I failed at not picking. I was doing pretty good for a while... ): I think what caused it was tiredness and some pain elsewhere in my body. Tiredness reducing impulse control and desire for stimulation, back and leg pain distracted from by skin pain. I'm trying not to be too down on myself but I'm just. So tired of this.
wait picking at my skin is self harm...? i dunno if i can stop that, ive been scratching my skin bloody and fucking with scabs since i was three or four. Why do you do it? -Boredom, obsessive need to remove blemishes, i like to look at my blood and take care of the injuries -I sort of dare myself to scratch at really painful spots, just to see if i can Have you stopped if so, what made you stop? -Nop Do you regret it? -Sometimes when I've done something really dumb, like try to dig what i think is an ingrown hair out of my thigh and just wind up with a hole or when i start absent mindedly picking and need to either hide the bleeding or tell some half-truth so people dont know im scratching scabs. or when i scratch my face up. i really regret covering my face in scabby craters. What is your goal regarding self-harm? Do you know how to achieve it? -???? Do you want to stop? Do you feel like you need help? i mean, today i felt guilty about half an hour of suicidal thoughts and tried to trigger sensory overload as punishment, and that was fucking stupid (it didnt even work, i just got one hell of a headache) id like to not do that again. also the thing where i skip meals or stay up until five am because i think i dont deserve food/sleep. as for the picking, no, not really, except for the spots on my face >:( also the 'digging a hole in my flesh with nail clippers' thing. thats an exceptionally poor choice on my part. (i spent the better part of a week daring myself to post something here lmao) ETA: shit another reason why i do it is i like having scars. i forgot about that.
Spoiler: the survey, physical/emotional self-harm I pick my skin obsessively and destroy my nailbeds and knuckles until they're bald and bleeding and hurt constantly (straddles the weird line of 'self harm or compulsive? ... stim?'). I also scratched up my arm for the first time last Saturday with a mercifully dull Exacto knife which left shallow, but obviously self-inflicted cuts. I put scalpels in my cart on Amazon so I could do it better, but thankfully removed them the next day. When I was a kid, I scratched myself a few times with broken glass or whatever because I heard it made you feel better, nut I wasn't in active distress at the time so it did nothing (though I liked the scratches), and I never did it again until last Saturday... I dunno what to call that. I'm more prone to emotional self-abuse (hounding and antagonising myself) and intentional triggering, which has escalated from generally being upset to being specifically upset. Why do you do it? - Well, the skin picking and the nail chewing, because I can't stop, I guess. The chewing is compulsive, the skin-picking... I'll sit there picking at my face because I can't stand the acne and blackheads and it's gross and it needs to come out. It's calming while I'm doing it, but afterwards I'm always so irritated and upset because my face is chewed up and it's my own damn fault. Really vexed about that right now because I have a cosplay in two weeks that I need to have perfect skin for, and argh. This current acne treatment isn't working but I'm supposed to be on antibiotics for six months before they'll discuss Accutane, it's all over my back, I have a huge, deep, painful cystic one on my lower neck that of course I fucked with, which with the deep ones is a really bad idea, and it was incredibly gross and now there's an open wound, but I definitely tore my skin up, and it really makes me dislike my looks and feel hopeless about them. I just want to be flawless. - The cutting? I had some kind of meltdown last Saturday (as the direct result of what's below) and was trying to feel better in some way. It did help, which is scary. So I'd like to not do it again. I hope I don't. - Intentional triggering? Sometimes, I get intense waves of ideas and feelings about myself that I know aren't rational. For example: I'm a Bad Person, or I'm Not Safe to be Around and Should be Avoided and Have No Friends and Not Even Exist and That's How I Was Born and Can't Change... which is kind of specific, but hey. I know these things aren't the rational, but that can't stop feeling them (embarrassing Skype logs ahoy). I think about how my feelings must be simply bizarre, since they don't mesh with what I actually think (and are objectively not true, like, occasionally I'll get obsessed with the feeling of What If I'm a Narcissist and I'm Too Narcissistic to Know? Despite scoring significantly lower than the average NT person on testing for narcissistic thinking patterns. Like, average, neurotypical people usually score around a 15-17. I score a 2. Hah. Hahahah.). But... there's always that little 'what if, though?', so I and go read forums and articles where the topic of worry is discussed in ways that confirm that my irrational feelings, and I know they're toxic, and they're not correct, but their feelings are real (even if they're misguided or malicious), and I feel so distressed that they feel that way and are in pain. Reading people rebuffing those ideas can be helpful to end the feedback loop, but only on the logic brain, and the emotion brain wants what it wants until it gets over itself. It's terrible. I've done this before for years, but it was less specific and about topiics about which I was less personally touchy and I've like, zeroed in on what really cuts into me, recently, and yeah. Precision brain bombs. Have you stopped if so, what made you stop? - Not yet, but I want to in entirety. Do you regret it? - Yes. What is your goal regarding self-harm? Do you know how to achieve it? I want to stop and find a way to reconcile my thoughts and my feelings. Dark future, dark future, show me the forbidden coping mechanisms. Do you want to stop? Do you feel like you need help? Yes, I want to stop, and yes, I need help. I need to be trained to accept that feelings are sometimes just feelings, and sometimes they're irrational, and that's okay, but to let them go, and I can't do that yet. I have low to no sense of self-esteem, so it's easy for me to fall in the braintrap.
