Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my disordered eating and self-injury issues. I’ve written a few posts about my disordered eating already. Today, I want to discuss self-injury. As a thought starter, I’m using question one from the 30-day self-injury challenge. It’s about when you started self-harming.
I started self-harming when I was very young. Until I was a teen, my self-harm looked more like that of the stereotypical low-functioning autistic person. I often banged my head and bit my hands. It was possibly in part self-stimulatory or stereotypical behavior, but I also self-harmed when I was frustrated. Now that I’m an adult, I still bang my head or bite my hands when frustrated on occasion.
I started cutting when I was sixteen-years-old, although I didn’t do it that often and the wounds were more scratches than cuts. I was somewhat depressed at the time and struggling with mood swings, low self-esteem and anxiety.
By the time I started independence training at the age of nineteen, it got worse. The wounds didn’t get that much worse, but I did cut more often, sometimes daily. One of the reasons was I had more opportunities. Before then, I’d use ordinary table knives that were my parents’. In the independence training home, I still used kitchen appliances, but they were sharper and within easier reach. I never had the opportunity to buy razor blades or whatever other tools other self-harmers use. Part of the reason my self-harm worsened, though, was I started struggling more as expectations increased.
I never went to great lengths to hide my self-harm wounds. That may get some people to believe I did it for attention. I personally still don’t know how to hide fresh wounds and being blind might’ve contributed to my not realizing people would notice. I never drew attention to my wounds or scars and was usually avoidant when confronted with them.
Now, still, when I self-injure, I try not to make a big deal out of it. When I tell my staff, I tell them pretty matter-of-factly unless I’m still melting down. I do on occasion freak out about my own self-injury, in which case I do tell the staff. I don’t tend to talk over the issues that got me to self-injure unless I’m still having the issues when I get to talk to staff.
Of course, writing a blog post (or more) about the subject can be seen as attention-seeking. Quite frankly, I don’t care. I have now only been free from self-injury for four days since my last slip-up. Some people count the days they’ve been free in total, rather than the days since their last slip-up. I like that, and it leads to a much more optimistic outcome. After all, I self-injure only once in a while now. I don’t cut or bite or bang nearly as often as I binge.
Thank you for sharing this, there are lots of young people today who self harm, perhaps if we talked openly about it then they might get more help and understanding xx
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So brave of you to share this, this is a topic that needs more awareness and support. x
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I don’t think it is attention seeking at all in fact I think you are very brave to tell us your story. I have never self-harmed physically but mentally I would telling myself how ugly I was and how noone could ever love me and that in a way was self harming because I was being destructive but that was ingrained in me from a young age. I hope you are ok and if you ever need to talk my email is analuisadejesus1993@hotmail.co.uk
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Oh Ana, I’m so sorry you were taught to believe these negative messages about yourself. I can relate and I totally understan how that can be self-destructive too.
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I think you are brave to share your story and I hope it goes some way to helping you as well as others who find themself in the same situation x
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Thank you so much for sharing this, it can’t have been easy. Hopefully it will be a great resource to others going through the same.
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So brave of you to share your story, it’s something that is often not accounted for and I hope others find it useful.
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