“People who self-injure are not sick, and are not insane or crazy. They just never learned how to cope positively with what goes on in their life. This doesn’t make them strange, sick, weird or any other insult others might stick to them. Insulting them for this will only make things worse for them.”
I heard somebody say this today, do you think their opinion was accurate?
2 comments
I don’t know if they’re not sick/if I’m sick. Honestly what is the right/wrong way of coping with pain? I’ve always used cycling as an outlet for my pain. As soon as I felt depressed or hopeless I’d grab my bike and go ride. 100 miles later I’d be exhausted enough to sleep and would feel better. But there are times when the pain is too much. Times when I ride all day, come back still feel everything tearing my insides. That’s when I cut. The stinging helps numb me. Helps distract me. I can take physical pain. Emotional pain is a lot harder to endure. I think many people’s tolerance for pain is different. Sometimes cutting isn’t necessary. Sometimes it’s all I can do to help me stay away from a gun…
Yep. This is spot on the mark. It’s a coping method, a bad one that is pretty self destructive, but a coping method.
The first thing you need to do with self harm and the like is to tackle it directly, learning new coping methods. Going directly for the depression doesn’t completely remove it, it’s still there and will most likely resurface.