling them “I told you so” but rather loving them through painful consequences and helping them see that there is life after stupid choices. Just be there. And if you’re REALLY obsessed with their symtoms, read a lot. There’s tons of info on the web or just spend some time in the stacks at Barnes and Nobles. You friends are wounded, hurting women who are partnering in their joint outcry, telling the world that they hurt. I suspect their need to “feel” stems from a lifetime devoted to numbing their internal pain so that massive external stimulation is now necessary to provoke a response that makes them feel alive. BTW…I’m no professional…only similarly wounded and in recovery…take anything I say with the proverbial “grain of salt.” They are blessed to have a friend who cares as much as you, but be careful not to care too much. You cannot save them; they must want to change and take responsibility for their own choices and recovery. It takes a lifetime commitment to recover from that degree of woundedness. The best advice…don’t leave them. Most people probably do. It’s probably what they expect.