I’m stuck. I feel like I can’t get better and this inability to move past my trauma is limiting my ability to live my life the way I want too. I try. I can go months without hurting myself and then something that is seemingly random breaks my illusion of healthiness and I fall backwards on my ass to the depths of despair. I can’t seem to forgive myself for shit that has gone wrong…and the more I try to examine my issues I feel the higher the chance of relapse. I don’t have a support system which is the desired thing when you try to heal yourself. And how do I stop the cravings for self harm. Even though I stopped doing it, I still think about it 80 times a day…like a craving…it doesn’t go away.
4 comments
yeah i have cravings too! like i want MONEY! but i don’t rob banks! i like women too! but i just don’t grab them like a caveman and say your comming with me! i think about killing myself 80 times a day but i’m not dead! control yourself! you can do it!
@rocketman thanks for the perspective and the encouragement. glad you’re fighting the fight. 🙂
Its sad to see another feeling much the same way as i do but i do know what you mean by a craving for self harm. Ive tried explaining this to one or two ‘close’ people in my life and was ostracised so damn fast i set a land speed record but i digress, I’m only speaking from my own experience so maybe nothing i say here will bear any relation to your own life or your own troubles.
I found self harm to be incredibly addicting, I think it was because it was the single outlet when everything spiralled out of control, it made me calm and let me not care and put off thinking just a short while longer. I think complete self forgiveness is maybe not actually possible and after years I’ve given up and just hoping to be able to live with the bad choices I’ve made, and i think the only way I managed that was after i felt I’ve grieved enough to take responsibility for my errors. Its just occurred to me that i was never any good at communicating myself or my feelings so i may be making fuck all sense here but what I’m trying to say is that It is a good thing you have stopped self harm or at least stopped it as much as you did, it means things maybe aren’t as dark and you are beginning to forgive yourself but I making it clear im not going to sit here and repeat all the patronising crap that was spouted at me like the ‘its a sign to get help’ etcetera etcetera, i think what may of happened if someone in this situation didnt use self harm as a means of coping would have done may be worse. But in conclusion the only way I’ve found to reduce the craving is with time and acceptance of responsibility of past mistakes, I’m sorry I cant be of more help
@Church – it helps to hear that other people are/have felt the same/similar. Several months ago I relapsed and for the first time I reached out to a therapist and while most of what he said was harsh, it helped abit to hear that he thought self harming was resorting to a type of solution I used to solve my problems/emotional distress when I was a teenager and now that I’m older – I shouldn’t solve my problems the same way I did when I was younger, that its not fair to my present self to use those solutions I used when I was younger. Good in theory and hard in practice.