I’m 17 years old, and I started self harm about 3 months ago. I’ve told my closest friends, because I needed to tell someone I trusted. When I told my best friend, she flipped out on me. Our friendship was already a bit unstable, due to an ongoing fight that was blown way out of proportion. She told me she was going to start checking on me and be supportive and all that, at first. A month went by, and we still weren’t really talking, so she was no help. Instead she would just ask my other friends to let her know how I was doing, and when they told her I hurt myself again, she would text me and just be all disappointed and yell at me saying I broke my promise, all that kind of stuff. About 3 weeks ago, we were talking and she said that she wasn’t going to apologize or anything, cause the fight was all my fault and she did nothing wrong. I was tired of hearing her say that it was all my fault, and that she wasn’t gonna try to do anything cause it was up to me to fix it. At the same time she was talking to my other best friend, who has been there for me for forever, and she told her that ever since she stopped talking to me her life had gotten a considerable amount better. I heard about that and when I brought it up, she tried to make up for it by feeding me a line of bull that I didn’t buy. She also went on to say that she didn’t want to be around me as long as I keep doing this to myself. That was when I decided I was done with it. I told her I was tired of it, and I was done. Last week was my birthday, and she didn’t say anything, but when she went to Europe yesterday, I tried to say good bye and have fun, but she still didn’t say anything. It hurts that she can’t see that I truly need her help, even though she has done nothing but cause me stress for the past 4 months. I don’t know what to do anymore, and am very close to just giving up.
Finding the right friends is one of the many factors of being able to recover from a self injury addiction, in my opinion.
Your experience sounds pretty similar to mine. I started injuring at 17 and lost my two best friends shortly after. One of them told me that he wishes he had never met me in the first place. It was awful and I was crushed.
Since then, that guy has apologized and we moved past it and are now best friends. He gets my addiction and he is the first person I go to when I am struggling or relapsing. It took him a while to understand, but now that he does he knows just what to say.
I lost four other friends just this year because of it. One of them said to me “I don’t know how to deal with this.” And basically I just wanted to scream at him and say “Neither do I you idiot!” but I didn’t. Some people just don’t get it, and they never will.
Friends that cause you stress do not deserve to be in your life. The four friends I lost this year were causing me so much turmoil and anguish that, at that point, it was my fault for continuing to put up with their selfishness. Please don’t get to that point. I backed up and refused to be treated that way. Someone will come along that will treat you correctly, I promise.
I’m not saying you have to give up your friendships completely. I am patching up two out of the four right now and I think things will be okay.
But you have to take care of you. Your friends are being mean and selfish, and you don’t deserve that.
Happy Belated Birthday btw 🙂
Please email me if you ever want to talk. I hope things get better!
visiblyperfectinvisiblyscarred@gmail.com
Honestly, I’m about the same age as you are and I can say that I know how it feels.
It’s been a year since I really talked to my own bestfriend. This friend is in college now and, when he does decide to have a 5 minute conversation with me, he likes to pretend that the reason we aren’t as close as we used to be is because he’s too busy. I’ve known him for a very long time and I know that he’s lying, and I’ve also heard around that he’s actually just tired of dealing with me.
I actually whined about this here as well and I got an enlightening comment. I know now that he’s not as good of a friend as I’d like to believe he is. If he really cared for me as much as he claims, he’d help me instead of abandon and despise me.
I have other people to rely on and I don’t need him, and I have a feeling that you don’t need her. I myself have decided to stop chasing after my friend, but I’ve made it clear that he can always come back and mend our friendship. If that never happens, it’s fine. It’ll hurt and I’ll wonder about it everyday, but he’s just one person. I won’t let him become yet another problem for me.
I don’t know you, but I hope this helped at least just a little bit.
Do not give up!
I’m 17 and have not self harmed for around 4 months now before that I self harmed myself for 2 and a half years. In those 2 and a half years I nearly took my life but stopped because I thought of my one true friend that I really trusted in that time period. She is the reason I am alive today and I’m glad I can trust her.
I had a similar experience where I told one of my friends and he completely freaked out on me. He would not look at me or talk to me no matter how hard I tried. I tried using common friends to try and communicate with him but my friends told me he did not want to be around a “freak who might take their life any day”. Those words struck home deep inside of me because I had known this guy for a long time and we had been best bros for years.
I am still battling depression but am making progress daily. I no longer cry myself to sleep every night like I use to.
If you want to talk email me: liamnutt@gmail.com