IS IT POSSIBLE TO STOP SELF-INJURING?

Self-injuring is a method of coping with emotional pain. It becomes like an addiction. You feel as if you have to do it and there is no other way to handle what is going on within you. It fills your thoughts and you feel like you can't control the urge, the need, and desire to harm yourself. So how do you stop?

Self-injury is a private thing. Many hurt themselves when they are all by themselves and they go to extreme extents to hide their injuries. I cut myself on my arms or on my shoulders. I wore long-sleeved shirts to hide what I was doing to myself. I realized the first step I had to take to stop harming myself was to tell someone. I had to let my secret out. I turned to my Mom and a close friend.

Like with any type of mental illness, you need to have support partners. I realized the second thing I had to do to reach recovery was to find two or three support partners I could call when I felt like injuring myself. These people had to be willing to be available anytime I needed them and be willing to stay on the phone with me until I felt I was able to control my need to hurt myself. One of my good friends would talk on on the phone with me till late at night. Sometimes we talked for hours; when she got me laughing then she would let me go. My mom was also available whenever I needed her.

The third step I learned in my process to get better was to find other things to do instead of injuring. I learned to keep myself busy with crafts and hobbies. When the urge got the best of me I would hold an ice cube in my hand. The coldness of the ice simulated the feeling of harming myself. I found cross stitching and wood burning relaxing. Find ten things you can do when the urge comes upon you.

The fourth step I did was to get rid of all tools I used on myself. I threw away razor blades and I hid knives or anything that would tempt me. I turned to a electric shaver for shaving needs. If I couldn't see sharp instruments, or if they were where I could not look at them, I was less tempted. I had my mother hide the knives so I would not know where they were.

Next, I had to learn to challenge my negative thoughts and learn to stop them. Just like in my previous blog post, I had to change my negative thinking into positive such as “I am such an idiot for hurting myself,” to “I did what I thought was right to take care of myself.” I also learned I must stop myself from thinking about injuring. When it crossed my mind, I had to stop myself and then try to force myself to focus on something else. This I found was very hard to do, but I was determined to do it. I used my journal to write down other things I could think about.

Another step is to set a goal. A friend at work told me if I could go six months without injuring, she would have a dinner for me with my friends. It was a struggle, but I made it to those six months and had my dinner. Next, I set a goal for a year and after each year I went without injuring, I celebrated my triumph. By giving myself a goal, I had something to look forward to and work for.

These and many more techniques on how to reach recovery form self-injury can be found in the book called, The Scarred Soul: Understanding and Ending Self-inflicted Violence by Tracy Alderman, Ph.D.

 

By using these steps and with determination, I have gone fourteen years without injuring. You, too, can stop injuring, but you must be willing to fight and work hard to stop. The urges to hurt myself have faded into the back of my mind. Now that I have found healthier ways to cope with my illness, I stand proudly within the light.