Spoiler: Cw: disgusting Don't be like me kids don't peel at the skin on ur toes around the nails bc you might just get an ingrown toenail that hurts to walk on and then you might start wistfully dreaming about it getting infected (as usual) and slicing or scraping the infected lump open What the shit is wrong with me bLUH
-another round of applause!- Spoiler: Me being dumb Ugh I'm actually Pissy abt doing this and sorta hoping this doesn't work. How I didn't realize this was unhealthy ages ago I don't know.
I had a pretty long conversation about this with a friend who has trich in high school, conclusion was basically "sometimes it's self-harm, sometimes it isn't, kinda depends on motivation"
Why do you do it? A whole mess of reasons. I started because I felt like I was broken and my body wasn't and it was just wrong, and to remind future-me of how horrible I was. (That's why I have words like EVIL and WORTHLESS on my thighs, I mean.) Now it's sort of just obligation, like it's wrong not to. Have you stopped, and if so, what made you stop? I stopped for the week I was in the hospital, but that didn't last. Then I stopped for like a month while I was in supported housing at the therapy program I'm at, because the alternative was getting sent home and living with my parents... but now I'm back anyway because my insurance ran out, so it's starting back up again. Do you regret it? Ish? I don't like the scars, but I deserve them. Same goes for the pain. I don't like my friends being distressed for me, but I like the attention, or at least the concept of the attention if not in practice. Basically I wish it wasn't necessary, but it kinda is. What is your goal regarding self-harm? Do you know how to achieve it? I would like to stop wanting to, because I think that's the only way I'd stop. But I don't know if that's even realistic. Do you want to stop? Do you feel like you need help? I want to want to stop. I feel like I need help but I've gotten help and it hasn't helped. I kind of give up.
Oh, and I also do it because at least when I'm starting out it's a pretty good solution for when I want to eat or exercise but am tired and not hungry.
Spoiler just picked up a kitchen knife so i could go at my wrist, because my brain is functional and the servers are robust. the thing that stopped me? there were water marks on the blade and i couldn't remember if i had used it to slice open random food. cue hysterical cry-laughter that this, this piddly thing, is keeping me from doing it
not sure if EDs count here, but i also obsessively pick Why do you do it? i often feel like i don't deserve food or just want to die. sometimes i really like the emptiness that happens after a day of not eating, loving it even, and food ruins the sensation. as for skin picking, i admire the blood and flecks that come off, and sometimes if i get anxious ill really scratch and ruffle my hair around Have you stopped, and if so, what made you stop? not really. i'll have dry spells, but i never stop on purpose. i am trying to work myself out of my ED, but rn, it's pretty much impossible Do you regret it? eeeeh? i'm used to it to the point that it's mundane. What is your goal regarding self-harm? Do you know how to achieve it? i'd like to eventually be a healthy weight, basically. as for the picking, i dont know. it doesn't really bother Do you want to stop? Do you feel like you need help? for ed yes, and i just don't know how to get help. it rarely comes up, even for the people who know about it also, @pixels anything that keeps you safe, the smallest things, are worth noticing. it's not silly at all.
I don't bruise easy and I can't do anything dramatic while my folks are ten feet away and I just wish I could give myself some lingering hurt that meant anything instead of my dumb whingey bullshit sadness. My scissors are too dull, even when I sawed it across my palm, and I pulled them apart cause I dunno when I get angry I break things because I am a bad person. I used the heaviest thing in my room that was still swingable to whack at my legs and arms and chest, but it doesn't hurt like it should and I don't think it'll bruise. I don't do physical pain well and it's bad, I should hurt.
Well, so, tonight is as good a night as any to pop in here. Why do you do it? It's probably 50% habit and 50% not being able to deal with my emotions like a grown-up. Have you stopped if so, what made you stop? I stopped for about a year and a half while I was prepping to enlist. My recruiter told me that I'd have to explain any new injuries/scars/etc. and I knew if they found out about self harm, I'd be disqualified from enlisting, and that was my way out so....I basically quit out of desperation lol. Of course, then I got disqualified because of a physical issue that I didn't know I had, so I ended up back home anyway, and that led to a series of bad decisions and misadventures and I ended up starting again. Do you regret it? Stopping or starting? Either way, the answer is no. What is your goal regarding self-harm? Do you know how to achieve it? I guess my goal is to not get caught? I mean, I don't have to worry about my parents finding out, because they live the next state over and I'm ostensibly an adult....But I have to worry about co-workers, friends, and the psychiatrist who prescribes me my ADHD meds finding out, so there's that. Do you want to stop? Do you feel like you need help? Nope. I've never wanted to stop, because I've never felt like I was hurting myself badly. In the ~13 years I've been actively self-harming, there have only been three instances where I hurt myself worse than I intended to (and probably should have gotten stitches). So for me, I don't see my coping mechanism as any more or less harmful than someone who gets drunk every night. Sure, I might eventually become anemic, but my liver will be in great shape!
