I miss self harm: simple as that. But is it really simple? I keep asking myself why do I miss it and I get the same answers in my mind about how it helped me and how I needed it but the thing is, I know rationally I do not need it. I went a year-and-a-half or so without self-harm as of December and since then I have harmed myself twice. I don’t regret it and I keep moving forward but I have this sense within myself that I want to do it again and I know (as my previous patterns show me) that I will do it again at some point.
Last night brought me to a point so close to harming I couldn’t stand it. I called my boyfriend and he was so supportive which was extremely helpful. I just felt hurt and like a screw up and failure and like I’ll never get anywhere and I just was craving what I use. It was so hard.
It still is hard. I know I can do it whenever really. Sure, people are home but they won’t notice if I’m alone for a bit; we all do that, have our own time to ourselves; that is just how we are. So it would be easy. But is it worth it?
Is one more time worth it? Is having to see my therapist Monday and being open with her worth it? Or is it worth holding in the craving and seeing her Monday and brushing it off because nothing actually happened? I did not harm so why mention the battle in my brain that is all-consuming?
When I originally stopped before these last two times, I still felt this everyday. Maybe I’m missing something. I do not know but I need it or another way out. Alternatives are helping less and less. Part of me doesn’t care though. The logical part does but there is a part of me that just says why keep on this path if it is doing no good; it’s not like the other would be much worse.
I can very much relate to what you wrote. For a LONG time, it was my story too. But, this August marked my 8th year clean! It was a struggle for sure, but it can be done. I did spend three years in a residential care facility (RCF) for the mentally ill though. That was the start of getting clean. My self harm was so severe/dangerous at that point, that I needed to be in the RCF. I had rules in place that prevented me from doing my most serious self harm, but the facility wasn’t locked, and eventually I earned open passes, so I could come and go as I pleased. By the end, I even had my car, so I had a great deal of freedom.
Just because I couldn’t do the worst of my self harm didn’t mean I couldn’t harm at all. There would have been plenty of opportunities for me to hurt myself, but I chose to make the RCF a safe place. When I first started living there, I decided that I would not hurt myself in anyway while I lived there. Of course, I planned to live there as long as they felt I needed to, then get out and start hurting myself all over again. Turns out, if the only reason you want to leave is to hurt yourself, they won’t let you leave.
During my three years there, I worked with a wonderful therapist. She helped me a LOT. I talked about the daily struggle not to hurt myself, and the constant thoughts of wanting to hurt myself. She really helped me talk to the side of me that wanted to harm myself and make peace with it. I told it that I wasn’t mad at it, I wasn’t forcing it to go away or anything, but that it really didn’t help me in the long run and in order to live the life I wanted to live I had to stop hurting myself. We made a TON of progress. It also helped that I had staff at the RCF that I could talk to when things got tough. I used the impulse control logs that I learned about when I was a patient at SAFE. I went over these logs a few times a week with staff, and it helped.
Eventually, I was able to stop thinking about self harm all the time. I moved out after three years, and shared an apartment with a roommate. (a nice young woman I met at the RCF. We both decided we would do better with a roommate rather than all alone when we moved out, so we planned to move out together and it’s been working well for five years now). I bought my own house a year ago, and I rent a room to my roommate. I still have staff that comes to my house a couple times a week to check up on me and work on goals.
I am not saying you need home staff or an RCF. If my self harm were less severe, I probably wouldn’t have either. But, I am saying that talking about it with your therapist is an important thing to do. I am glad you have a supportive boyfriend who helps you in times of need. That is good. But, your therapist needs to know how much of a struggle this is for you on a daily basis, even if you are able not to harm. It wasn’t easy for me to remain self harm free at the RCF, but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t harm while I was there, and I kept that promise. My therapist knew it was hard for me. It also is important to have the right therapist. If you don’t think you can share these things with your therapist, maybe it is time to look for a new one? My therapist retired about six months ago. I really miss her, but her replacement is pretty good too. If she had retired any earlier in my journey, it might have been a problem. But, I am able to handle things like that now.
I hope you are able to be open with your therapist, and I hope you are able to keep resisting the urges to self harm. Even if you have always given in in the past doesn’t mean you have to give in in the future. It will be hard, but it can be done.
Thank you.
I see her next Tuesday and I think I will talk to her about this.
I cannot keep this to myself and I need her support.
How do I go about it though?
I want to be taken seriously not just brushed off. That’s happened in the past with other counselors/therapists. I share I think of self harm but I haven’t done it and they are like those are just thoughts, let them pass but they are like thoughts that are constant. No idea if that makes sense but how do I let them just pass? Being told that’s what I need to do is not helpful if they don’t share how to do that or get to that place.
I just don’t want that experience again.
Hmm… If you don’t want to be brushed off, then you need to stand up for yourself. Make sure your therapist knows how troubling these thoughts are and how constant they are. In the beginning, just letting them pass is very difficult. I know I fantasized about self harm ALL the time at first. I knew I wouldn’t act on those thoughts because I was in a safe place (the RCF), but I really wanted to act on them. My therapist and I worked together to help me allow my thoughts of self harm to become ‘background noise’ and not something I thought about seriously all the time. I have accepted that I will always have thoughts of self harm, but I know they do not have to run my life. We talked to the part of me that wanted to self harm, and told that part of me that it was o.k. to think that way. I wasn’t trying to get rid of that part of me, I just wanted to get to a point where I didn’t need to
act on those thoughts even though I was thinking them. It was kind of coming to acceptance that I would have these thoughts, but also telling these thoughts they could not run my life.
Have you been through the SAFE program? Have you read their book? I think impulse control logs might really help you. I used them a lot in the beginning, and they helped. Then I got to the point where I didn’t need them so much. But they are a tool I still have should things get bad again.
If your therapist doesn’t seem to get the severity of your thoughts even after you tell her they are really bothersome, maybe you need a different therapist. If you do look for another therapist, talk about the self harm thoughts in your ‘interview’ of the therapist. That way, you can decide right away if they will be a good fit for you.
Thank you. I have never done the SAFE program and I don’t think it exists anymore. Only the focus-groups and outpatient groups/therapy at the SAFE location exist. Back when the inpatient program existed, I really considered if it would help me but was scared to bring it up to my family about going. I hope it comes back so I can use that sort of support. I think that sort of structure would be a good start for me. I have seen the book but have not read it too thoroughly. I want to do the logs but I cannot because they are PDF’s and I cannot use the SAFE app (in fact, I cannot find it in the play store or app store). So have no idea how to access them and fill them out. I wish the site could have two download links for abl 5 logs: a PDF file and a word (.docx) file. Then maybe I could understand how/why people find them so helpful since I would be able to complete them myself.
Thank you so much for everything. You are a great ⠏⠻⠎⠕⠝⠲